The cheapest useful attack drone now costs less than a rifle did a generation ago, and the factory turning out thousands a month does not look like a defense plant. Precision has become abundant, which changes what an army has to protect.
This section covers strike systems and the effectors built to counter them. Cruise and ballistic missiles, hypersonic weapons, air-launched munitions, loitering munitions, one-way attack drones, reconnaissance and armed unmanned aircraft, uncrewed surface vessels, and the counter-UAS side that now runs from guns and nets to high-energy lasers and high-power microwave.
Directed energy is treated on its own terms here. A 50-kilowatt laser needs roughly 150 to 250 kilowatts of prime power and somewhere to dump the waste heat, so the hard part is usually the ship or vehicle carrying it rather than the beam. Range figures are reported with the weather they were achieved in.
Production rate is reported alongside performance wherever a figure exists. Combat use is described from what can be verified, with claims by a party to a conflict attributed to that party.
The Taranis unmanned combat air vehicle once showed up in the corner of BAE Systems’ Warton site, almost out of sight. At first glance the jet-black body looked like a sculpture more than a warplane. That day in 2010 set off fresh
The United Kingdom faces fresh budget pain round its next-gen Protector RG Mk 1 drones. Latest figures show the bill jumping forty per cent above first plan. Ministers stay quiet on why the math went off, yet insiders point at fast-shifting specs
Finland has decided to keep its backbone air-surveillance radars in shape for another five years. Defence Minister Jussi Niinistö authorized the Defence Forces Logistics Command to sign an extension with Thales LAS France S.A.S.
The United States has cleared the sale of twenty-two MQ-9B Guardian unmanned aircraft to India, opening a path for New Delhi to field its first long-endurance maritime surveillance fleet just days before Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets President Donald Trump. U.S. officials
The Indian Space Research Organisation marked a decisive step toward air-breathing launch systems with the first flight of its Scramjet Engine Technology Demonstrator from Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota, at 06:00 IST on 28 August 2016. A twelve-hour countdown ended with a
