The future of war is taking form all around and it is not a vision of super battleships and death rays, though they may exist in infinitesimal numbers the real fighting will be done by tiny groups of specialists (SOCOM, the SEALs and an array of similar highly trained, expensively equipped and lethally effective troops.) Weapons like one discussed in Wired recently, a Proposed program to develop a missile capable of hitting and destroying small targets like SUV’s (60 miles away) that can be fired from another SUV.

There is a bit of spy v spy in this and the Wired article is a bit ironic in tone but the truth is this is the future, and in most ways it will continue the trend of things getting better for the majority of humans, it will kill its target without killing hundreds of others and could lead to a ‘decapitation’ strike where the warmaker is taken out of the picture so peace can find a way.  And of course it will be misused, and ill-used and those of good heart and hope will deplore it all.

Of course the use of discrete platforms is nothing new, the recent tragedy in Africa involved a U28.  This is a single engine utility turboprop, built by Pilatus and used all over the world but very intensively in Africa where its low cost of acquisition and operation along with the high reliability of the single turboprop airframe make it highly coveted.  You can think of an SUV as being in the same vein really.

Of course drones will be a big part of future war, though how big and how are interesting questions. If both sides are aggressive users of technology with combat hackers or the like as well as jammers, radio direction finding/ranging and guys (and gals) with skeet shooting guns and skills it should get ‘interesting.’

Here’s a piece of drone related news where things got ‘interesting’ for some bystanders when a crashed drone was given the coup de grâce by one of its robotic compatriots.