Pentagon Wants to Mass Produce Kamikaze Attack Drones It Used to Strike Iran
The Defense Department wants to mass produce a kamikaze drone the U.S. military recently used to strike Iran, according to the top Pentagon official.
The one-way attack drone, called Lucas, is an American-made copy of Iran's Shahed drones, which have terrorized Iran’s neighbors in the weeks following the U.S. and Israeli-led strikes. The U.S. military deployed the Lucas to the Middle East in late last year.
“After only a few years, we continue to refine that and make that something that we can mass produce at scale,” Emil Michael, the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering, said Tuesday at an industry conference in Arlington, Va. “They’ve worked very well so far and it’s proven out to be a useful tool in the arsenal,” Michael said of the Lucas drones.
SpektreWorks has manufactured “dozens” of the drones, he said. The U.S. military has not disclosed how many of the Lucas drones it has used in combat.