Category Archives: Kamikaze

Hero 120 Loitering Munition

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The Navy/Marine Corps has a new weapon in their inventory, and it may be just what the Coast Guard needs to deal with the potential threat of small, fast, highly maneuverable craft. It is a loitering munition, a drone with a warhead, making it a kind of slow cruise missile with an ability to abort.

Hero 120 will be going on the Marine Corps Long Range Unmanned Surface Vessel (LRUSV) as well as Marine manned ground vehicles.

Weight (with canister): 18 kg (40 pounds)
Warhead: 4.5 kg (10 pounds)
Range: 60+ km (32.4 nautical miles)
Endurance: 60 min
Engine: Electrical
Launch method: Single/Multi-Canister

Range is to some extent apparently limited by line of sight, but this could be used from land or from virtually any patrol boat.

Take a look.

“Ukraine Situation Report: This May Be Russia’s First Kamikaze Drone Boat Attack” –The Drive

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The Drive comments on the report tweeted above.

I would note a couple of things.

This kind of attack, against a fixed structure, does not require any contact with the USV once it is launched because its guidance can be entirely preprogrammed. That may have some disadvantages, but it also means there are no emissions from the UAS that might be intercepted.

Second, the explosion was not close to one of the supports, and it did not explode under the lift bridge section which would have been the more vulnerable part of the bridge. I doubt it did much damage.