Recoilless shotguns arent just pulling the stock off your grandpa's shottie. They have a specific gas chamber design that is specific (ie not cheap to buy). They're also not light so the drone has to be able to lift it.

Heavier drones like that werent widely available initially - UA were just getting in as many DJI drones from China as they could lay their hands on. Now they are making their own they can adapt the design to different uses.

Also using a low cost quad drone to kamikaze another drone was probably cheaper than specialist ones to shoot them down.

[–] Grabthar@lemmy.world 13 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

I'd expect also because having your drone tech in thousands of pieces when its finished is probably a desirable thing. Reuseable may be environmentally friendly, but it lets the enemy follow you home and halves your range too.

[–] abrasiveteapot@sh.itjust.works 4 points 4 weeks ago

Good point.

(I was going to make a hammer reference but I figure that's probably worn thin.)

[–] bluGill@fedia.io 1 points 4 weeks ago

The real advantage to something like this is the drone you flew for 10 minutes to reach the enemy can take out 1-2 drones with the shotgun, then destroy itself taking down a third, while a drone that only takes down one enemy drone means 10 more minutes getting the next to that area.