The U.S. Army Is Ordering Weaponized, Soldier-Launched Kamikaze Suicide Drones

I wonder when this madness will ever end. The USA is a giant kill machine. Disposing of all humans.

I'm happy that the drone itself is not determining the legitimacy of a target.

I believe our military deserves to have the best equipment. As state of the art as possible.

Most of our current engagements are comparable to civil wars. We need equipment of surgical precision to separate civilians from militants.

The more we eliminate collateral damage the more the local civilians will support your efforts to bring progress and to root out those who dominate and suppress their freedom.

war is one another economy-money-maker and another technology-bringer...

so as Midoman sayd, we just need more presision thats all ^^

bored? lets go mine the stars... ^^

@boka, war sucks agreed, but stoping terrorists I think is better than some wars we have gotten into. This also shows that the US is more humane than most other countries, where we will spends thousands of dollars in technology to prevent civilian deaths, while we could easily drop 100's of small dumb bombs and wipe out an entire city, you say mass killers I say precision peace keepers

@boka...stick to the facts please and stop spewing hatred of the US from pure ignorance, one genicide in africa killed approximately 500,000 in 100 days, so get real...back to the article, "The drone can fly piloted or autonomously (though naturally it has to receive human commands before arming and attacking)", right, until it gets smart

@boka

Stop complaining and be glad you're not on the receiving end.

If the United States Governement WASN'T protecting you, you'd be complaining about that as well. So just drop it.

^^ This.

this sounds expensive.

why learn from your own mistakes, when you could learn from the mistakes of others?

This is kind of a scary thought, but very interesting to, I can't help but wish I had one for a toy. I knew it was only so long before kamikaze drones came about..kind of like the remote controlled rockets from MGS 1 on ps1. Glad to hear it is human controller as well, although at some point software could make for less civilian casualties as software improves. Less civilian casualties is always a good thing, but until they have facial recognition on board, they will be up against soldiers dressed in civilian clothing. And they will always be tainted by corrupted soldiers/hackers/theft/etc to be used against us or for the greater good.

I find interesting when people say warfare helps with advancing science and technology like there isn't a better way. While it does in some regards, imagine how much faster progress would be if we worked together in an open source fashion, instead of individual countries/coorporations hoarding those secrets against eachother, and we all worked together. Imagine that...

@dr.chuck there have been well over 500,000 civilian casualties as a result of the us lead invasion of Iraq. You can't compare nature and mans warfare, two very different beasts and one is much more under our control...for now..hehehe

@vt007 The winning side gets the advances yes, but the losing side loses much more. Imagine how much the romans destroyed, the christians, the vikings, the mongels, etc etc. How much did that set us back collectively? Every time a new empire rolls in they set the people they are rolling over quite a bit and those people lose touch with their land and ways of life that have helped them progress so well in that region.

We do not see things as they are, we see them as we are. ~Anais Nin~

I suspect that this kind of device flies at extremely low speed and could be easily shot down by an alert enemy. I also suspect that it has extremely limited fuel and range, not to mention a tiny ordinance payload. Plus, with all of these, if you start jamming a wide range of signals you make it impossible to operate these remotely piloted vehicles.

First of all, Boka is trolling.

Second of all, several commenters have made statements implying that it's for some great humanitarian reason that the US military is trying to reduce civilian casualties by employing devices like this. But it's not the casualties they are trying to avoid, it's the backlash of the native population and the rest of the world for said casualties that they are trying to avoid.

Third of all, this thing brings to mind a flying IED, without the I part of course. Also, it probably costs about 8,000 times more than an IED.

I am sure boka is in Al Qaeda and is quietly wanting to surrender. Troll meet troll. SHADDUP BOKA!

I hate trolls.

Slowly I turned...step by step...inch by inch...

@1134...try using a dictionary before you post, genocide is people killing people, nothing to do with nature, in Rwandan app. 500,00 were killed in 100 days, we have been in irag for app. 8 years, nice going comparing apples to oranges, i forgot Boka was a troll or i wouldn't have responded to her

@dr chuck I did misread your post, I usually post in the few minutes free I have at work so I don't always have the time I should to read fully, I could have sworn you wrote drought or something like that, I am fully aware of what genocide is and just misread. Still though, no matter how 500,000 innocents die, or how long it takes, it still should be avoided at all costs.

If they're as available as they say they are, why doesn't every border patrol agent have one? That would be the most practical use, of course we wouldn't be blowing up Mexican refugees but we could deter the cartels from spilling their violence on our side if need be.

Sounds like a waste to me, i couldnt see this being practical for dismounted infantry in that they would have to carry all the batteries (which you are then limited in your usage time) for the head set and the equipment which, even spread among a section or platoon would be alot of weight on top of all of their water, rations, ammo and mission essential kit.
It seems to me that it would only be feasible for a mounted patrol or unit. In which case optics on crewserve weapons nowdays are usually good enough that you can itentify a threat at long distances.
Plus with a one time firing capability or what it seems to be, there isnt much margin for user error. give me a good old mortar and spotter over this anyday.
I've seen american mounted mortar teams operate out of their lavs in combat, and they have enough precision equipment that would probably cost less and they do their job quite nicely...

Seems like a cool toy and its a neat idea though.

This article headline is way off. 1st of all, an entity has to be alive to die. Second, even if the drones were self aware, they are not making the decision to launch, therefore they are not committing suicide. It’s more like murder.

Also the U.S likes to invade third world countries…what a pathetic bully. The real terrorists are the bureaucrats in Washington. They kill millions yearly, mostly women and children from behind desks.

U.S military are a bunch of cowards. Like in WWI & WWII and even Vietnam, they were brave heroes…but now they are just serial killers and child rapists, heatless and soulless.

If they were to face an enemy that was advanced and as rich as them, they would lose.

@ALH now your just being a troll, can we keep these topics as respectful as possible maybe. Don't blame military, but if you must place blame lay it at the feet of politicians.

@1134...ok, of course it would be better to have no deaths, my point was that there are more deaths around the world than caused by just the US, cheers-@ducimus...the point is to reduce colateral damage (civilians), motors are great but have alot of colateral damage, cheers

oops mortars

1134, It's closer to 100k - and that's including casualties caused by insurgents and criminals.

It's just a remote controlled bomb. "Kamikaze Suicide Drone" is not only a technically inaccurate term for this particular device, which should be your most paramount concern, but it is also needlessly provocative.

Ianredneck, What do you mean by "be respectful". REspectful of this?

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=3977702&page=1http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=3977702&page=1

or this

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x1554973

war is more than cools toys like "kamikaze attack drones"....wake up you sheep and stop trolling me.

@lanredneck.... forget it ALH has a perception narrower than a nano fiber. You have better luck getting through to a brick wall. Had he any common sense he would realize that this tech was designed to get the bad guy without killing innocent people. He calls the US Military cowards but the US military aren't hiding in civilian populations behind women and children plotting to blow up sky scrapers.

@dr chuck, I disagree with you, when your thinking mortars all your thinking is H.E. they utilize ilumination rounds which are effective determinant at night. Smoke, which provides concealment allowing coalition forces to get closer without taking as much fire, and white phosphorus for marking targets, along with any other rounds the yanks use that I dont know about. Also, I dont think that I've seen or been on an op that didnt have air support being used as an enabler. I'm not sure the statistics on them but im pretty sure that any aircraft the americans use, whould have better optics than this throw away drone. As for collateral, there is always human error in either laying a weapon or operating a drone and both methods use an explosive charge. I've seen the equipment that the american mortar teams use and it all uses gps to lay on a target were not talking about pointing it into the wind and hoping for the best. All that these new drones are designed to do is get people like you excited about less civilian casualties when they'll probably be locked up in some sea can unused until a reporter comes around... its a waste of money especially with the american government needing to cut budgets

sorry i meant deterrent for the illumination rounds

@ Boka, Im sure we'd all rather have a robot die than a human. you probably are in Al Qaeda...

@Undogmatic….Excuse me? What about the drone that bombed a wedding full of women and children to get 1 person? This tech will be aimed at schools, hospitals, and other civilian all targets . How the hell is some one in a cave going to surpass the trillion$$ U.S military industrial complex? They are in Iraq for the oil, if you don’t know this by now you are dunce..put on your dunce cap. Iraqi’s had nothing to do with 9/11 even if you believe the official lie. They found no WMD’s and Sadam hated Al-Qaida they were not allowed in the country when he was there. You do realize Al-Qaida rebels are the ones who over through the Libyan government. I bet you don’t. Al-Qaeda was a C.I.A invention from the cold war..and they are C.I.A operatives…please educate yourself because it hurts me to converse with ignorance from a punk kid like yourself.

Also from your logic it sounds like those women and children deserve to be killed. Listen they are going into a major city that has millions of people, they are fighting third world countries with 21st century tech. What do expect the people fighting for their homeland to do?

I await your response, and I promise I will give you another verbal lashing, so mind you p’s and q’s

Quote from Aldron "U.S military are a bunch of cowards. Like in WWI & WWII and even Vietnam, they were brave heroes…but now they are just serial killers and child rapists, heatless and soulless."

What a brave anonymous troll you are.

looks cool i hope they spread them around through the other nato countries for use in Afghanistan. these would work good in open country where exposing yourself for a clean shot from a shoulder mounted/man portable missle or rocket would be too risky... or hitting a target visable from an observation post that's just too far or obscured for normal munitions in forward positions like the Korengal Valley featured in the documentary "Restrepo" (watch it.)

watch restrepo and think if they had this,
1. the deterent effect it would produce after the first time it's used,
2. the deterrent effect after the weapons presence and function is explained to the village(no longer can someone hit/run a group of soldiers without being nailed from above).
3. the ability to hit a guy on the next hill over as he fires then runs around the corner.
4. the ability to effectively fit up hill as the drone flies up the hill and turns back to strike the ambush from behind.

what they need to make next is a version that is capable of flying at low levels (just above powerlines) and can circle & follow convoys. it would have the same effect as a highly visible police cruiser does on speeding traffic but towards suicide vehicle bombers. and could chase after IED triggermen either in recon camera mode or suicide strike mode.

a mini "Bell Boeing Quad TiltRotor" would work great for both loitering, city traffic and highway traffic pursuit while being able to carry a day/night sensor, radio, gps and payload.

having these type of weapons being able to have their control, targeting picked up by apache's above would maximise their strike portfolio.

cheers, eh

@jupiter1987...wow you are good at following me around...you follower troll. I wish you had a quotable comment...but like your comments you are all to forgettable. You've posted that quote twice now...next time have some integrity and post the links I had to the child rapist soldiers...i'm not making this stuff up, it's in the media.

War is not about cool toys, people lose their lives. It's funny that your military is made up of the poorest classes that are manipulated into joining.

Looks like a caught another one

aldrons last hope "your military is made up of the poorest classes..."
got news for you, outside of the south pacific, north american indians, and sparta... military is always lower 'class' (income) volunteers... without the draft, that's just how it works.

aldron dude, you're one prejudicial stereotype preying preaching the "one bad apple is what all the apples taste like" horsecrap ... ironic you quote "it's in the media" because that's just what they do.. "O WOW! this will make for GREAT ratings during 'ACTION NEWS AT 10!' ... gimme a break.

you have no clue.... "YES!" every Soldier is a war criminal!! .. sorry but no... everyone's harping on the US Soldiers but you don't know who they are... then your project that on the us citisens... mean while i don't see the world hating on me because i was a canadian peace keeper, quoting the Somolia affair at me... sure i killed people, i also saved my CO's life, who signed up for college tuition before 9/11, not to kill anyone... I saved his and 2 others lives. and who did i kill? 3 people who ACTIVELY tried to MURDER THEM IN COLD BLOOD because we were helping the women learn to read and give them badly needed water without asking permission... a couple abusive husbands who withhold WATER from their wives & daughters if they don't "behave"..

you spout hate aldron.. even after that i could easily have said "all the husbands" like you would.. but even after being shot at by someone, i don't hate the whole village. I can't, I'm to busy applying pressure to the bullet hole i just put in a attempted murderers shoulder so he doesn't die.

if you don't get it dude.. you never will. the best weapon is one you never have to fire, then it's doing it's primary job, it's secondary is to be fired and save lives.. even if it kills someone.

the needs of the ONE selfish prick, NEVER outweighs the needs of the many.

cheers, eh

@ ptv83 Good one but I fear your wasting your time. That guy is like a broken record when it come to this subject and is completely out of touch with reality. I have to admit he is good for laughs though. Just know there are people out there who are greatful for peacekeepers like yourself who have put themselves in harms way to help people less fortunate.

@Undomatic..you are the one out of touch with reality, reality is not perception, you get your world view from CNN, you are nothing but a sheep. Ignorance is bliss.

@pvt83...I would have to disagree, in Canada there isn't rampant poverty like the states. You were in the military, would you say you were from a poor class? I have friends in the Canadian military, they come from middle class families like most of the Canadian military, and they are for the most part educated, unlike the Neanderthals in the u.s military.

Somalia was a peace keeping mission. There is a difference between a peace keeping mission and a mission to illegally overthrow a government i.e Iraq

These punk kids don't remember but MILLIONS of people protested this war in the U.S, Canada, England. ANd many more world wide. I was so proud to be Canadian when we refused to participate in that illegal war.

Iraq is an illegal war and criminals should be brought to justice.

We're so lucky to have aldrons around to straighten out us punk kids. I'm surprised no one has brought up "aluminum foil" yet. Sheep, kool-aid, blah. blah, blah.

@ALH maybe in eastern Canada the poverty is lwo, but in the central and west part, boondocks, backwoods, tell me theres no povery there, as to the education of the US military, got to be one of the best educations out there, to even be an officer you need a bachelors, to go past 3 ranks as an officer you need a bachelors, to make general, a docterates, as an enlisted personnel, bachelors to pass the 4-5 rank, masters for the 6-7, all these degrees can be paid for through the military, compare this to russian, pakistan, etc. not even close. Yep they protested 10 yrs ago....but where are they now, where are the riots, seems like they really didn't care that much. Yep the US may have been wrong about the WMDS, mmaybe even Al Queada, but in the long wrong still the right decision based on the thousands of innocent civilians Saddam killed because they practiced as slightly different version of Islam. Didn't even just shoot them, he gassed them with chemical and nerve agents, shoot and bombing is humane compared to that. That man was a true murderer. I can also imagine your one of those people when some injustice occurs in the world you look to the US first to solve it, but when we try to do our own thing and stop injustices before the happen all of a sudden we are murderers damned if we do damned if we don't. Do you support the UN? hwo about all the wasteful speding, all the crimes they commit? still support them and all there "good deeds" like paying women food for sex? Yep true heros there. I also don't blame canadian air force for killing american soldiers, i don't call them killers/murderers. War is hell. I wish we never had to go to war. But there are bad people in the world, and Canadas not going to stop them.

@Ianredneck, yes where are they now, they are the silent majority in the world…they realized their voices meant nothing, because Bush was hell bent on going to war. He was not even to be president…do you remember that? He stole that election.
Also your logic …Sadman killed thousands, so U.S goes in there and kills millions? Does that make sense to you?
Look up the effects of D.U.
If you know anything about your history, you’ll know that the U.S never fought preemptive war…but now that’s the policy. That’s like me going over and killing my neighbors because I think they MIGHT rob me in the future.
No I don’t support the U.N. The U.N was made by the Rockefeller’s on behalf on the European banking cartel. Everyone in good standing in the U.N is part of something called the “western banking cartel” (look into that). Countries that refuse to bank with Europe, like Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, Libya. Are labeled as outcasts. The media propaganda goes all over to persuade the Americans that these people are evil and pose a threat to the U.S. The war is waged and their resources taken, puppet governments are put in and they join the “western banking cartel”

How exactly do you think the world works? Open your eyes.

I don’t ask the U.S to solve any problems.

Canada does it’s part, in all the major wars, we are part of NATO after all.

angry little f, aren't you

Greg_NJ, you have nothing to contribute, notice how we are having a discussion and you try to enter, but adults are speaking now, so you are ignored, so go play somewhere. I advise to go look up the western banking cartel I mentioned in my previous post. If not then please bring something intelligent, because you are making yourself look like a fool. And proving my point that people on here can’t discuss something intelligently with out spewing filth. So thanks, keep up the good work sheep.

No, aldron, I'm not trying to enter your one-sided discussion. It's not a discussion when someone stands on their soap box on a sunny day and insists that everyone believe it's raining. You've been brain-washed. Move on to FoxNews

Baa baa

If you are not trying to enter, what exactly are you doing....trolling? LOL that's obvious. I see your mind is trying to put me into a box, Fox or CNN....that's what America has come to, that's the only thing you understand, to classify somone from the channels they watch. Sorry, I'm above that type of classification.

You are even starting to sound like a sheep LMAO.

Here's a reading list for children like you...Animal Farm, Brave New World, 1984, the New American Century. Read those and connect the dots, and you will begin to understand what's going on in world politics.

the US loves finding better ways to kill. i dont blame them, others are doing the same thing. "if you aint first your last"

_________________
The people of the world only divide into two kinds, One sort with brains who hold no religion, The other with religion and no brain.

- Abu-al-Ala al-Marri

These drones don't make the kill decision at the moment and with low-tech enemies that will work fine. But if the US ever goes up against a nation with better technology that will have to change. Quickly. An advanced nation will figure out how to jam signals to and from a drone and at that point it will be essential for the Drone to make its own decisions. It’s important this technology is explored now even if not employed.

As for the effectiveness of this device in the current theaters, it will be determined by troops on the ground and that decision generally boils down to kills per kilogram.

@Aldron, I don't think anyone believes the US has been completely blameless in the recent wars, civilian casualties are regrettable but unavoidable sometimes. I believe the world is a better place without Sadam, Osama and the colonel, although the ‘Jus ad bellum’ may have been weak and misleading in some cases.

ALH, I respect you (as a human, in the least part), but I am disgusted by your opinions. My father was in Iraq, 1st Cavalry division. He went through the whole war and never had the need to fire his weapon.

The Middle East is a hotbed of rival clans and feuding religious sects. I do not hate Muslims, but I do hate Jihaddists, those that believe that they must kill. Saddam was a Jihaddist.

As to the artical, why are we breaking out the war paint? This thing is just a TOW missile without the wires.