Editor’s Note: We’ve touched on some of the amazing aircraft designs which have revolutionized aviation since the Wright Brothers took to the sky on 17 December 1903. We’ve heard of technology similar to what you’ll see here, but to actually watch it in action is pretty cool. A drone carrying a Bazooka to deal with tanks and armored vehicles?! You’ve got to see this!
A new video from Russian arms maker United Instrument Manufacturing Corporation (UIMC) shows its aerial drone attacking targets with anti-tank rockets. The video debuted earlier this week at the Robotics of the Russian Armed Forces exhibition, along with a number of new drones. Since then it’s been making the rounds, maybe because it looks like a wild scaled-up version of the ramshackle handgun-firing quadcopter rigged up by a teenager. A closer look, though, reveals something much scarier.
The Russian multicopter can be controlled from a range of three miles and has a flight time of twenty minutes. It is armed with an unspecified rocket launcher, possibly the sort of “rocket flamethrower” weapon mounted on a drone that was promised earlier.
A Russian-designed multicopter like this one has been shown firing anti-tank rocks. (Courtesy of YouTube)
The armed drone, made by the Systemprom subsidiary of UIMC (that itself is part of Russian arms giant ROSTEC) can work as part of a hunter-killer team.
“The flying robots were designed to observe distant objects, record video and still images including thermal imaging, transmit video in real time, deliver goods to a specified point, and destroy enemy targets on the battlefield,” says Sergey Skokov, Deputy CEO of UIMC in a press release.
A remote-controlled flying bazooka is a cool enough idea on its own. It gets around the infantryman’s problem of getting close enough to a tank to shoot at it without exposing himself to danger. Also, a drone can attack the thin armor on the tank’s side, rear, or top. The problem with a radio control link is that it can be jammed, and there are already anti-drone jamming systems on the market, but the Russians have thought of that: Once set loose, these drones do not need human control.
The original article at Popular Mechanics can be viewed in its entirety right here.
(Featured photo courtesy of digitaltrends.com)