The Loitering Missile knows you will be leaving the house, eventually. It flies in and circles, high above you, for ten hours, always locked and poised to hone in on you within 60 seconds of its cameras making a positive identification.
Unlike other missiles, this one can wait around...
A revolutionary missile that can stalk a target until the perfect moment to strike is being developed by the Ministry of Defence for use against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The so-called lurker bomb will also be able to shadow British troops for up to ten hours or 100 miles, ready to take out enemy targets with surgical precision at a minute’s notice.
Fire Shadow’s ability to ‘stooge’ above the troops means it can be guided to a target within seconds. And its deadly precision requires only a small warhead of 50lb, compared with the RAF’s smallest bomb of 500lb.
Fire Shadow can be guided to its target by troops on the ground with lasers, by operators in aircraft or helicopters, or by the Army’s new Watchkeeper surveillance drone.
The concept of a lurker bomb is the cornerstone of the MoD’s Indirect-Fire Precision Attack project. Fire Shadow is one of six projects that include an artillery shell that can electronically ‘sense’ its target, a new anti-aircraft missile for the Royal Navy, and advanced guidance for the new Guided Multiple Launch Rocket System (GMLRS).
It will also make one hell of a convincing blackmail-extortion weapon.
You get a phone call, you're told to deposit $5 million into an account, the missile is flying, you can't escape it, it knows exactly where you are, you have six hours to come up with the cash or the missile takes you, and whoever happens to be around you, out.
