US defence dept. plans to arm more drones with guided weapons for combat missions

The US Defence Department is reportedly planning to weaponise more drones for combat missions.

The Pentagon is considering adapting multiple weapons for drones, including the including the Cold War-era Hydra 70 rocket and the Laser Homing Attack or Anti-Tank Missile, or LAHAT.

According to its latest report on the future of unmanned systems, Pentagon has noted that unmanned systems can be used in significantly different operating and threat conditions than manned platforms and come in a much wider range of classes and sizes, Fox News reports.

The document revealed that the Pentagon plans to spend almost 24 billion dollars on unmanned air, ground and maritime systems over the next five years through fiscal 2018.

As the department develops systems that can operate in contested areas such as the Asia-Pacific, it's trying to find ways to arm its nearly 11,000 aerial drones with existing weapons, the report said.

The document noted that adapting proven weapons technology with new concepts in unmanned and manned systems will be critical to improving the sensor-to-shooter equation and further decreasing in the kill chain timeline, the report added.