the terrifying thing will be when this type of system gets deployed at scale with drone swarms. The dream of any authoritarian government to use against citizens to keep them in line
This thread makes me wonder how many knife-missiles the USA has in stock.
(I am using the opportunity to reference the fact that the USA indeed has a “knife missile” and it is similar in principle if not in capability to the knife missile if the “Culture” series by Ian M. Banks.)
On one hand guns on drones are less destructive than bombs and missiles we are already using. So his wife in the car survived where a US drone strike would have killed them both.
On the other more surgical strikes may promote use.
I believe civilian drone casualties are due largely to mistaken target identification. E.g. the recent incident in Afghanistan was exactly of this type. There are also stories of A-10 pilots shooting civilians by mistake
Guns only help if you've got the right person to start with.
This is almost exactly the plot of Captain America: Winter Soldier, for what it’s worth, except they use massive floating weapons platforms instead of drones
