The Little Drone That Could

Henry Kissinger once complained that the Pentagon was crediting its long-range cruise missile with being a cure for everything but the common cold. It may not be the ultimate doomsday weapon, but this armed drone, which looks a bit like a stunted jet plane, promises to become one of the most versatile weapons in the U.S. arsenal--and the Russians have good reason to be impressed.

A descendant of World War II's German V-l "buzz bomb," the cruise is small (a typical model is about 20 ft. long and 20 in. in diameter) and relatively cheap (well under $1 million each). Different versions have been successfully test-fired from submerged submarines, surface ships and B-52 bombers. Most earlier versions of the cruise--such as the Mace, the Snark and Regulus I--were primarily tactical weapons. Technological advances in recent years have given their successors, the Navy's Tomahawk and the Air Force's ALCM, a powerful, strategic wallop. Guided by miniaturized computers and powered by tiny jet engines, these low-flying cruises have ranges of more than 1,500 miles and can deliver 200-kiloton nuclear warheads (equivalent to about ten Hiroshima bombs) to within 100 feet of their preprogrammed targets. They are so accurate, in fact, that experts speculate that in some situations they could carry conventional rather than nuclear warheads and still destroy their target.

Although the Soviets trail in cruise technology, Pentagon experts estimate that the Russians could catch up in about five years. Moreover, the cruise could not be used to launch a surprise attack; its leisurely subsonic speed (for extreme long range: 400 m.p.h.) gives plenty of warning that it is on its way. But the cruise is a powerful deterrent to a first-strike Soviet attack. Both cheap and mobile, cruises can be deployed in such massive numbers across the U.S., in planes and at sea that it would be impossible for the Soviets to destroy them all. The surviving cruises would then be able to counterattack the Soviet Union. The number of Russian antiaircraft weapons required to shoot the incoming cruises out of the sky would bust the Kremlin's military budget. No wonder the Pentagon is so fond of the drone.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.