Mini Missiles

While the death ray invented by the Navy is really neat, the Office of Naval Research has just released info on another project that is potentially far more important in the short term. They've come up with a way to graft an inexpensive IR seeker head onto a standard 2.75" folding-fin aerial rocket, the mainstay of close support helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft since World War II. This essentially turns the rocket into a bargain basement self-guided missile.

It's been tested successfully (by my beloved Corps, natch) in a single-rocket configuration. But what's really fascinating is what it will lead to: Medusa, a system which can launch an entire pod of self-guiding rockets simultaneously, each one homing on an individual target. How big a deal is that? Well, a single helicopter or drone could take out an entire column of soft-skinned vehicles (a mobile infantry company, for example) in one attack pass.

Comin' at ya, Mohammed!