Turkey has swarming suicide drones ready for export

Turkey reportedly has plans to buy more than 500 quadcopter drones of the Kargu type that could be used as suicide drones, could be operated in swarms, and could be ready for export.

Turkey has swarming suicide drones ready for export

Here are some of the highlights from Joseph Threvithick’s article for The Drive. Of course, if you have the time, go ahead and read the entire thing.

The Turkish military reportedly plans to buy more than 500 quad-copter-type Kargu series loitering munitions, or suicide drones, in the near term. The Kargus, at present, can operate in semi-autonomous or manually-controlled modes, but work is underway to give up to 20 of them the ability to carry out mass attacks as a swarm, which could give Turkey‘s troops a potentially game-changing new capability.

Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency news outlet first reported that Defense Technologies Engineering and Trade Inc., also known by its Turkish acronym STM, was expecting to deliver the hundreds of drones to the Turkish armed forces on June 15, 2020.

The 15-pound Kargu-2 can fly at up to 90 miles per hour and can remain airborne for up to 30 minutes. It has a line-of-sight control link with a range of around six miles.

STM announced it was working to give the Kargu family of drones additional autonomy and the ability to work together in large swarms.

Swarms by their very nature can confuse and overwhelm an opponent’s defenses, even those belonging to major militaries, causing havoc even if a significant number of them get shot down before they can reach their targets.

STM could also seek to export them, proliferating this capability further around the world.

This is precisely the type of weapon we have been warning about for years now. The fact that it is already here and potentially exportable should be yet another wake-up call to the level of threat low-end drones pose to U.S. and allied forces, as well as domestic infrastructure and VIPs.

The entire article can be found here.

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