Now, we are apparently actually planning on going UAV's rather than manned to both conserve cost and avoid that worst thing possible, having war be harmful to us and then being compelled to garner the political support to explain it all. Athens couldn't beat Sparta, so there we are for eternity, apparently.
- Inoffensive
- Cheap
- Nearly harmless
But that doesn't mean interesting developments cannot happen either. Or that tactical toys for adult consumption cannot fire the imagination.
So here now the wizards replacements for the first generation Predators and Hellfires which cost $100k every firing.
Enter the SPIKE. 5 lbs. Laser or electro-optical guidance, and more. Originally developed to be a lightweight antitank weapon. Instead scads of them can be carried by drones.Drones which instead of being noisy, slow and easy to spot and shoot down, especially if you have a Strela hanging around, or a ZSU (and there are plenty of low tech adversaries with a ton of these) are in fact, quiet, long loitering, can look around at high altitude and jet down to TCB...WELCOME TO CYBERDYNE SYSTEMS
The SPIKE guidance system is highly original; in one mode it uses an electro-optical seeker, basically a video camera. Lock on before launch and it follows the target -- even something agile like a motorbike. In another mode for night operation, the seeker can be set to home in on a laser spot, turning Spike into a laser-guided missile.
In a test firing in February [2008], Spike engaged a remote-controlled van with a crossing speed of twenty miles an hour, at a range of a mile and a half. You can see the effects in the photo. Although the warhead weighs less than two pounds, high precision increases its lethality. It's designed to penetrate the target before detonating, so it could be used to target the window of a specific room in a building rather than demolishing the whole thing, like larger weapons.
AND THEN............
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