The Company That Makes the AK-47 Is Now Building Suicide Drones

David Axe

Security, Europe

Super swarm: A Russian company is developing a propeller-driven "suicide drone" that could finish competitor stand defenses.

The company That Makes the AK-47 Is Now building Suicide Drones

A Russian company is developing a propeller-driven "suicide drone" that could finish competitor stand defenses.

Kalashnikov Group, the same habitation of companies that produces Russia's iconic aggression rifles, revealed the KUB-BLA drone at the IDEX-2019 business exhibit at Abu Dhabi at February 2019.

It's unclear if the Russian stand compel requested the drone's development, or Kalashnikov developed the classify above its own though the domestic or foreign market.

"KUB-BLA is designed to destroy distant foundation targets," Kalashnikov stated. "An unmanned aerial vehicle delivers a special cargo to the coordinates of the target, which are situation manually or at the image from the [drone's] guidance system."

The four-feet-long drone has a 30-minute patience at a haste of 80 miles per hour nevertheless carrying a six-pound warhead, Kalashnikov stated. "The advantages of the system are hidden launch, high accuracy of the shot, noiselessness and comfort of handling," according to Kalashnikov.

KUB-BLA at essence is a small, slow and presumably inexpensive travel missile.  It apparently is alike at create to Israel's truck-launched Harpy drone, which has been above the just though at least 25 years.

The jet-propelled Harpy nevertheless is much heavier than KUB-BLA is, carries a 70-pound warhead and boasts much greater performance.

"The Harpy weapon detects, attacks and destroys competitor radar emitters, hitting them with high overcome accuracy," Israel Aerospace Industries stated. "Harpy effectively suppresses hostile SAM and radar sites though wish durations, loitering above competitor domain though hours."

If Harpy is a weapon though the suppression of competitor stand defenses, KUB-BLA energy be, too. A only Harpy reportedly costs nearly $70,000. A KUB-BLA could be even cheaper. at theory, an operator could buy hundreds of KUB-BLAs and deploy them by the dozen to herd competitor defenses.

The opinion is popular. The U.S. stand compel is developing its own suicide drone that could finish competitor radar sites.

The low expend Attritable Aircraft, or LCAA, has been at a development because July 2016. That's when the stand compel awarded Kratos, a San Diego drone-maker, a $41-million condense to create and prove what the government described though a "high-speed, long-range, low-cost, limited-life satisfy unmanned aerial system."

The jet-powered LCAA has stealthy features including sharply-swept wings, a narrow stand intake, panels with sawtooth-like edges and a silvery, apt radar-absorbing colour job—all of which could help the drone prick competitor defenses at order to satisfy radar sites and surface-to-air missiles.

The stand compel expects each LCAA to expend impartial $3 million, meaning it's much less expendable than a Harpy or KUB-BLA energy be and apt will operate at smaller swarms.

If LCAA exists at the high finish of the mountain of suicide drones, KUB-BLA perhaps is closer to the reverse end, alongside improvised systems that militant groups based above commercial-style drones.

In January 2018, a herd of 13 explosives-laden small drones, apparently controlled by Syrian rebels, attacked two Russian bases at western Syria. each of the drones carried 10 one-pound bomb beneath its wings, the Kremlin stated.

"As both Islamic land and Amazon gorge shown, small drones are an effective fashion of carrying a payload to a target," Nick Waters, a previous British army officer and independent military analyst, told The National Interest. "Whether that payload is your new book or little hundred grams of explosive is up to the sender."

Kalashnikov revealed KUB-BLA impartial a little weeks hind another principal Russian drone classify made its public debut.

The first blurry images of the Okhotnik-B drone appeared at late January 2019 above a Russian aviation website. The photos depict a tractor towing the apparently almost 50-foot-wide unmanned aerial vehicle across a snow-ringed runway at an airfield at Novosibirsk at southern Russia.

A flying wing alike at rgeister to the U.S. stand Force's B-2 stealth bomber, Okhotnik-B—that mode "hunter" at Russian—in theory could prick competitor defenses to send ordnance.

After lagging after though decades at the development of unmanned aerial vehicles, at contemporary years Russia has gotten serious. "Going into Syria at 2015, Russia was lacking a key fight constituent — the faculty to overcome targets quickly following their identification, one of the key functions of [unmanned fight stand vehicles] nearly the world today," Samuel Bendett, an expert above the Russian military, told reporter Kelsey Atherton.