The Russian company that gave the world the iconic AK-47 assault rifle has unveiled a suicide drone that may similarly revolutionize war by making sophisticated drone warfare technology widely and cheaply available.
The Kalashnikov Group put a model of its miniature exploding drone on display this week at a major defense exhibition in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, where the world's arms companies gather every two years to show off and market their latest wares.
The tiny item was dwarfed by the tanks, armored vehicles and fighter jets that were also on display. But it has as much potential to change the face of war as its older cousin, the AK-47, widely referred to simply as the Kalashnikov.
With its low price, high efficiency and ease of use, the Kalashnikov rifle became the weapon of choice for revolutionaries and insurgents around the world, empowering disgruntled citizens against their governments in Latin America, Africa and Asia. It remains a potent tool to this day: The Pentagon purchases secondhand Kalashnikov rifles for its allies in Syria and Afghanistan, rather than give them more expensive American-made guns.
The Kalashnikov drone - officially named the KUB-UAV - will likewise be simple to operate, effective and cheap, its manufacturers claim - and just as revolutionary. It will mark "a step toward a completely new form of combat," said Sergey Chemezov, chairman of Russia's state-owned Rostec arms manufacturer, which owns a controlling stake in Kalashnikov, according to Kalashnikov's news statement on the launch.
The KUB is four feet wide, can fly for 30 minutes at a speed of 80 mph and carries six pounds of explosives, the news release says. That makes it roughly the size of a coffee table that can be guided to explode on a target 40 miles away - the equivalent of a "small, slow and presumably inexpensive cruise missile," according to a report by the National Interest website.
Whoever buys one will have the ability to steer a bomb with a high degree of accuracy unparalleled except by some of the U.S. military's smartest bombs, said Nicholas Grossman, a professor of international relations at the University of Illinois and author of the book "Drones and Terrorism."
"I think of it as democratizing smart bombs," he said "It means disseminating smart bombs more widely. This would shrink the gap between the most advanced militaries and the smaller ones."
Suicide drones are not new. The Islamic State pioneered the art of attaching explosives to commercially available drones and detonating them on advancing troops and enemy bases during the battles for the cities of Mosul and Raqqa in Iraq and Syria.
Russian troops in Syria were targeted by the biggest-ever suicide drone assault in Syria last year, when a swarm of more than a dozen crudely assembled devices incorporating explosives and GPS guidance systems descended onto Russia's Hmeimim air base in Syria.