Turkish firm Asisguard is showing off the latest iteration of their Songar military drone. The Songar is a troop-support drone equipped with a machine gun and possibly a grenade launcher.
While the concept of small military drones is not entirely new, nor is weaponizing them, the Songar is reportedly the first drone equipped with a machine gun ready for service. According to the New Scientist, Asisguard expects to deliver the first units to military and security forces before the end of this year.
Loaded the drone weighs about 55 pounds and it has a current targeting range of just over 200 yards. At those distances the drone is capable of hitting 6-inch targets reliably, and Asisguard expects to extend the targeting range well beyond 400 yards.
Currently, the Songar drone can fire single shots and 15-round bursts, but it does lose some stability in rapid-fire. This can be worked around with additional development.
The Songar uses cameras and laser rangefinders to get on and stay on target. Using information from the cameras and lasers the drone can stabilize itself midair as well as control the recoil using a set of arms that mount the machine gun.
The cameras are capable of night vision and the drone has an effective range of just over six miles. One controller can be used to fly up to three drones simultaneously as a swarm.
See Also: New Man-Portable Drone Zapper Effective Past 1,000 Yards
As a single unit or as a swarm, the Songar system can fire on select targets individually or put covering fire over an area from above. In this way, the Songar can be used to support soldiers on the ground or operate independently if necessary.
According to Robert Bunker at the US Army’s Strategic Studies Institute in Pennsylvania, drones pose a major security concern. As commercial technology improves, Bunker says militant groups may be able to copy these designs and improvise combat drones of their own.
In addition to the Songar, Asisguard is working on the Salgur, a flying “micro-strike” drone that carries a smaller limited- or single-use weapon system that’s capable of reconnaissance. Asisguard also works on vehicle networking systems and more conventional security systems.
Coming soon to a neighborhood near you.
A nice goose gun target?
US Ambassador in Benghazi could’ve used a few of these for DEFENSE but Hillary would’ve put the Kabash on it
THAT IS ONE OF THE BEST I HAVE SEEN IN A LONG TIME I WOULD NOT MIND HAVING ONE .
Cool! Does anyone know if this is Ma. compliant?
I agree with all you said. They don’t need drones. But then we should be thinking of it in their perspective and no matter who “they” are. How would you feel if some country dropped off thousands and thousands of troops here in the US and then drove tanks through our streets and shot up our towns, killing out people, taking our oil and anything else that can be pileged. Have people not from this county telling you how your going to now live and it’s all done while your looking at the business end of a full auto capable weapon with a moron with little to no training holding on to it and demanding you do as he says. We’d act just like them and worse over here and that’s a fact! Americans are super scared people and that’s proven when anything gun related goes down everyone goes out and panic buys all the guns and ammo they can. So imagine how we’d truly react! These people might be our enemy now, but maybe it’s because we can’t mind our own business and keep our military out of their own countries. Spend billions and billions and countless American lives to fight wars that have no reason they started and why they kept going. Imagine if we minded our own business how much money we’d have as a nation and maybe we fouls get paid an actual minimum wage that’d be enough to live a minimal life! But were to busy putting our noses in other country’s business even if it raises to is it’s THEIR country as this is OURS! Next time you think about all these so called crazy people, remember how would you like it if you had FORIEGN tanks, soldiers with full auto weapons waking your streets as the tanks roll down them and jets for over with the chance it could drop a little something leveling blocks?! Im an American and born one to and of course proud to be one, but us being in other peoples counties and them hating us for it is a totally logical way for them to think as would ALL of us if the shoe was on the other foot!
amen brother. well said.
Seems like a terrible idea for the military. Big, bulky, slow, unstable in operation. What is the tactical plan for this thing? Leave it behind when you are in a retreat? Launch it from a truck when using it for urban combat with irregulars? I don’t see this selling well. Why not build a “hand grenade drone”? Smaller, order of magnitude cheaper, further range, deploy in a swarm, drop payload and return (or maybe kamikaze style if cheap enough), fordable for easy portability.
“If cheap enough?” When is anything that the military buys “cheap”? If the government is buying it, the pice will be 10X the civilian price.
Cool toy, but in reality it’s not accurate. Notice the second it fires you can see the entire system move and the gun doesn’t adjust and account for that recoil so every shots a wasted shot if your trying to hit the X they were. And simple logic says if it’s shooting 5.56 then anyone could easily shoot it right out of the sky and now they have a nice belt fed AR. These drones in my opinion to be used as a weapon would only be truly effective if the people flying them were smart enough to land the thing abs building a way it can land and affix itself to the ground very securely so the gun could effectively be used as a sniper rifle and can get up and fly away if it’s position is found. And mount a very long range gun that couldn’t easily be shot down due to the extreme distance it’d fly at, land at, and shoot from. One day these people building these will find out there has already been known for every reaction there’s an equal and opposite reaction and in flight on a platform that can barely handle it’s own payload will never ever be able to handle the recoil and stay on target.
Actually it’s handling the recoil quite well. If you read the article it says it “can stabilize itself midair as well as control the recoil using a set of arms that mount the machine gun.” I think a 40mm grenade launcher would be far more effective than a machinegun. It wouldn’t need to be pin-point in accuracy and it wouldn’t need to fire nearly as many rounds.
“Militant Groups” aka terrorist orgs have been adapting drones to drop grenades/satchel charges and fire small arms for a couple years. Most of it done in small tech shops. They built remotely controlled vehicles but there is no shortage of volunteer drivers.