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General Atomics MQ-9 Reapers are especially valued, the first hunter-killer UAV designed for long endurance, high surveillance targeting, used by the Air Force, Navy, US Customs and Border Protection, UK Royal Air Force, and Italian Air Force. The CIA prefers smaller, lightweight, less obtrusive drones for killing.
The Pentagon just released its 30-year aircraft procurement plans, projected to be more robotic than ever, budgeted for about $25 billion annually, including doubling its robot fleet by 2021, saying:
"The number of platforms in this category - RQ-4 Global Hawk-class, MQ-9 Reaper, and MQ-1 Predator-class unnammed aircraft systems - will grow from approximately 340 in (FY) 2012 to approximately 650 in FY 2021."
The Army's got a Gray Eagle Reaper-like drone. The Marines want a similar one as part of their Group 4 Unmanned Air System program. The Navy's so-called Unmanned Carrier-Launched Airborne Strike and Surveillance initiative aims to put jet-powered killer drones on carrier decks no later than 2018. Around the same time, the Air Force may start buying jet-powered ones to complement its prop-driven Reaper.
By decade's end, it hopes to have enough medium and large drones to maintain at least 65 round-the-clock "orbits" compared to now. Combined with other service branches, 100 or more permanently positioned killer drones may launch precision-guided bombs and missiles on targets virtually anywhere.
Moreover, improved sensors like the Air Force's Gorgon Stare and new foliage-penetrating radars will let new generations of drones do what multiple ones are needed for now.
Given the profit potential, US defense contractors are scrambling for part of a bigger pie, developing new killer drone models, including Boeing's X-45C, Northrop Grumman's X-47B and General Atomic's Avenger. Others will follow to satisfy the Pentagon's insatiable appetite for remote killing and destruction on a global scale.
If America's military had a motto, it would be war is good, the more the better. How else can generals get stars?
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