Let me restate that,
I live near Picatinny Arsenal, and have heard repeated stories about active programs to design the weaponry for mass drone squads.
Based on the off the shelf design concepts by IAI it will be cost effective and optimal to further develop designs of multitudinous drone fleets. It will happen pretty quickly as the biggest stumbling blocks regarding in-flight real-time self adjustment through heuristics has already been solved, we’re already in the late alpha implementation stage.
THe 2012 Budget cuts for military programs relies heavily on replacing as many humans as possible with drones. This has been the underlying program of both Bush and Obama (with Panetta) during the last 5 years. No amount of Congressional Defense budget pork programs are going to stop this process at this point.
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2009/07/air-force-plans-for-all-drone-future/
Also, the Global Hawk surveillance drone from Northrop Grunman was cancelled because it is already outdated technology. The speed of development in the drone field is something like 10 times faster than the man jet fighter field. BY the time the UK gets their jet fighters designed today and delivered in 2021, drones will be 5 generations ahead, far superior to antiquated 2011 technologies in the JSF F35 or F22 or whatever the UK MoD decides on eventually.