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Kamikaze drones: A new weapon brings power and peril to the U.S. military
nbcnews ^ | 12/06/2021

Posted on 12/06/2021 3:40:36 PM PST by devane617

The killer drone whooshed out of its launch tube, spreading its carbon wings and shooting into the sky.

Flying too fast for the naked eye to track, the battery-powered robot circled the Utah desert, hunting for the target it had been programmed to strike. Moments later, the drone sailed through the driver’s side window of an empty pick-up truck and exploded in a fireball.

“Good hit,” exclaimed an operator from AeroVironment, the company that produces the drone and sells it to the U.S. military.

NBC News traveled to a military testing center for exclusive access to the first-ever public demonstration of the Switchblade 300, a small, low-cost “kamikaze” drone made by AeroVironment that sources say has been used quietly for years by the U.S. military in targeted killing operations in Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria.

The demonstration told a story of promise and peril.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: drone; drones; russia; ukraine
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To: Roman_War_Criminal

“This video will wake some of you up…”

And, that is exactly what the concern is—o a small scale or large scale we need tech to counteract these things.


21 posted on 12/06/2021 4:26:13 PM PST by devane617 (RUN FOR LOCAL ELECTED OFFICE! COUNCIL,SCHOOL BOARD, ETC.)
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To: devane617

Fu-Go balloon bomb


22 posted on 12/06/2021 4:31:25 PM PST by Theoria
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To: Roman_War_Criminal

If autonomous weapon drones are outlawed, then only Chinese-ISIS-Norks-Iran will have ...


23 posted on 12/06/2021 4:34:37 PM PST by qwertyz
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To: qaz123

We’ve had countermeasures for these things since the mid 1990’s. They made briefcase-sized kits for diplomats and wealthy businessman years ago - they’re probably down to cell phone size by now.


24 posted on 12/06/2021 4:49:48 PM PST by GreyHoundSailor (LGBTQ - Let's Get Brandon To Quit)
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To: irishjuggler

Thats a big fat TRUE


25 posted on 12/06/2021 4:57:45 PM PST by al baby (Hi Mom Hi Dad)
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To: old-ager

Their people

Our people


26 posted on 12/06/2021 5:35:20 PM PST by Secret Agent Man (Gone Galt; not averse to Going Bronson.)
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To: devane617

You have to wonder how far behind us in this technology our enemies are. The battlefield is getting alot more deadly recently.


27 posted on 12/06/2021 5:36:52 PM PST by McGruff
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To: devane617
“Good hit,” exclaimed an operator from AeroVironment Stark Industries, the company that produces the drone and sells it to the U.S. military.


28 posted on 12/06/2021 5:38:18 PM PST by Alas Babylon! (Rush, we're missing your take on all of this!)
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To: old-ager

Doesn’t matter, Iran, Russia and China all have military here..


29 posted on 12/06/2021 5:52:18 PM PST by aces (and )
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To: devane617

Coming 3 am phone calls:
1 Day After Olympics end: Iran tests nuclear weapon
2 Days after Olympics:Russia invades Ukraine
3 Days after Olympics: China invades Taiwan
4 Days after Olympics “Hello, 911? The President isn’t breathing!”
On Day 4, 3:05 am: VP Harris —“WHAT? Really? Oh, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!!
3:10: “I don’t know, she won’t wake up!”
3:15: “ ah, yes, ah yes it is this ah you see this ah is Speaker Pelosi, and ah, ah , it’s quite a uh un Precedented I mean un Presi ah dented, I mean Bo Jiden , I meant hunt..Hunter uh no no uh uh you’ll see uh something when uh I uh do something. Oh dear, where are my pearls?!


30 posted on 12/06/2021 6:25:07 PM PST by cookcounty (Susan Rice: G Gordon Liddy times 10.)
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To: devane617

They had drones flying in perfect formation at the Tokyo Olympics. They will definitely be a military problem.


31 posted on 12/06/2021 6:29:57 PM PST by Blood of Tyrants (Do we value what the Revolutionary War vets gave us enough to fight for it?)
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To: devane617

Wasn’t the first rule of robotics supposed to be “Do not harm humans”?


32 posted on 12/06/2021 6:39:38 PM PST by fella ("As it was before Noah so shall it be again,")
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To: qaz123

“Only way to defeat that is to have a frequency jammer, thus making every cell phone in the stadium unusable.”

Just nuke the nation that sponsors this against us.


33 posted on 12/06/2021 6:41:21 PM PST by BTerclinger (MAGA! (See my FR page for links to MDs & RX for pre-hospital Covid treatment & prophylaxis).)
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To: qaz123

“Oh wait, didn’t we just and continue to fly in, thousands of folks who would love to do this”

IRONY: the CEO of the drone company in this article was born in Afghanistan.


34 posted on 12/06/2021 6:46:24 PM PST by BTerclinger (MAGA! (See my FR page for links to MDs & RX for pre-hospital Covid treatment & prophylaxis).)
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To: volunbeer
The Marine Corps is already moving towards drone swarms supporting troops vice Tanks and Artillery. The current POS Commandant shutdown the Tank Units and is phasing out (or already has) artillery units. He said the Army will maintain their tank units to support the Corps. From what I heard the Army said "say what"? The Army would have to support it's own units at the point where heavy tanks and artillery have to be brought to bear.

From what I was told the drone swarms will be able support Marines ashore from the MEU or a special MAGTAF until either they complete their mission or the Army brings in the heavy stuff. The question nobody wants to discuss are the countermeasures, There will be a constant battle to address countermeasures, especially as the countermeasure become smaller, easily accessible and easier to deploy. What happens when the enemy deploys it's own swarms and when they develop and deploy swarms of drone killers?

35 posted on 12/06/2021 6:57:09 PM PST by OldGoatCPO (No Caitiff Choir of Angels will sing for me.)
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To: devane617

36 posted on 12/06/2021 7:03:01 PM PST by null and void (Newspapers, The Prints of Lies)
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To: fella
Wasn’t the first rule of robotics supposed to be “Do not harm humans”?

It was.

In fiction.

37 posted on 12/06/2021 7:13:46 PM PST by null and void (Newspapers, The Prints of Lies)
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To: devane617

Drones can deploy all kinds of nasties, from incendiaries to covert surveillance devices with robotic features to anti-personnel mines to biological agents to chemical agents to whatever else formerly required a more cumbersome method of delivery.

At this moment, if you’re someone with serious enemies and drones can actually land on your dwelling, your security and privacy are already compromised. If you walk outside you are at risk day or night, but more so at night.

If you’re a target and walk outside, a quiet winged drone could be orbiting with night vision and waiting for you to appear. When it uses facial recognition or is manually directed to target you, it will turn off engines, arm the charge in its nose and dive at your person. In your last instant of life you might hear a whooshing sound.

What is a threat to VIPs now will be a threat to many of us later as the parameters of this kind of force become more commonly known and explored, and the technology gets cheaper and commercialized. This is why I see a future of underground dwellings and toughened vehicles (Cybertruck is interestingly timely...)

And netting. Lots and lots of netting over places where people by necessity have to be outdoors, such as sidewalks. People will shroud their homes and yards in netting.

Vulnerable infrastructure such as refineries will have to be hardened against drone attack, and will probably need layered defenses both active and passive.

Drone defenses of all kinds will become an industry.


38 posted on 12/06/2021 7:40:59 PM PST by JustaTech (A mind is a terrible thing)
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To: Deaf Smith
""too fast for the naked eye to track"

How many fps is that?

It depends upon the size of the drone. I read many years ago that a normal person, with a little practice, can track a bullet that is going just under 1000 ft per second (FPS) if it is fired into the sky. I tried this while shooting 45 ACP at about 900 FPS and after a few rounds I could could track the bullet for a while. But I was much younger and my eyes were much better. Having said that, I have also seen a jet fly at twice the speed of sound and I was easily able to track it. OBTW the speed of sound is 1125 FPS.

39 posted on 12/06/2021 9:14:10 PM PST by fini
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To: devane617

Inventions of that and the robot-dog-guns are going to be the undoing of a whole lot of things. So many of the pieces are not far from off-the-shelf, and will get there soon.


40 posted on 12/06/2021 10:50:03 PM PST by lepton ("It is useless to attempt to reason a man out of a thing he was never reasoned into"--Jonathan Swift)
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