Kamikaze Drones: Loitering Munitions Proliferate As Tech Changes Battlefield.

• Author: Magnuson, Stew

PARIS--If there was ever one-stop shopping for anything an army would need as far as loitering munitions, it was all the way back in Hall 6, aisle F at the Eurosatory trade show in Paris in June.

There, attendees found the Uvision booth and its complete lineup of so-called "kamikaze drones," ranging in six sizes along with all the accessories, including controllers and training systems.

A quadcopter drone also hung on display from the booth's ceiling.

"Is that a loitering munition, too?" a reporter asked a company representative, having never seen a vertical takeoff and landing drone armed with a warhead.

"No, just for surveillance," said the representative.

But it could be armed. It is possible, right?

"Anything is possible," he responded.

Whether they're called loitering munitions or kamikaze drones, the weapon system has come into its own in recent conflicts, especially in Ukraine, where they were likely being deployed against Russian invaders the very week of the trade show.

Their origins are rooted in World War II tactics. Their basic technology was developed for hobbyists, and their evolution was spurred by terrorists' use of improvised explosive bombs in Iraq.

National Defense spotted the first "non-improvised" flying munition created by an Eastern European contractor at the IDEX trade show in 2009.

More than a dozen years later, the technology is proliferating both at defense exhibitions and on battlefields. Vendors from all over the world came to Eurosatory to exhibit the latest in loitering munitions technology, which--as the name suggests--can fly in patterns serving as a reconnaissance platform until it spots a potential target. If an operator decides to attack, the drone can nosedive toward the target, striking it while detonating a warhead.

Although explosives aren't always necessary.

Yaniv Ben-Itzhak, director of marketing and business development at Elbit Systems, showed a video of one of its mediumsized SkyStriker drones slamming into a tactical wheeled vehicle at some 200 kilometers per hour, basically slicing it in half without the use of explosives.

"That was just a demonstration." The warhead was removed for safety reasons, he explained.

The Israeli-based company is looking to create synergy between mobile rocket launchers and its SkyStriker loitering munitions, allowing operators to select one or the other and fire them from the same tube.

"In terms of firepower, you have a complete offering from the same platform," he said. The Sky-Striker has about a 400-kilometer range, he said. He touted its high-resolution...