Battleland

Hellfire: Now Debuting Over Libya

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aU1ukWWOFqg]

So we’ve got up to four AGM-114 Hellfire missiles hanging from a pair of Predators now flying over Libya. The advantage to piggybacking these missiles on drones is that they can loiter over hostile territory for hours, often without people on the ground aware that they’re circling lazily overhead. Joy-stick-twiddling human operators — perhaps thousands of miles away — monitor ground traffic and can target enemy armor pretty much instantly. The five-foot long missile, seven inches in diameter, weighs about 100 pounds, including a 20-pound warhead that’s guided to its target by a laser. It supposedly can kill any tank in the world. Unfortunately, you can’t buy one of these for home use. But there is a wooden model for sale.