Drone Database

Compact, man-portable loitering munition that can search for and engage targets autonomously or with operator guidance. Combines drone ISR with precision strike in a single system. Launched from a tube, loiters until target identified, then dives to attack.

Long-range, large-warhead loitering munition designed for strategic strike. Navigates by GPS/INS to pre-programmed targets over hundreds or thousands of kilometres; 2026 variants add onboard electro-optical seekers with machine-vision AI for terminal target acquisition, defeating GPS spoofing and enabling strikes on moving or relocated targets. Designed for saturation attacks that overwhelm air defences — a low-cost cruise-missile substitute produced in the thousands per month. Tactical employment is doctrinal and mass-driven: launches are batched in waves of dozens to over a hundred airframes routed along multiple axes, mixing decoys and real warheads to force the defender to expend high-cost interceptors on low-cost targets. Terminal approach is low-altitude to defeat medium-range radars, with cruise legs above the small-arms envelope but well below fighter and long-range SAM sweet spots — the geometry is deliberately inconvenient for every existing defence. Machine-vision seeker variants close the last kill loop autonomously: once the aircraft is within visual range of the target class it was trained on, GPS spoofing and INS drift stop mattering. The defensive problem is arithmetic. Medium-range SAMs and fighter cannon kill this platform reliably per engagement, but at a per-round cost that inverts the exchange ratio; interceptor drones and gun-based C-UAS shift the ratio back toward the defender but require dense coverage of every likely ingress corridor. High-power microwave and laser systems close the cost gap once fielded at scale, but 2025–2026 fielding remains partial. Recent combat observations: sustained saturation campaigns against Ukrainian energy and port infrastructure with launches reaching 5,000+ per month by late 2025 (ISIS analytical review), jet-powered variants entering serial production from early 2025 with speeds near 600 km/h (UAS Vision), a 2026 seeker variant flown into a Ukrainian grain ship in the Danube delta with jamming ineffective against its onboard machine-vision guidance (Euromaidan Press Jul 2026), and the 170-airframe Iranian direct strike on Israel in April 2024 as the canonical demonstration that even near-total interception by a layered defence is economically unsustainable at scale (CSIS Drone Saturation, RUSI Air War).

Standoff glide bomb fitted with pop-out wings, GPS/INS guidance and a satellite-corrected autopilot. Released from a manned aircraft well outside short-range air defense, it glides 40–80 km onto fixed targets. Cheap upgrade kits convert legacy unguided bombs into precision standoff weapons, dominating Russian frontline strike since 2023.

Long-range, propeller-driven, one-way attack drone designed for pre-programmed strikes against fixed strategic targets — power grids, ports, airfields, refineries. Distinct from loitering munitions: it does not loiter or hunt. It flies a pre-planned route on GPS + inertial guidance and detonates a heavy warhead on impact. The dominant deep-strike asset of the Russia–Ukraine war and the Houthi campaign in the Red Sea.