Free Republic

he U.S. government at the federal, state, and local levels is using Chinese drones that the Chinese Communist Party is exploiting for espionage. That is the public conclusion of a branch of the Department of Homeland Security. Citing “security concerns,” other departments have all-but-explicitly publicly made the same claims, and some have begun to take steps to limit the purchase of Chinese drones. Drones made in China and operated by Americans map U.S. infrastructure, agriculture, railroads, government buildings, power plants, disaster-relief operations, and the movements of law-enforcement officers. The data collected in those drone flights are believed to be sent...

Russian state-owned media says the S-70 Okhotnik uncrewed combat aerial vehicle recently completed its first "fighter-interceptor" exercise, in which it carried simulated air-to-air missiles. There's reason to be skeptical of Russian state media, but this effort sounds a great deal like a number of programs that the US and its allies already have in progress.According to reports released by Russia's state-owned media outlet RIA, Russia's S-70 Okhotnik (Hunter) uncrewed combat aerial vehicle recently completed its first "fighter-interceptor" exercise, in which the drone carried simulated air-to-air missiles while completing a series of test flights. According to an unnamed source within the...

Each day, the Chula Vista police respond to as many as 15 emergency calls with a drone, launching more than 4,100 flights since the program began two years ago. But the latest drone technology...has the power to transform everyday policing... Rather than spending tens of millions of dollars on large helicopters and pilots, even small police forces could operate tiny autonomous drones for a relative pittance. Government regulations require that a certified pilot remain on the roof of the Police Department, overseeing the launch and, together with a police officer at a command station inside the building, handling most of...

Russia’s Okhotnik heavy unmanned aerial vehicle recently completed flight tests, RIA Novosti, a Russian state-owned news agency recently reported. Quoting a defense sector source with knowledge of the flight trials, RIA reported that, “from the strip of the military airfield of the Center for Combat Training and Combat Use of the Russian Aerospace Forces at the Ashuluk training ground, several flights of the Okhotnik were performed with functional simulators of guided air-to-air missiles. Such missiles in the combat version are designed to destroy other aircraft.” The source also explained that the simulated missiles “have a casing and all electronic components...

The Marine Corps is looking for industry sources to produce a man-portable system capable of launching swarms of kamikaze drones over contested battlefields, according to a new notice. In a request for information published earlier this month, Marine Corps System Command detailed a fresh need for an "individually operated, man-portable, anti-materiel, anti-personnel ground-launched loitering munition system" for fielding to grunts in the coming years. The so-called Organic Precision Fire-Infantry (OPF-I) capability will consist of a fresh infantry-operated system capable of launching drones that can conduct explosive strikes and are "capable of swarming" over a 20-kilometer range for up to an...

International social and electronic media — and, by extension, our own media outlets — have gone to town regarding the successes achieved by Azerbaijanis on the Nagorno-Karabakh battlefield, employing armed ‘kamikaze’ Turkish unmanned aerial vehicles, such as the Bayraktar TB2 and Harpy/Harop and Orbiter 1K made by Israel Aircraft Industries. They are also known to have employed a Russian conventional aircraft’s converted-to-drone adaptation such as the AN-2, as also other Israeli drones, such as Hermes, Heron and Skystriker. The Bayraktar is known to be an American Predator/Reaper copy and the Turks have, statedly, used them extensively earlier in Syria and...

Where are you, b*******?” an Armenian soldier shouts as fellow compatriots look up at the sky and fire randomly. Seconds later, a drone strikes a nearby bus. The video of this incident, available on Twitter, gives us an insight into the new age of warfare where human beings are trying to fight off machines that can easily track them from the sky and rain down on them, bringing along complete destruction. The spectacular and crushing defeat of Armenia in its conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh is a good lesson for all countries, especially India, which is focussing on revamping and...

<p>Swarms of enemy drones approaching a forward operating base or groups of dismounted soldiers present a unique and increasingly challenging threat. Enemy drones can blanket areas with surveillance, test enemy defenses, jam communications and even themselves become explosives to attack targets.</p>

We stand at the threshold of a technological revolution. As Elon Musk recently explained to an audience of military personnel, “the fighter jet era has passed”. Speaking with Lieutenant General John Thompson at the Air Warfare Symposium, the technology executive praised the US military but stressed the fact that autonomous drone warfare had arrived. The truth is that Musk did not go far enough. Not only are we witnessing the end of fighter jets. We are witnessing the end of the Industrial-era military itself. Like the creaking decline of Detroit automakers, so the world’s industrial-era institutions are now poised to...

It took Azerbaijan just 43 days to win back its territory around the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh -- seven districts of mountains and foothills that were occupied by Armenian separatists since Baku’s humiliating battlefield failures of the early 1990s. Analysts say three factors explain why Azerbaijan was so successful in the battlefield this time: technology, tactics, and Turkey. Alex Melikishvili, a research analyst at IHS Markit Country Risk, says it was Turkish support for Azerbaijan that made the war “qualitatively different from all previous conflagrations.”

Autonomous machines capable of deadly force are increasingly prevalent in modern warfare, despite numerous ethical concerns. Is there anything we can do to halt the advance of the killer robots? he video is stark. Two menacing men stand next to a white van in a field, holding remote controls. They open the van’s back doors, and the whining sound of quadcopter drones crescendos. They flip a switch, and the drones swarm out like bats from a cave. In a few seconds, we cut to a college classroom. The killer robots flood in through windows and vents. The students scream in...

The U.S. military radically changed warfare over the past two decades with its pioneering use of armed drones on the battlefield. That revolution in conflict, however, has sparked an urgent new mission for the Pentagon: to defend against the other guy’s drones. As “unmanned aerial vehicles” become exponentially faster, cheaper, more deadly and more widespread around the globe, U.S. military planners are racing to develop a viable defense for suddenly vulnerable troops, tanks and ships.

The U.K.’s Ministry of Defence is developing twin shotgun-toting drones that are able to fly inside buildings, as well as identify prospective targets using machine vision. The six-rotor drone so far exists in a prototype version called i9. It will primarily be used for indoors conflicts in which it could prove dangerous to send live personnel. These settings expose personnel to significant danger and unexpected lethal force. However, while the drone could potentially have various autonomous features, the weapons themselves will be remote-controlled by a soldier responsible for firing them. The MoD told Digital Trends that the U.K. has no...

In eastern Ladakh, India and China have deployed a considerable number of tanks in the standoff at the LAC. The heavy T-72 and T-90 tanks of India are facing the Type 15 light Chinese tanks. Both sides claim superiority. These points of view miss the larger picture, that the main threat to a tank today is not from another tank, but from the air. This is particularly true in the open, barren LAC. The fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan has occupied little attention in the Indian media, but it is proving to be of great interest to the military community....

CETC, a state-owned Chinese company, has released a new video claiming to show the successful test of a ‘barrage swarm’ that launches 48 attack drones to saturate a target. It is described as the first practical Chinese swarming drone system. The details of the tests carried out in September were released on Tuesday by the Institute of Electronic Science and Technology of China. The drones are launched from a vehicle based on the Dongfeng Menshi, which evolved from a license-built version of the U.S. Hummer H1. The drones are launched with compressed air, then unfold their wings and fly to...

The Department of Justice (DOJ) today announced the protection activities undertaken by the FBI to counter the threat posed by Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) at certain National Special Security Events (NSSEs), Special Events Assessment Rating (SEAR) events, and select mass gatherings throughout the country over the past fiscal year.  DOJ and the FBI are publicizing protection activities in an effort to deter careless and criminal UAS operators in light of an anticipated increase in enforcement activity in response to the misuse of UAS. The Preventing Emerging Threats Act of 2018 (codified at 6 U.S.C. § 124n) provides DOJ a tailored...

Unmanned combat air vehicles have notched up kills against armored fighting vehicles all over the world. Does it mean the end of the tank In the first days of the new war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the Azeri military claimed a number of destroyed tanks and other armored fighting vehicles. Those strikes seem to have been made — and filmed — by a Turkish-designed armed drone, the Bayraktar TB2. With armed drones bearing anti-tank ordnance increasingly cheap, accessible and capable, does it spell the end of the tank’s century of battlefield dominance? Two decades ago, the U.S. rushed the first...

There have been five total drone delays in Major League Baseball this season from people flying unauthorized drones over MLB ballparks during games, leading to players being called off the field and to those games being temporarily postponed (including the Aug. 4 one between the Pittsburgh Pirates and Minnesota Twins seen above). That’s a concern for the league, but current federal laws limit what they can do about it.

The lights appeared on the evening of Saturday, August 29 and citizens recorded the curious event. The videos were taken from different parts of the city of Medellín. In an interview with UFO researcher Juan Jesús Vallejo on the Al Rojo Vivo program, the guest assured that "[the objects] move in an intelligent and coordinated manner. This sighting lasted a long time". Some believe that these could have been drones programmed to give off impressive light shows. However, there are is no information suggesting that swarms of drones flew over Medellín that night. VIDEO AT: https://www.instagram.com/tv/CEkui0Rgxdy/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet

The drones are loaded with C4, an explosive reserved for military use, with additional ammunition of pellets to cause further damage. Part of the population of Tepalcatepec and even the self-defence groups have begun to move as they fear that it is not possible to tackle this new form of attack. One dangerous scam involves forcing pharmacies to buy bogus medicines, which in turn end up in the bloodstreams of genuinely sick people needing treatment. While another is to steal petrol out of buried pipelines leading to fuel shortages and dangerous explosions. Last year was the worst year in the...