kamikaze drone

plural kamikaze drones

1. informalgovernmentA drone vehicle that attacks targets by crashing into them and exploding.

   One such kamikaze drone is called the Switchblade; it was introduced by AeroVironment in 2012 and sold widely to the US military.

   2020, Michael J. Boyle, The Drone Age: How Drone Technology Will Change War and Peace, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 138

   3 more examples

   This aircraft would essentially function as a kamikaze drone, crashing into its target and detonating its explosives upon impact, and did not appear to be much of a step up from the single-use drones Iran had years earlier.

   2014, Peter Bergen, Daniel Rothenberg, editors, Drone Wars, Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 302

   The Ukrainians themselves have been using kamikaze drones to strike against Russian targets – and asked their allies to supply them with more of these deadly weapons.

   2022 October 17, Ivana Kottasová, “‘Kamikaze’ drones are the latest threat for Ukraine. Here’s what we know”, in CNN

   As we predicted at the time, a drone attack on Sevastopol's Black Sea Fleet headquarters over the summer proved an incredible harbinger of the war's next chapter. Ukraine has used improvised unmanned systems – primarily its so-called 'Alibaba drones' — to attack beyond its current territorial bounds and even into Russia proper. The introduction of unmanned drone ships configured as anti-ship weapons is an extension of these tactics. Russia's use en-masse of Iranian kamikaze drones against Ukrainian infrastructure in the last two months, as well as Ukraine increasing its own kamikaze drone operations in an attempt to strike back, has further evolved at least one major facet of conflict into a drone war of sorts.

   2022 October 29, Howard Altman, Stetson Payne, Tyler Rogoway, “Ukraine Unleashes Mass Kamikaze Drone Boat Attack On Russia's Black Sea Fleet Headquarters”, in The Drive, retrieved 14 Nov 2022

   Synonyms: suicide drone