I haven't trawled through the whole thread, but has anbody mentioned the major limitation of current UAVs?....the weather. Pred/Reaper don't have anti-icing and generally don't fly through cloud. I think GH has, but they cost mega-bucks. It is easy to look at current ops and see UAVs as the panacea for all problems, but the current theatres tend to be cloudless and dry, I wouldn't like to have to rely on Reaper/Pred for ops in Northern Europe. The weather limits aren't just confined to the operating area of course, as you require an LRE to take off/land a Pred/Reaper - they can't just divert as required! The weather could be superb over the operating area, but if the weather at base is pants it either won't get airborne at all, or have to RTB to land before the cloud arrives!
Satellites don't come cheap and aren't that easy to move around to meet an unforeseen challenge from any where in the world. It might be great to have a UAV on station for hours, or even days at a time, but if the sat isn't in the right place it will have to be repositioned and that will burn fuel and hence life. UAVs are an extremely valuable tool, but they are just that, a tool that a commander can use as part of the far larger intelligence collection piece.
Daf