Gremlins' principal jobs would be intercepting communications, jamming signals and hunting for things to be destroyed, thus softening up the defences in contested airspace to make it safer for crewed aircraft.Such drones could also be armed with small missiles or explosives for a kamikaze attack.And they would both share data and co-operate among themselves, and pass reconnaissance and targeting information back to warships and aircraft able to fire bigger missiles than they could carry.Gremlin swarms would no doubt suffer losses.But drawing enemy fire would actually be an objective, says Andrew Krepinevich, the boss of a defence consultancy called Solarium, which advises the defence department on aspects of naval and aerial warfare.This way, Gremlins would flush out the position of any hostile missile battery that switched on its targeting radar, marking it for subsequent destruction.In the calculus of combat, sacrificing a drone or two to knock out an enemy air-defence battery makes for a nice swap.Gremlins should therefore be thought of as "tradable" for systems of greater value, says Mr Wierzbanowski.The better to fool the foe, military planners also envisage airlaunched drones that mimic the radar and heat signatures of bigger fighter jets and bombers.This would be done by using shapes and materials that reflect rather than absorbing radar pings, and by leaving an engine's heat signature unmasked.
