Among military websites, the headlines are all atwitter
about the US’ use of the one-way, LUCAS, attack drone in the strikes against Iran.
Here’s a Military Times website headline[1]:
US Confirms First Combat Use of LUCAS One-Way Attack Drone in Iran Strikes
This is a simply stunning development and marks a new
chapter in strike warfare. From the
LUCAS performance specs, never before has any country had the ability to
deliver a maximum 40 lb payload to a distance of 500 miles at a cruise speed of
85 mph (74 kts). The closest the US has
come to this in the past is the one-way Tomahawk attack drone (sometimes referred to as a cruise missile) with a 1000 lb
warhead and a range of 1000 miles at a speed of Mach 0.74. (570 mph).
It’s embarrassing the way we’ve made a habit of proudly
trumpeting “new” technologies that have actually existed for many decades. That’s not to say that there isn’t a use for
a small, very slow missile (which is what a one-way drone is) with very low end
lethality but to brag that we’ve accomplished something remarkable is
humiliating and deceptive (or ignorant).
Here’s an example of an embarrassing attempt at praise from
Army Recognition website.
“overwhelm defenses” ? Isn’t that what we’ve done repeatedly when we’ve launched dozens of cruise missiles at targets over the years?
“massed, distributed
effects” ? Isn’t that a contradiction?
“expendable systems”
? Haven’t missiles always been
expendable?
“scalable” ? Haven’t
we always scaled operations as needed?
Well, sure, we’ve done all that for many decades but never
before have assembled all the accolades into a single press release. Now that’s an accomplishment!
Again, at $35,000 per unit, there may be a use for such a
weapon but to believe it is something new is just ignorant and embarrassing.
Warning: As usual, we are not going to discuss the
politics of the US decision to strike Iran, only the military aspects.
U.S. Central Command has moved Task Force Scorpion Strike into an operational posture, giving deployed forces a low-cost one-way attack drone capability designed to multiply strike capacity, absorb attrition, and overwhelm defenses through massed, distributed effects. Beyond adding another munition to the inventory, it effectively creates a new layer of “magazine depth” that can be launched quickly from dispersed sites, complicating enemy targeting and imposing unfavorable cost trades on air defenses. The shift matters less for a single drone’s performance than for what it signals: the U.S. military is now treating expendable systems as a scalable combat arm, not a niche experiment … [2]
“overwhelm defenses” ? Isn’t that what we’ve done repeatedly when we’ve launched dozens of cruise missiles at targets over the years?
https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2026/02/28/us-confirms-first-combat-use-of-lucas-one-way-attack-drone-in-iran-strikes/
https://www.armyrecognition.com/news/aerospace-news/2026/u-s-central-command-deploys-first-operational-lucas-drone-unit-for-potential-iran-strikes#google_vignette
