Easy to make, cheap to buy, simple to fly and hard to detect, small drones—many commercially available—are becoming major concerns to military forces and security operations. Defense contractors and others are racing to offer capabilities to minimize and defeat these threats. Israeli companies are establishing countermeasures in this area, as are contractors and research institutes elsewhere.
Paramilitaries and insurgents operate drones in ways similar to the military, although their unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) tend to be smaller tactical systems and not the large platforms used by land, sea and air forces. The most popular systems are mini-UAVs, as well as commercial drones and multirotor craft that can be used for surveillance, reconnaissance and fire direction.
Obtaining real-time intelligence with UAVs markedly improves the precision and effectiveness of missile and rocket attacks, especially for guided rockets such as the Fateh 110 Iran supplies to the terror group Hezbollah. UAVs can also be used for strike missions, carrying missiles or other ordnance, or “suicide attacks” where they become precision-guided weapons when equipped with explosive warheads.
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