On Sat, 15 May 2004 23:54:17 GMT, Chad Irby wrote:

In article ,
Peter Kemp wrote:

On 15 May 2004 21:18:29 GMT, (Dav1936531) wrote:

I am seeing all kinds of pics comming out of Iraq of the jihadis
mulling around in the streets carrying RPG's and AK's.

I was just wondering if it would be possible to make a Predator
drone with a .50 caliber sniper rifle in it to pick these guys off.
Say, put a magazine with 50 or 100 rounds onboard, loiter the drone
over bad guy areas, spot them with the Predator's optical systems,
and zap them. Human snipers using the .50 have kill shots from over
1 mile away.

Two reasons this won't work

1. The loiters at high altitude, and even if it could be stable enough
at that distance (it can't), the rounds would tumble in flight after
running out of energy.

2. See 1.

On the other hand, guided, cheap micromissiles might work. A pound or
so each, with a strong IR emitter in the tail for tracking, dropped from
20,000 feet and steered by radio.

Wouldn't even need to be powered, just fin-stabilized and pointy. If
you want to get really mean, put a shotgun-type charge in the front and
have it fire off a hundred feet or so feet the ground to cover a couple
of square meters.

VIPER STRIKE does this job nicely (or will once it reaches Iraq) -
Laser guided submunition dropped by a Hunter UAV - don't know what the
warhead size is, but it's probably better for low collateral damage
than a 500lb JDAM dropped in a marketplace.

Peter Kemp