What is "wandering ammunition"?
According to the current definition of "wandering ammunition":
This is a weapon that can "wander" in the target area for a short period of time (less than 6 hours), can search autonomously/manually and find the target and then attack autonomously. The cost of this type of "ammunition" is extremely low compared to those of high-cost weapon platforms, and it can make faster responses and more accurate strikes to some hidden targets, and it can also terminate the attack according to the actual situation on the battlefield.
Such "ammunition" has the advantages of both cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles, and "wandering ammunition" can hover around the target for a longer time than cruise missiles;
Compared with drones, "wandering ammunition" in addition to having all the characteristics of drones, it does not have to consider how to get out of the battlefield aftermath, because it is born for "self-detonation".
In fact, after saying so much "official language", you may still be a little difficult to understand what "wandering ammunition" is? Then we will use the vernacular of ordinary people to explain: the so-called "wandering ammunition" is a suicide drone!
Isn't that easy to understand! However, this weapon is called "suicide drone" in the hands of civilian armed forces, but once it is introduced and equipped by the regular army, it is "too amateurish" to continue to use this title. The term "high, big, and up" was born.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="9" > use cases for native wandering munitions</h1>
Since 2015, isis members active in Iraq and Syria have successfully "saved" aerial suicide drones using drones purchased online with homemade bombs, and with such aerial equipment, ISIS's strike on the US coalition forces has become more three-dimensional.
The ISIS organization's own modified "home-made wandering ammunition" is also a variety of names, although the production process is "rough", but the pervasive small suicide drone has also made the United States anxious. Their self-made "wandering ammunition" includes: drone + grenade, drone + RPG rocket, drone + suicide bomb and other combinations, basically belong to the kind of local materials.
Eyes shift from the Middle East to the Americas! On August 5, 2018, the 81st anniversary of the Bolivarian National Guard in Venezuela, the grand military parade in Caracas was taking place as scheduled, but while President Maduro was addressing the nation on the podium, two drones carrying explosives detonated over Bolivar Avenue, injuring eight National Guard officers and evacuating the scene with the escort of the country's defense minister, escorted by bodyguards.
With the popularity of drones in recent years, some civilian armed forces can easily make a simple suicide drone through online shopping, which is undoubtedly a qualitative leap for terrorists or civilian armed forces who have never had "air weapons"!
So in recent years, assassinations using drones have also begun to increase.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="15" > "wandering ammunition" for regular troops</h1>
In the civilian world it is a "trendy" new type of weapon, but similar equipment in the regular army has been in service for more than thirty years so far, but the name is different, and similar weapons in the army are called "wandering ammunition"!
According to the data, the first country to develop and use this weapon was Israel, and the "wandering ammunition" was initially used for anti-radar purposes.
In the famous Bekaa Valley air battle during the Lebanese war in 1982, Israel was able to achieve the "rich results" of destroying 19 air defense positions of its opponents in ground strikes, in fact, a large part of the credit is due to the decoy aircraft placed in advance by the Israeli army, that is, the drone vanguard.
In the bekaa Valley air battle, the Israeli army used drones disguised as attack troops to trick the Syrian anti-aircraft missile radar into turning on, while the "Mole Fighter" that followed behind the drone used anti-radiation missiles to directly knock out the opponent's anti-aircraft missiles.
After the war, Israel recognized the importance of drones, and the country's long tradition of "putting the lives of soldiers above all else", so they highly admired weapons and equipment that could replace soldiers to rush to the front, so "wandering ammunition" was born.
The first drone with the nature of "wandering ammunition" was developed by Israel Aviation Industry Company and code-named "Hubby". This type of UAV is combined with anti-radar missiles, once launched, the UAV enters search mode, looking for the opponent's air defense radar near the target, as long as the radar is turned on, Harby will desperately pounce on the target to destroy it, and its "wandering" time on the battlefield can exceed 6 hours.
The Habi drone was introduced in the 1990s, and after a decade of service, the weapon was exported to countries such as Turkey and India, and the Khhabi drone that Turkey aided Azerbaijan during last year's Nagorno-Karabakh conflict caused a lot of damage to Armenia.
Of course, although the Hobbit UAV has the nature of "wandering ammunition", its size is still a bit large, not so much "wandering ammunition" as "wandering missile" is more accurate!
With advances in sensor technology and the miniaturization of drones, the official "wandering ammunition" officially appeared around 2010. At this time, the "wandering ammunition" no longer relies on radar when looking for targets on the battlefield, and the camera carried on the fuselage can provide a more intuitive and clear picture for the rear operator, and the smaller size is also suitable for individual soldiers to carry and operate, which is the real "wandering ammunition".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="25" > "wandering ammunition" equipped by the U.S. military</h1>
Switchblade is the first "wandering ammunition" developed and installed by the U.S. military, which was successfully developed in 2011 and began combat deployment in 2012.
The length of this type of "wandering ammunition" is only 0.61 meters, and the full weight of the fuselage + controller + launcher is about 2.7 kg, which can be said to be small and lightweight, and there is no problem with individual soldiers.
The "Switchblade" has a maximum endurance of 10 minutes, a flight speed of 157 km / h, a maximum flight distance of 10 km, and a warhead equivalent to a high-explosive grenade charge built into the fuselage, which can be used to destroy targets such as light armored vehicles and personnel.
This "wandering munition" of the United States has the following characteristics:
First of all, it is small and not easy to be hit by intercepting fire;
Second, cancellation is allowed, and the ammunition can cancel the attack mission within four seconds before rushing to the target;
Third, the warhead has been specially treated, which will only act on the target of the attack, and the direction of killing is fan-shaped, rather than a 360° explosion, which is fundamentally different from the kind of unrestricted bombs used by civilian armed forces;
Fourth, the cost is low, the accuracy is high, and it is suitable for sniper, precision attack and other tasks.
In addition, the U.S. Navy has been developing a "wandering ammunition" fleet similar to a "locust" attack since 2015, with the project name LOCUST.
This "swarm" unmanned aerial vehicle system is actually developed using the collective strike mode of "wandering ammunition". According to the plan, the LOSE project consists of a tubular launcher and about 30 "suicide drones", compared to a single "wandering ammunition", this collective attack system can share all the data of 30 drones, as long as one of the released drones finds the target, then the remaining 29 drones will "swarming" at the first time, using their own warhead to carry out a concentrated fire strike on the target.
This weapon system can not only compensate for the attack power sacrificed by a single "wandering ammunition" when taking into account its small size, but also expand the search area, which can be called the "nuclear weapon" of "wandering ammunition".
Many people predict that the correct use of unmanned aerial vehicles in the future will become the key to determining the outcome of a war, "wandering ammunition" as a branch of the field of unmanned aerial vehicles in recent years by the major military powers more and more attention, do not look at a single equipment is not too powerful, but if on the battlefield this weapon is not pervasive, it is really a matter of "careful thinking".
In the past, people have always wanted to make "bullets bend", and the emergence of "wandering ammunition" not only allows bullets to bend, but even allows bullets to be timed and thinking, which is not very fun.
After talking about foreign equipment for half a day, is there such a good use of individual soldiers "wandering ammunition" In our country, does it have similar equipment? The answer is of course yes, our big country has disappointed you in weapons development now, and now such as CH-901, WS-43 and ASN-301 anti-radiation unmanned aerial vehicles and a series of cruise missiles similar to "wandering ammunition" have long been available, and their performance is not inferior to any foreign similar products, so you put your heart in your stomach.