Don’t be fooled by their bird names. Colibri and Larinae are formidable weapons. It is about ammunition for rodents also called suicide drones whose mission is to hunt down an enemy to destroy it in an explosion. In reality, they are civilian drones equipped with bombs capable of destroying infrastructure and vehicles.
A rotary wing drone
To compensate for this delay, the Ministry of the Armed Forces and the Defense Innovation Agency launched a call for projects last May. Almost twenty French companies had submitted their applications. The results of this industrial competition have been announced. Colibri was entrusted to MBDA and Novadem. For Larinae, it will be up to Nexter and Delair to create these new weapons.
Colibri will be a rotating wing machine. It could be based on the NX70 used since 2018 for reconnaissance missions by the French army. For Larinae, the Nexter/Delair duo could use the UX11 drone. According to Challenges, it should be armed with “controlled fragmentation” payloads developed by Nexter.
Simple, effective and economical.
AID’s specifications are clear. Larinae must be able to neutralize an armored vehicle with “targeting metric accuracy” at a distance of more than 50 kilometers and provide a range of 60 minutes. For its part, Colibri aims for the same capacity but with a range reduced to 5 kilometers and a range of 30 minutes.
The manufacturers’ challenge was also economic, with the guarantee of being able to produce quickly and in sufficient quantities, the director of AID, Emmanuel Chiva, who since then became General Delegate for Armaments, specified at the time. The cost of the Larinae must not exceed 200,000 euros and that of the Colibri 20,000 euros maximum.
Demonstrators for these two projects are expected before the end of 2023.
Source: BFM TV
