Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Is The U.S. Military's 'Swarm' Closer To Reality?

TheNavy shows an artistic depiction of a drone swarm launched from a cargo aircraft. (Source: U.S. Navy)

Kris Osborn, National Interest: The U.S. Military's Ultimate Weapon Is Almost Here: The 'Swarm'

The Pentagon has been testing swarms of low-cost surveillance and attack drones engineered to jam enemy air defenses, blanket areas with small sensors or function as attack weapons, DoD officials said.

Using fast-developing computer algorithms for autonomous flight engineered to prevent mini-drones from crashing into one-another, the swarms are intended to perform a wide-range of strategically relevant missions.

The Pentagon’s once-secret Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO), aimed at harnessing promising technologies for nearer-term development than most acquisition programs, has already launched these drones from F-16 and F-18s numerous times in testing.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: I have to see it to believe it .... but at least the concept makes sense and I am sure that with time these weapon systems will be developed and deployed.

5 comments:

Bob Huntley said...

Is this really a new idea. Didn't they drop bats with incendiary devices attached over Japan. The bats then nested in hiding places and the incendiaries went off starting fires. Where was PETA then?

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

This could be a cheap and devastating weapon. Could you imagine launching dozens or hundreds of small drones with small high explosive , even armor penetrating warheads, to a specific target or with the ability to search for types of targets and attack independently or guided, how could you defend against that? The longer the range the more effective the system.

Unknown said...

This could be a cheap and devastating weapon. Could you imagine launching dozens or hundreds of small drones with small high explosive , even armor penetrating warheads, to a specific target or with the ability to search for types of targets and attack independently or guided, how could you defend against that? The longer the range the more effective the system.

Jay Farquharson said...

Nope.

>>A series of tests to answer various operational questions were conducted. In one incident the Carlsbad Army Airfield Auxiliary Air Base (32°15′39″N 104°13′45″W) near Carlsbad, New Mexico, was set on fire on May 15, 1943, when armed bats were accidentally released.[5] The bats incinerated the test range and roosted under a fuel tank.<<

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_bomb