Man, do I want a couple of these

I could take them with me on my morning commute, give a whole new meaning to "road rage." OK, maybe not, but this thing is pretty cool. After all, who doesn't want to have a kamikaze drone lying around, ready to use:



Mrs. Wolves sent me this story on the Switchblade a while ago. I've been saving it for a rainy day when I needed an easy, weapons-porn post. This is that day:

The Marines tested a small unmanned aircraft known as the Switchblade recently at Twentynine Palms, Calif., flying it directly at targets from both the ground and the back of the Osprey, a long-range aircraft that has rotors like a helicopter, but can fly like a plane once they rotate forward. They were “inert,” with no explosives on board, but the mission went off without a hitch, said Col. James Adams, commanding officer of Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron 1.
“They can kamikaze this thing into a target,” Adams said. “It’s not a huge explosive charge, but like a hand grenade explosive charge.”
The Switchblade’s utility as a kamikaze drone has been known for years. It’s made by AeroVironment, of Monrovia, Calif., a firm that has developed a number of small unmanned aircraft. But most media reports about it have focused on how ground troops could launch it at a target. It can be carried in a backpack, and has wings that flip out after it is fired from a tube, company officials say.

Pretty sweet, if you asked me. Gotta like the Marines staying on the cutting edge of killing people they don't like.