US Special Ops Adds 350 Kamikaze Drones to Fight ISIS

US Special Ops Adds 350 Kamikaze Drones to Fight ISIS

Earlier this year, the military put out an urgent request for inexpensive kamikaze drones that special operations troops could fire from handheld bazooka-like launchers against ISIS, according to Defense One.

In its Joint Urgent Operational Needs Statement, the US Special Operations Command (SOCOM) requested 325 “Miniature Aerial Missile Systems,” or LMAMS, by summer. That delivery has already been completed. AeroVironment officials confirmed that they recently delivered about 350 Switchblades, tube-launched drones outfitted with cameras and cursor-on-target GPS navigation. The company bills the device as a “miniature flying lethal missile can be operated manually or autonomously.” It can fly for about 15 minutes, at up to 100 miles per hour.

Special operations forces have highlighted the need for new types of drones, or drone missiles, to strike rapidly adapting non-state enemies like the Islamic State. To help drive innovation, US Special Operations Command intends to open a hacker lab in Tampa as part of the broader SOFWERX initiative.

“The threat is really changing – this explosion of commercial technology, of super-empowered commercial technology, of each individual technology path on an accelerated schedule,” said James “Hondo” Geurts, who leads SOCOM’s acquisitions, technology and logistics efforts. “When you start stacking accelerations on top of each other, pretty soon you’ve got autonomous swarms of drones with facial recognition attacking you on the battlefield. And so how do you get out in front of that?”

Army Col. John Reim, who outfits special operations troops as head of SOCOM’s Warrior program office, said he needs missile drones that can blow up bigger targets.

During a recent visit to Mosul, Iraq, SOCOM commander Gen. Ray Thomas said he ran into a pair of operators who had found an off-the-shelf rotary-wing quadcopter adapted by ISIS weaponeers to carry a 40 mm weapon.

“This is how adaptive the enemy was,” Thomas said. “About five or six months ago, it was a day that the Iraqi effort almost came to a screeching halt. Literally, in the span of 24 hours, there were up to 70 drones in the air.

It was about that time that SOCOM began working with the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab to take the devices troops use to detect and jam improvised explosive devices and convert them into drone jammers.

 

[Source: Defense One]

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