With recent technological advancements, military combat drones keep getting better, cheaper, and more dangerous. Uncrewed aircraft are now affordable enough to allow terrorist groups to procure them in large quantities. Meanwhile, the best counter systems cost millions of dollars to be deployed and used. Military analysts believe these inequalities will likely become more troubling over time in terms of cost and threats to the safety of ground troops.
Fight Against Drone Attacks
The US military currently has about 3,500 troops in Syria and Iraq, and the uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) launched by Islamic State and Iran-backed militias continue to pose threats. From 2021 to March 2023, American forces in these countries have been hit by 78 drone attacks from enemies. In the last few weeks, there have been an additional 55 attacks, resulting in dozens of wounded soldiers and at least 45 cases of traumatic brain injuries.
There have been improvements in combat drones due to advances in the consumer market. For instance, Ukraine can produce as many as 10,000 quadcopters per month using consumer electronic parts. Even if they are cobbled together crudely, these drones can tap GPS satellites to carry out precise maneuvers and work together in groups. They are also cheap, quiet, reliable, and challenging to identify. These drones can swarm together and identify their targets using their artificial intelligence software.
Most of the recent attacks in Iraq and Syria are the result of more sophisticated and fixed-wing UAVs. Militias from both countries strike with multiple drones at once in a strategy called sward assault. The US defense has different means to counter drone attacks, like shooting down the enemy's aircraft with rifles and technology that disrupts the navigation and communication systems of the drones.
First Reusable Missile
For the past two years, Anduril Industries Inc., a startup in Southern California, has been secretly developing a defense weapon that will address the rising drone threat in the US. Dubbed as Roadrunner, the six-foot (1.8 meters) delta-winged craft is part aircraft and part guided munition comparable to a mini, autonomous fighter jet.
The new concept was unveiled on November 30 by Anduril founder and chief executive Palmer Luckey at its headquarters in Costa Mesa, California. According to Luckey, the company decided to create its engine after discovering that no existing product is compatible with the size, cost, and capabilities of Roadrunner.
Equipped with a warhead and powered by two turbines, Roadrunner can take off vertically like a rocket and fly hundreds of miles per hour like a plane looking for its target. It was also designed to destroy drones or missiles, conduct intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR), and handle other missions. They can take off and land vertically and fly autonomously. Most of all, the craft can return home, land, and be reused when it does not engage a target in the air, a first for this type of weapon.
The vehicle can be configured using an ISR sensor package or a high-explosive proximity fuse warhead that would detonate to destroy incoming threats. The new craft can also reach "high subsonic speeds" and "high-g" maneuvering. Anduril is hopeful that the Roadrunner concept can fill an empty US military air defense niche.
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