U.S. Army Central Command (CENTCOM) reported in early December on creating a squadron of LUCAS low-cost unmanned aerial vehicles, which are essentially copies of Shahed-131 attack drones, and targets for which, judging by everything, are Iran and forces this country supports, given that this command's area of responsibility is the Middle East.
The LUCAS drone from SpektreWorks company was first presented in summer this year as a cheap alternative to expensive strike means; as of July, it was stated that it had already passed testing and was ready for production. However, as Forbes emphasizes, at least in the near future, LUCAS drones won't be able to perform their main mission strike tasks.
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So, the publication drew attention to a U.S. Army press release from December 3 this year, which plainly states that LUCAS attack drones… don't have a warhead. And we're talking not only about it not being installed on drones, but about it simply not existing.
"The warhead that will eventually be integrated into LUCAS has not yet been designed, but it will also be low-cost and mass-produced by multiple manufacturers," the U.S. Army post states. They note that LUCAS is currently being tested with inert payload.
Indeed, it's worth noting that LUCAS drones are positioned as a modular platform that can perform various tasks on the battlefield be a scout, act as a communication relay, and off the battlefield be used as a target drone.
However, LUCAS drone's main purpose is still a low-cost strike means. After all, this is embedded in its name Low-cost Unmanned Combat Attack System, and this is also actively emphasized directly in the U.S. Army, for example, in the same press release where it's acknowledged that LUCAS don't have a warhead, it says these drones are one-way attack aircraft, literally kamikaze drones.
However, for LUCAS to be truly an attack drone, a small nuance remains make a warhead for it. As of today, it remains unknown whether work is even underway in this direction and how quickly they can actually make a warhead for this drone.
And overall, it looks like the U.S. simply rushed with implementing the plan to saturate the military with relatively cheap strike systems as opposed to available and quite expensive weapons.
Because we're talking about a direct initiative of U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth so, in early July this year he issued a directive on unlocking the potential of American drone advantage, which is primarily aimed at arming troops with cheap drones, and the contract with SpektreWorks, manufacturer of LUCAS drones, took effect a few weeks after that, on July 24.
It's also worth noting that in early December, the Defense Department released information that as part of implementing Hegseths strategy, a request for information was submitted to assess defense industry readiness to quickly and inexpensively manufacture about 300,000 drones.
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