Free Republic

The Ukrainian attack on the Russian airfields has been seen as a game-changer in warfare. -snip- Some commentators believe that the Ukrainian success lifts the curtain on what comes next in terms of threats to the West. Kyiv has shown what is possible, and now, countries like China or even terrorist groups might try to replicate this in attacks on the US military or on other countries. The fact is that this threat was already known, and Western countries have been investing heavily in new counter-UAS technologies. However, the challenge is that there are too many places to defend. Because...

In December 2023, for 17 continuous days, a fleet of drones appeared at night over Langley Air Force Base (AFB), Virginia and other facilities in the greater Virginia Beach area. This was reported at the time, but the story was fleeting. Two other events occurred in the area that are relevant to the story. In February 2023, a pair of F-22s from Langley shot down the Chinese spy balloon as it exited the United States over South Carolina into the Atlantic Ocean. In January 2024, a Chinese graduate student at the University of Minnesota, was arrested for flying a drone...

ONE of Putin's prized war planes has been damaged after a kamikaze drone strike deep inside Russian territory. The attack, at the military airport in the Novgorod region more than 700 miles from Ukraine, witnessed a "helicopter style" drone. The ministry said nobody was hurt and the fire was quickly extinguished. The aircrafts which survived the attack are reportedly being being moved to an airfield in the Murmansk region. The Russian defence ministry admitted a strike: “The Kyiv regime carried out a terrorist attack using a copter-type UAV on a military airfield in Novgorod region." "As a result of the...

And that’s just one of the ways bad guys are putting drones to use, law enforcement officials say. DENVER, Colorado — Last winter, on the outskirts of a large U.S. city, an FBI Hostage Rescue Team set up an elevated observation post to assess an unfolding situation. Soon they heard the buzz of small drones — and then the tiny aircraft were all around them, swooping past in a series of “high-speed low passes at the agents in the observation post to flush them,” the head of the agency’s operational technology law unit told attendees of the AUVSI Xponential conference...

High over Alaska last summer, the Pentagon experimented with new, secret prototypes: Micro-drones that can be launched from the flare dispensers of moving F-16s and F/A-18 fighter jets. Canisters containing the tiny aircraft descended from the jets on parachutes before breaking open, allowing wings on each drone to swing out and catch the wind. Inch-wide propellers on the back provided propulsion as they found one another and created a swarm. The experiment was run by the secretive Strategic Capabilities Office, a Pentagon organization launched in summer 2012 to figure out how to best counter growing strategic threats from China and...