"The sniper never knew what hit him. The Marines patrolling the street below were taking fire, but did not have a clear shot at the third-story window that the sniper was shooting from. They were pinned down and called for reinforcements.
Help came from a Predator drone circling the skies 20 miles away. As the unmanned plane closed in, the infrared camera underneath its nose picked up the muzzle flashes from the window. The sniper was still firing when the Predator's 100-pound Hellfire missile came through the window and eliminated the threat."
Via The Wall Street Journal
3 comments:
Ain't our military cool?
Winning a battle is good. It was well worth the $100,000 cost of the missile to save the GI's lives.
But killing individual snipers with Hellfire missiles designed to kill tanks at $100,000 each is not optimal in the kind of war of attrition we are fighting in Iraq, and creates a high risk of collateral damage.
The Viper Strike missiles for the Predator, which are about half the size are better for the job, but still almost as expensive because most of a missile's cost is in the guidance system.
couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
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