[cbozeman]

I can't edit my original comment, or else I'd add this line:

Everyone afraid of this, you ought to be afraid of micro-drones like the Black Hornet Nano - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Hornet_Nano

No one is going to send a fleet of these ultra-expensive Robo-Killers to assassinate you and everyone else on the battlefield. Once these micro-drones can be mass produced cheaply enough, and you can put enough high-explosive on them to fly up to a person's neck and !!pop!! someone's head clean off, you'll see them programmed with swarm behavior and be unleashed onto the battlefield.

They fly faster than you can run (13 miles per hour), have a 1 mile range, and a 25 minute flight time. More than enough capability to swarm entire battalions and wipe them out.

[0x0203]

> Everyone afraid of this, you ought to be afraid of micro-drones like the Black Hornet Nano

>They fly faster than you can run (13 miles per hour), have a 1 mile range, and a 25 minute flight time.

And can be trivially defeated by some netting, blinded by bright lights/lasers, and/or knocked out of the sky by leaf blowers and umbrellas. Despite what certain propagandaesque sci-fi "warning" videos would have people believe, I'm least worried about these nano-drones. At the end of the day bullets are still cheaper, less complicated, and more effective. And as soon as you give the drones some standoff capabilities to mitigate some of the countermeasures, you start loosing many of the perceived "benefits" and are back to just using guys with guns.

[richardw]

That escalated. I started with a few power cords for the Roomba and now I never leave home without a laser, net and leaf blower.

[klyrs]

I agree, that single nano-drone isn't scary. What of a swarm of hundreds?

[0x0203]

Cost and complexity. If you have to send so many to overwhelm and bypass all the countermeasures, the cost and complexity of make it a much less practical and appealing solution than just doing it the old fashioned way. I can't see how brass, lead, and gunpowder will ever be more expensive than light weight plastics/composites, electronics, sensors, motors, batteries, plus the actual lethal component. Add to that the required time/complexity required to configure and deploy, situational considerations such as weather, sensor viability, terrain/environment factors, etc... and we're back to going back to guys with guns. Could there conceivably be a scenario where this might be the best option? I suppose, but in my estimation it would likely be the option of last resort.

If an enemy force has already made up its mind to kill, I don't see this making it any easier/more reliable/more effective than well-established alternatives.

[sumtechguy]

That depends on the target. The military is quite ready and willing to spend tax dollars on things even if at the end of it there is something cheaper that does the job better.