Pretty nifty new tool in the ruck:
The tube-launched Switchblade drone, made by Monrovia, California-based Aerovironment Inc., was secretly sent to Afghanistan for the first time last year. “Under a dozen” were fired, said Army Deputy Product Director William Nichols.
“It’s been used in Afghanistan by military personnel” and “shown to be effective,” Nichols said. The drone’s GPS guidance is made by Rockwell Collins Inc. and the warhead by Alliant Techsystems Inc.
Nichols declined to describe the Switchblade’s targets. He said the drone is “designed for open threats, something that’s on top of a building but you can’t hit it” with regular artillery or mortars for fear of collateral damage. The drone is less than 24 inches long and weighs about six pounds.
“It’s a ‘flying shotgun,’” Nichols said, not a “hit-to- kill” weapon that explodes on impact.
“The operator has control of how far away from the target it goes off — preselected distances,” he said in an interview Oct. 12 at the Association of the U.S. Army conference in Washington.
An Army fact sheet said the drone could be used against snipers, insurgents placing roadside bombs and those hiding on ridge lines, under rock overhangs and or in shallow caves.
If every platoon had a couple of those, you’d see a whole lot fewer snipers, insurgents placing roadside bombs and hiding on ridge lines.
One way or the other.
All those radio-controlled model airplane kits out there ought to be useful for something, right? A few mods here and there, and pretty soon we’re cookin’ on gas!
This could be real useful during deer season.
Almost as much fun as: http://www.buckstix.com/howitzer.htm
My Uncle Breen used to hunt with a 45-70 dam’ near a Howitzer in it’s own right..
Liked that…
Only six hits on the deer from 120 yards with a single shot…..I’m all for the shotgun approach but this qualifies as overkill. (-:
Novel, interesting, expensive, amusing…..yes, sporting, test of skill, marksmanship….not so much. Doesn’t mean I didn’t enjoy reading about it or the concept, it’s just that taking a deer in the off-hand position shooting a single shot with my centerfire rifle is more my style.
Not a bad little play – their stock has returned 40.63% YTD. Not a lot can say that.
I wonder what we’re going to do when the bad guys get their hands on this technology. Add skeet to the training pipeline? Using shotguns to shoot down flying shotguns has a certain symmetry.
Well, Jeff, first they would have to find someone selling the ordnance. Considering there’s only one company right now…
Ok, assume someone else manufactures something similar. Unless the maker is based in China, I’m pretty sure the hadjis still won’t be able to buy them. Iran would like to, but they specialize in re-releasing 1950s & 1960s high-tech, not modern stuff.
AFAIK, our usual opponents rarely (if ever) even have ballistic armor and/or night-vision goggles. For them, a high-tech solution involves using a cell phone or creating a recruitment website.
I suspect items like this would be more of an issue with a more-capable opponent.
Oh, I wasn’t thinking it was a near-term threat. But the fact remains that this is fairly simple technology and it’d be folly not to think someone else would figure it out.
I’m pretty sure you can buy one of these at the Pawn Shop in Mountain Home.
Never had to much to do with RC airplanes, but I did have to stop my son from launching a model rocket with fireworks inside. And yes, he does still have all his fingers.
We did this once, with about 5 rockets, at night of course– to enhance the visuals. Didn’t want to start any grass fires, so we launched at the top of a bluff firing out to sea.
The way we used to do it was to stuff the firecracker fuses up the rocket exhaust nozzle, along with the igniter for the motor. When the rocket motor fired, the fuses lit and the rocket would fly until the fuses burnt down.
The model rockets we were launching were electrically fired from over 20′ away, so pretty much zero danger of blowing yourself up.
YMMV, as always.
I was under the impression that an unmanned flying object designed to make things explode was called a “missile”.
Well, crash into things and explode anyway.
Still feel the reliability of dropping a GBU in the window has a visceral effect on those in the general vicinity…let’s everyone know that somebody took out the local bad guys.
I remember being on the outskirts of Fallujah and watching the jets dropping a series of GBUs into the center of that cursed city, and feeling the concussive force over a 1/2 mile away…..
My only concern was that they knew that we were where we are and not a location that needed their attention….Didn’t want to find out personally about what one of those bombs landing dead center would feel like.
SK1, not to knock the efforts of Lex’s compatriots in the CAS role, but the important thing about Switchblade is the responsiveness.
A call for CAS takes a bit of time. But if a platoon leader or company commander has a Switchblade team with him, the call for fire chain is a bit shorter. Like, yelling over your shoulder.
Understood and want to see our troops get as many options as possible to take out the bad guys -swiftly, accurately and with surety. Big bangs are just the icing on the cake……
Rule 37: There’s no such thing as overkill, just “open fire” and “I need to reload”.
http://schlockmercenary.wikia.com/wiki/The_Seventy_Maxims_of_Maximally_Effective_Mercenaries
That is comedy gold, Jeff. Great link!
For what it’s worth, I found this publicity vid on LiveLeak. I’m a bit confused since the Switchblade is supposed to be a shotgun-style device, not kinetic-kill, or explosive. The vid gives the impression of an explosive device.
Still, it’s useful in illustrating how the Switchblade can be useful for the grunts. As the ‘Phib says, evolutionary, not revolutionary.
Casey/
“…evolutionary, not revolutionary.”
This is one of our problems, of which the F-111, (tho it turned out to be a great long-range strike fighter) F-35m etc., are but a prime examples. We always go for the gold-plated silver bullet (to mix metaphors) in attempts to leap-frog our opponents technologically. When it works it’s fine, but it all too often leaves us with HUGE gaps of exposure-time between the forced retirement of perfectly good systems in order to pay for the latest wonder-weapon which–surprise, surprise–never comes on-line on time.
Wheeh! (in a way) Aerovironment are the guys who built the Gossamer Condor and the Gossamer Albatross.
I am disappointed that they now do Government contracts.