Robots Go To War

JKT writes: "According to The Times (of London): Predators, which can operate for 40 hours at a time ... can hover at up to 25,000ft, taking photographs in all types of weather, and at night with the use of infrared cameras ... For the first time in any operation, the Predators, developed by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems in San Diego, are also armed with Hellfire anti-tank missiles ... if a Predator spots a potential target, the ground operator can launch a Hellfire missile attack immediately." The article covers all the various pre-attack surveillance mechanisms, including special forces units of various countries. Interesting stuff, especially because it appears that one of those recon drones has already been shot down.

Comments

Remote attrition

[Jerf]

This bring up an interesting potential strategy that could negate some significant advantages the terrorists have on their home turf. These things were probably expensive to build, but I bet they're relatively cheap to build.

The terrorists, on the other hand, no matter how well equipped they are, have a finite supply of anti-aircraft capability. Keep launching these things over their territory, float at a good height, and let them launch anti-aircraft missiles at them to their heart's content. (They have to try to shoot them down, the intel the unmanned aircraft gather are too valuable to their enemy to just ignore them.) Equip those things with a chaff dispenser in place of a missle or two, and you've got a great robotic attrition tool.

One of the worst things about guerilla warfare is your inability to wear down the enemy without taking vastly larger losses yourself. This stuff puts an interesting spin on that... bin Laden may have picked the wrong time to become a guerilla.