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The SpearAuthor: Modern War Institute at West Point
The Spear is a podcast from the Modern War Institute at West Point. It sets out to explore the combat experience, with each episode featuring a guest who tells a detailed and personal story, describing the events and exploring topics like decision-making under stress and what it feels like to be in combat. Language: en Genres: Government, News Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it |
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The MQ-9 Reaper in Combat
Thursday, 13 February, 2025
This episode features a story from Joe Ritter, an Air Force officer and MQ-9 Reaper pilot. The MQ-9, the largest remotely piloted aircraft in the US military's inventory, has a wide range of the capabilities—from providing intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance to conducting battle damage assessments to helping a ground element direct their fires to striking enemy targets with air-to-ground Hellfire missiles. Ritter and his sensor operator brought all of these capabilities to the fight during a single mission in Afghanistan in October 2018.