The Switchblade suicide drone is the latest weapon delivered by the United States to Ukraine. This drone will reportedly be a duet with other drone models to hunt down the Russian military fleet or convoy more effectively.
This technique, as quoted by us from Express, Friday (8/4/2022) has reportedly never been used before on the battlefield.
The Switchblade drone, as reported, is a drone that maneuvers towards its target and then crashes itself with its warhead. Well, apparently there is another type of American-assisted drone, namely the Puma drone.
These Puma drones are both made by the company that created the Switchblade, namely Aerovinronment. It is mainly used for reconnaissance missions, equipped with cameras and thermal imaging devices with advanced zoom capabilities.
The resulting image is also claimed to be stable even in low light conditions. Hence the Puma drones are ideal for use in reconnaissance at night. It can fly up to more than 5 hours.
AeroVinronment as the manufacturer, has equipped the two drones with a device called Sensor to Shooter (S2S) so that both can share digital data.
So that means, Puma can determine the location of the target with its sensors and then it's the Switchblade's turn to destroy it by 'suicide'.
Puma drone operators can immediately launch a Switchblade drone once a target is set. This is quite important because once flown, the Switchblade cannot be summoned again so the target must be absolutely accurate.
Previously, Assistant US Department of Defense, Celeste Vallander stated that the Switchblade drone would be very useful for Ukraine in the face of a Russian attack.
"We have committed to delivering 100 Switchblade tactical drones to include in the new package," he said.