Every Combat Drone in Use by the US Military
Angelo Young - 1h ago
Tensions have been rising between the U.S. and China over ongoing maritime territorial claims by Beijing and a recent visit by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan, the self-governing islands China claims as its territory. Both countries have escalated their military presences in the region this year, although most of it has been flexing muscles with war games, military exercises, and displays of force rather than engaging in direct military confrontation.
China began in August escalating the deployment of drones into Taiwanese airspace. Though at first Taiwanese soldiers ignored them, there were so many that after firing several warning shots, the soldiers blasted one out of the sky, the New York Times reported. (These are 13 of the world’s top military drones.)
Unmanned aircraft have been around since the First World War, initially as a prototype radio-controlled aircraft, though they were not used during the war. The modern age of military drones really begins to take off after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when the U.S. began to globally deploy large numbers of unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs, in its ongoing war on terror.
Out of the 23 types of drones currently known to be used by the U.S. military, five are produced by aerospace and defense heavyweight Northrop Grumman, which manufactures the most expensive drone in the U.S. arsenal: the $180 million, 131-foot-long MQ-4C Triton, a high-altitude, long-range surveillance aircraft commissioned into the U.S. Navy in 2018. It is one of two drones that cost more than $100 million, the other being the RQ-4 Global Hawk.
Referencing a variety of resources on military technology 24/7 Wall St. listed all known unmanned aerial vehicles currently in use by the United States military. The drones are listed in alphabetical order.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/every-combat-drone-in-use-by-the-us-military/ss-AA11PEjo?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=4d597052bf864c00850c46dce3fe90c1
