Military Drones

When it comes to military drones, the applications are pretty much reduced to two: Intelligence gathering and obliteration. But the US military wants to arm drones with non-lethal weapons… And some of the ideas are intriguing.

Drone manufacturer Edge Group has released its latest drones, the QX family of loitering or kamikaze drones, at IDEX 2021. The company has also used the show as an opportunity to show off its Shadow 50 and Shadow 25 drones and a new variant of the RW-24 drone.

A new video reveals some of the ways in which drones might soon be helping Britain’s naval forces. The Royal Marines recently put a number of drone technologies to the test – and for a number of different purposes.

Aleksey Neizhpapa, the Ukrainian Navy chief, met with the Turkish drone manufacturer Baykar to discuss a possible supply of drones to the Eastern European country. The two met for a meeting in Odessa, Ukraine, along the Black Sea.

It has been reported that Russia’s Orion drone has launched powered missiles for the first time, a big step for the country going forward. The drone first flew in 2017 but has never been flown with a powered payload before.

The UK Ministry of Defense (MoD) wants to produce a new fleet of cost-effective armed drones as it watched the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Defense officials have stated they believe using lower-cost Turkish drones played a crucial part in Azerbaijan tactics.

A British military drone has, unfortunately, hit the ground during a recent test flight in the Middle Eastern country of Cyprus. The Watchkeeper WK450 drone is believed to have crashed during a training session back in October, which has just be made public by the Observer.

The brand new Chinese CR500 Golden Eagle reconnaissance drone is ready to take flight locally and internationally, according to the state-owned company behind the drone, North Industries Group Corporation Limited (NORINCO).

Turkey has announced that its military forces will use cargo drones for its logistics needs, with production estimated to start in 2021. The move to drones is a part of a greater effort for the Turkish Military to utilize them more.

The new mini bug drone will be added to the UK Army’s tanks and other armored vehicles to gain access to enemy positions by blowing open doors with explosives. The drone is a part of the UK’s new investment in threat-driven military equipment.

The Fifth Generation Aerial Target or 5GAT drone will take off for the first time later this month during a test flight at the Dugway Proving Ground, Utah. The drone will take to the sky after it completed ground-based tests back in September.

Serbia has shared that it is looking into purchasing Turkish made Bayraktar drones after seeing how effective they have become on the battlefield. The Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic told the media about the plan earlier this week.

Armenia has shared that it used rockets to take down an Azerbaijani drone near the capital earlier this week during the countries fighting in the landlocked region of Nagorno-Karabakh, located in Azerbaijan but controlled by Armenian troops.

Two MQ-9 Reaper drones have reportedly fallen out of the sky after they collided with one another over Syria according to a defense official. The military drones are said to have collided yesterday with the burning drones seen tumbling toward the ground.

The Russian army is expecting to receive its first wave of Okhotnik stealth fighter unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) in 2024, according to Yuri Slyusar, the head at United Aircraft Corporation (UAC). The news comes after Slyusar shared the information with President Vladimir Putin.

On Friday, alarms went off in the media after an investigative journalist spotted a US Predator drone flying a loop over riot-ravaged Minneapolis. Predators are associated with deadly combat missions in places like Afghanistan, not in the airspace above American cities. Expand
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An unarmed Predator drone owned by US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) was spotted flying a loop around Minneapolis on Friday morning, in the aftermath of violent protests over the death of George Floyd at the hands of police officers. It was presumably surveying for further unrest. Expand
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It’s not quite Star Wars, but laser weapons are real. The US Navy just demonstrated that capability when it downed a drone in tests of a new ship-mounted laser in the Pacific Ocean. Expand
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For half a week in early May, the skies over Latvia were virtually shut down when an experimental drone went missing over the country. At last the drone has shown up, stuck in a tree. Expand
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The US Army has successfully deployed a spy drone out of a UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter while in flight. The demo took place over Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona, in early March and has just recently been made public.

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Cheap little drones have become a powerful weapon in modern warfare. A quadcopter with a grenade attached can do a lot of damage at little cost, allowing terror groups like ISIS to threaten much larger military forces. But the larger forces are fighting back with a new drone interceptor. Expand
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