Defense & Combat
Military drone news from UASFeed — UAS programs, battlefield lessons from Ukraine and beyond, loitering munitions, and how uncrewed systems are changing combat.
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Defense & Combat
Venezuela's 2018 Caracas Drone Attack: First Confirmed UAS Assassination Attempt
On August 4, 2018, two commercially available DJI Matrice 600 hexacopters loaded with C-4 targeted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro at a military parade in Caracas — the first confirmed drone assassination attempt against a sitting head of state, executed for roughly $10,000 in off-the-shelf hardware.
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Defense & Combat
AeroVironment RQ-20 Puma AE: The Hand-Launched ISR Platform That Lands in the Ocean
AeroVironment's RQ-20 Puma AE is a hand-launched, battery-electric small UAS that operates from ship decks to desert outposts, delivering day/night ISR without a runway. A two-decade operational record and front-line deployments in Ukraine make it the Group 1/2 benchmark for allied militaries worldwide.
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Defense & Combat
Bayraktar Kızılelma: Turkey's Jet-Powered UCAV and Its First BVR Kill Explained
Turkey's Bayraktar Kızılelma is a jet-powered, internally-armed, low-observable unmanned fighter that achieved the first-ever UCAV beyond-visual-range air-to-air kill in November 2025. Here's how the platform was built, what it carries, and where it's headed.
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Defense & Combat
Bayraktar TB3: How Turkey Built a Carrier Drone After Losing Its F-35s
Turkey's Bayraktar TB3 is the world's first fixed-wing UCAV to operate autonomously from a short-deck amphibious assault ship — a direct consequence of Ankara's expulsion from the F-35 program and the subsequent pivot to indigenous drone aviation.
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Defense & Combat
China's GJ-11 Sharp Sword: From Stealth Prototype to Deployed Combat Drone
China's GJ-11 'Sharp Sword' flying-wing stealth UCAV has moved from a 2013 technology demonstrator to official PLAAF formation footage, high-altitude border deployments, and a folding-wing carrier variant. A full technical breakdown of the world's most advanced non-NATO stealth combat drone.
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Defense & Combat
China’s WZ-7 Soaring Dragon: The HALE Drone Reshaping PLA Surveillance
China’s WZ-7 Xianglong is the PLA’s operational high-altitude ISR drone — a joined-wing platform purpose-built for Pacific and Indian Ocean surveillance. Documented sorties from Tibet to the Sea of Japan and a naval variant wired to feed anti-ship targeting data mark it as the backbone of China’s kill-chain architecture.
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Defense & Combat
ScanEagle and RQ-21A Blackjack: Inside Insitu’s Runway-Free ISR Platform Family
From a commercial fish-finder drone to front-line ISR in Ukraine, the Insitu ScanEagle and RQ-21A Blackjack are defined by a single design constraint: no runway needed. Here is how the platforms work, where they’ve fought, and why the formula endures.
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Defense & Combat
Russia's Geran-2 Factory: How Alabuga Became the War's Highest-Volume Drone Plant
Russia's Geran-2 loitering munition—a rebranded Iranian Shahed-136—is now manufactured at 170 units per day from a 17-facility complex in Tatarstan. This explainer traces how the Alabuga Special Economic Zone became the production system behind the conflict's most-fired strike weapon, and why layered Western sanctions have not stopped it.
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Defense & Combat
Russia's S-70 Okhotnik: Inside the Stealth UCAV That Shot Itself Down
Russia's most advanced stealth UCAV was destroyed by what open-source analysis indicates was likely its own Su-57 escort over Donetsk in October 2024. The armed wreckage handed NATO a technical intelligence windfall — and exposed a program running three production-deadline slips behind schedule.
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Defense & Combat
Watchkeeper WK450: Britain's £1.35 Billion Tactical Drone, Explained
The British Army's Watchkeeper WK450 spent fourteen years reaching full operational capability, lost eight of fifty-four airframes, and cost £1.35 billion before being retired nearly two decades ahead of schedule. A deep read on what went wrong — and what it means for Western tactical-UAS procurement.
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Defense & Combat
Ukraine's Lyutyi Drones Set Moscow's Largest Oil Refinery Ablaze on Night Nine of Capital Strikes
Ukrainian Lyutyi strike drones hit the Gazprom Neft Moscow Oil Refinery in Kapotnya on June 16–17, 2026 — the ninth consecutive night of drone attacks on the Russian capital — igniting the ELOU AVT-6 processing unit and halting operations while G7 leaders debated ceasefire terms in France.
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Defense & Combat
Air-Launched Effects and Drone Motherships: How Stacking Range Reshapes Aerial Warfare
Air-launched effects (ALE) divorce mission risk from platform cost by stacking a mothership's standoff range on top of a drone's own reach — letting aircraft dispense swarms deep inside defended airspace without entering it. From DARPA's Gremlins to China's Jiutian, the concept is going mainstream.
