Monday, November 02, 2015

The First Armed Drones

Should we need to interfere with Chinese naval traffic in the South or East China Seas; or if we need to bottle up Russia's Baltic fleet in order to liberate the Baltic NATO states; or if we need to blockade Russia's Black Sea fleet, this weapon will be of great use:

The United States has developed a new way to deliver naval mines; by attaching a JDAM glide and satellite navigation kit to naval mines designed to be dropped, like dumb bombs, into shallow water. The JDAM mine can glide 70 kilometers thus avoiding many enemy air defenses.

Mines are simple armed autonomous drones, really. Stationary, but still killer, robots.

But they have worked well for over a century. Hopefully we pay attention to clearing them and laying them.