Coming soon: Attack of the Drones

[Altherion]

The Washington Post has an interesting but possibly terrifying article about a new generation of drones:

Quote

The KUB is four feet wide, can fly for 30 minutes at a speed of 80 mph and carries six pounds of explosives, the news release says. That makes it roughly the size of a coffee table that can be guided to explode on a target 40 miles away — the equivalent of a “small, slow and presumably inexpensive cruise missile,” according to a report by the National Interest website.

Whoever buys one will have the ability to steer a bomb with a high degree of accuracy unparalleled except by some of the U.S. military’s smartest bombs, said Nicholas Grossman, a professor of international relations at the University of Illinois and author of the book “Drones and Terrorism.”

“I think of it as democratizing smart bombs,” he said “It means disseminating smart bombs more widely. This would shrink the gap between the most advanced militaries and the smaller ones.”

...

The KUB drone will be faster and more accurate, and will deliver twice the explosive charge and have a greater range than any of the crude homemade devices that have been patched together by terrorists, according to the Kalashnikov representatives at the exhibition.

And unlike U.S. and Israeli exploding drones, the KUB will be “very cheap,” said one of the Kalashnikov representatives.

Once this catches on, it's definitely time to invest in anti-drone defenses -- that amusing closing of one of the London airports won't be so funny anymore...