The following piece, written by Jim Morris, first appeared on Warrior Maven, a Military Content Group member website.
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It’s a “kamikaze” drone that is designed for use on land, sea, or in the air, can loiter over targets, and has a range of at least 200 miles. Now, all Northrop Grumman needs is a customer.
Northrop unveiled the drone, called the Lumberjack, at last week’s Modern Day Marine conference in Washington. The Lumberjack is powered by a jet engine and can carry submunitions such as Northrop’s six-pound strike weapon called Hatchet, which would seem to be the perfectly named munition to be carried by a Lumberjack.
According to the company, the Lumberjack can loiter over a target for a couple of hours. It’s fully autonomous, but can also carry out orders from personnel on the ground. Northrop has been conducting flight tests since 2024.
“We’ve demonstrated two different launchers. One is an electric rail system developed for…the Navy,” Northrop director of technology Michael Bastin told The War Zone. “We’ve also launched it using a pneumatic technique, which is field-deployable…If the ground forces want it, it’s basically a large, effectively a potato gun. Very cheap, very easy to build.”
Bastin told TWZ the company has been working with the Pentagon on development and is now looking for customers so it can move to the production and testing phase.
The following piece, written by Jim Morris, first appeared on Warrior Maven, a Military Content Group member website.
—
It’s a “kamikaze” drone that is designed for use on land, sea, or in the air, can loiter over targets, and has a range of at least 200 miles. Now, all Northrop Grumman needs is a customer.
Northrop unveiled the drone, called the Lumberjack, at last week’s Modern Day Marine conference in Washington. The Lumberjack is powered by a jet engine and can carry submunitions such as Northrop’s six-pound strike weapon called Hatchet, which would seem to be the perfectly named munition to be carried by a Lumberjack.
According to the company, the Lumberjack can loiter over a target for a couple of hours. It’s fully autonomous, but can also carry out orders from personnel on the ground. Northrop has been conducting flight tests since 2024.
“We’ve demonstrated two different launchers. One is an electric rail system developed for…the Navy,” Northrop director of technology Michael Bastin told The War Zone. “We’ve also launched it using a pneumatic technique, which is field-deployable…If the ground forces want it, it’s basically a large, effectively a potato gun. Very cheap, very easy to build.”
Bastin told TWZ the company has been working with the Pentagon on development and is now looking for customers so it can move to the production and testing phase.
The Lumberjack is considered part of Group 3 of unmanned aerial systems (UAS). Drones in that category must have a maximum takeoff weight of less than 1,200 pounds, be able to fly below 18,000 feet, and have a speed of between 115 and 287 miles per hour.
Lumberjack’s unveiling attracted the attention of the Russian news media. Pravda claimed that the drone’s capabilities “could have been borrowed from the development of the Sukhoi design bureau, the Product 71 drones, which are used to arm Russian fifth-generation Su-57 fighters.”
In the last several years, the US – along with Russia, China and others – has been ramping up its developed of drones, which many say are the future of warfare. They are seen as a cost-effective means of attacking targets at a distance while putting fewer humans at risk. They’re also seen as an enhancement to surveillance capabilities.
In his memo entitled “Army Transformation and Acquisition Reform,” US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered that by the end of 2026, every Army division must deploy drones. Hegseth also wants to add drone swarms that can support fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft, while reducing the number of crewed helicopters.
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