Science advisors to the Marine Corps brigade deployed to western Iraq are eyeing a concept for a new flying drone armed with lethal and non-lethal weapons to help disrupt insurgent cells with sudden airborne attacks.
Such a drone would take the fight to anti-Iraqi forces in areas where they currently perceive sanctuary, according to a briefing provided by one advisor, who requested anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press.
The concept is to take an existing Tier II medium-size drone in the vein of the 10-foot-wingspan Boeing/InSitu Scan Eagle, and fit it with two 40-millimeter grenade launchers, two green-laser dazzlers and a focused sound device similar to the Long-Range Acoustic Device manufactured by American Technology Corporation. This suite would give Marine operators escalation of force options, according to the briefing.
In other words, the drone would be able to first warn off suspected insurgents by beaming a verbal message in Arabic. If the suspects dont disperse, the drone can dial up the intensity of its sound broadcast, causing pain and disorientation. If that doesnt work, there are the laser dazzlers, which can cause temporary blindness from up to a mile away. If, after all of this, the suspects are still behaving threateningly, the drone can fire its grenade launchers.
Marine Corps officials in western Iraq signed separate official needs statements requesting the drone in September and November. The request is pending at Marine Corps Combat Development Command in Quantico, Virginia. But the Quantico weapons-buying bureaucracy has previously rejected scores of similar needs statements asking for a wide range of ground and air weapons.
Indeed, Quantico has earlier rejected separate requests for three of the major components of the proposed new drone. Marines in Iraq asked for additional acoustic devices for ground use and were denied. In 2005 and 2006 they repeatedly requested laser dazzlers, also for ground use, and Quantico said no, citing safety concerns.
Multiple needs statements calling for hundreds of unarmed Tier II drones for surveillance missions were all ignored or turned down in favor of a planned competition for a new drone design beginning next year. The science advisors armed drone, representing a combination of three technologies that Quantico has repeatedly denied, stands little chance of finding favor with the bureaucracy.
Marine Lieutenant Colonel P.J. Kerr, a drone expert at the Pentagon, says that unlike the Army, Navy and Air Force, the service has no plans yet to arm any of its drones. Thats something were looking at very hard. Its being studied.
Ironically, Marine Corps units in western Iraq do benefit from the presence of armed Army Warrior drones operating on an experimental basis as part of the secretive Task Force Odin, which uses drones, sensors and manned aircraft connected by a wireless network to quickly find, identify and kill insurgent bomb teams.
The proposed Marine Corps armed drone would end the need for Task Force Odins services, the anonymous advisor contends.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Besides that it’s already gold-plated in the earliest development stage – I’d say such stuff should neither be developed nor produced.
I simply don’t trust any government enough to be sure that this will never be turned against the own people.
As long as humans are the trigger pullers, they may change sides as done by Russian conscripts in the 1991 coup d’etat. But this drone needs only a couple of years worth of KI advancement and few men could keep a city in check.
Science Fiction is now reality: drones with lasers and sonic blasters. And we all know what will happen later on.
So, we’ve got drones that will do this already but with 2000 pound bombs and you have a problem with a grenade launcher and a dazzler?
SKYNET is upon us. Oh god what will we do!?
I’m a bit surprised that the ‘News’ agencies haven’t tried to, or demanded the right to (LOL!), use some sort of video drone in Iraq & Afghanistan already. You know, to ‘report’ the news. :) Although, it’d probably end up a bit like skeet shooting, “Hey, Sarge! Check it out, a news drone. Pull! -Bang!-…- Crash!-”
“If that doesn
Why all of the warnings? If we have eyes on the bad guys laying down IEDs in the road, we should smoke them at first chance, instead of giving them the opportunty to disperse.
One can see the day that we launch intelligent swarms of UAVs in search of the enemy.
Camp: The news agencies will get this tech, fairly inevitably. The value of a visually attractive footage is often way higher than the value of a disposable drone. Face it – there are stations willing to pay a lot for the footage, and in the free market it means that somebody will provide the footage, given the technology. Maybe it will also act as a welcomed dampener of the gung-ho mentality of many elements on the battlefield. Let’s blanket the sky with drones – as long as the drones do not belong only to one side.
Also, the green lasers operate at 532 nm and protective glasses are available off-the-shelf; use the dazzlers widely enough to spur demand, and laser-blocking contact lenses appear on the market.