There's a flamethrower drone video that circulates, used for clearing debris from power lines. And lots and lots of "DJI phantom with a grenade" videos from the Ukraine war. But not only does the gun drone not work very well, the drones are heavily tracked and dependent on radio links while there are thousands of people making sure that guns, even concealed ones, have a constitutional right to be in as many places as possible. Probably the only thing that could change American gun law is an outbreak of snipers against CEOs and politicians.
I've always thought drones would work well as ambush devices i.e. don't make a long flight to a target but stash within a few seconds of flight time.
If it's the hardware then is there not much of a DIY scene anymore? I assumed the tech was mostly in the components e.g. cameras/motors/batteries rather than the integration. I'm not a drone person but when I cast my eye at FPV racing drones, it seemed they were building their own with off-the-shelf components.
> radio links
I see Russia heavily using fibre-optic drones these days and they blew my mind. When I heard of "wire-guided missile" I assumed it was some term-of-art and never conceived they literally laid down wire. I understand you can buy kilometre spools of the stuff for a few bucks so I guess it's in consumer's reach.
Ah, I've just realised the "Ariadne's thread" weakness of using fibre-optic for something covert! Maybe the launch site can hop to another connection though...
> I've always thought drones would work well as ambush devices i.e. don't make a long flight to a target but stash within a few seconds of flight time.
My immediate thought: "So… a missile?"
But on reflection, you're probably right. Just because missiles make more sense and have a long pile of R&D behind them, doesn't mean an amateur will pick that over the simple, easy, and obvious meme.
Probably for the best. It will be a bad day when someone, or some agency, makes anti-personnel missiles that can just be left waiting in nearby trees until the target goes past. I really really hope that such things would be treated like mines in international law.
> Leto's Golden Path has prevented a future in which the Ixians released, and ultimately lost control of, self improving Hunter-Seekers that would eventually consume all organic life in the known universe.
