The weekly newsletter for Fed2 by ibgames

EARTHDATE: October 15, 2006

Official News - page 7

REAL LIFE NEWS: ROBOTIC FRISBEES OF DEATH

by Hazed

Frankly, I didn't care what the article was about, but when I saw it had that headline I just knew I'd have to cover it as a real life news story. It's actually about the US Air Force commissioning a company to develop a "Modular Disc-Wing Urban Cruise Munition" - in other words, a robotic death frisbee.

The idea is to develop a way of dealing with bad guys in urban situations who are hiding in upper stories of buildings or hiding behind obstacles, without just generally blowing everything up (including nearly civilians). The circular drones will be launched from munitions dispensors or by something similar to a skeet launcher. Once in the air, they can either be operated by soldiers on the ground or can pilot themselves.

When they find the hostiles, the drones will use a series of armor-piercing explosives to take them out.

Sounds wonderful, but as the author of the article on the Defense Tech web site says, the details about exactly how the company plans to make it work are missing, so it'll no doubt turn out to be yet another black hole for the military to pour the tax dollars into.


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