Sneaky and Lethal: Cloud Airpower
Following on from my last post about unmanned systems, John Robb tells us about a new unmanned aerial vehicle sniper system from Sagetech:
The TAPSS system [Tenacious Automatic Precision Shooting System] is much more accurate than a traditional human sniper team for both the first and second shots fired … for a range of 1500m. A traditional sniper weapon’s maximum range is typically limited to 600-800 m. Kills have been recorded at longer ranges than this, but it is typically considered to be a “lucky shot”. The TAPSS automated firing system pushes the useful range of the sniper weapon out to 1500 m.
Each 50- caliber ammunition round will likely cost from $4 to $8, as opposed to a cost of $60,000 for each AGM-114 Hellfire missile. UAV sniper will also have a relatively large number of stowed kills; about 100 50-caliber rounds versus 2-4 Hellfire missiles for other UCAVs.
John sees this and similar technology as elements of the inevitable development of ‘cloud airpower’. You can certainly ditch the pastoral euphemism here – this is further ‘Death from the Sky’. As David Axe wrote in response to Matt Armstrong’s original piece on the problems of unmanned systems:
Problem is, much of the world already associates U.S. military robots with death, thanks to the use of Predator drones as aerial assassins in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia — and the military has no plans to scale back these sneaky, lethal attacks.
It would seem so. Perhaps it should scale up its consideration of the potential psychological and strategic effects of the technology first.
Judging by this video (”Marines under attack, crying for their lives”) it’s not just civilians who react badly when under fire from an unseen assailant. The comments on this video are as puerile and unhelpful as they usually are on YouTube, but at least everyone recognises the fear. This mostly manifests as ‘kill all f***ng cowardly ragheads’ – what passes for standard YouTube debate – but the power to elicit strong fright responses is undeniable, no matter which foot the boot is on:
