POTD: The Flying Heckler & Koch HK416F
Weaponized drones - the biggest fear on the modern battlefield? Here is the French take on the subject, with a Heckler & Koch HK416F Trainer (blue color) up in the sky. We can’t seem to find any firing mechanism, so it’s possible that there’s a continuous laser inside the barrel since the soldiers are wearing laser tag equipment. Or it’s just an empty gun, flying around to show the soldiers a new dimension in their CQB training? In any case, the flying HK416 makes for a great Photo Of The Day. The Avatar UAV is a DJI Matrice 600, weighs about 16 kg, and has a mission endurance of roughly 15-20 minutes.
Here is the caption, translated from the French Armée de Terre and Cenzub 94ème RI Facebook:
“Our training center for urban actions, do you know it?! Better known as Cenzub 94ème RI, it welcomes and trains nearly 15,000 French and foreign soldiers each year!
In an ultra-realistic urban environment with buildings, streets and infrastructure, it reproduces complex and intense combat situations! Thanks to what?
The CERBERE system: allows you to follow the clashes in real time via interactive maps, hundreds of cameras and immersive special effects (smoke bombs, simulated shots, sound effects).
Its formidable opposing force: facing the rotating units, the Forad (in black fatigues) plays a key role in the animation, with its infantry, its AMX-30 tanks and its armored vehicles
Its robotics exploratory section: a true laboratory of innovation, the center regularly tests new equipment, such as reconnaissance drones for terrain observation and tactical support. Thanks to its dedicated section, it also experiments with combat robots, including the Probot, a tracked vehicle equipped with a 12.7 mm machine gun. Finally, armed drones like the Avatar reinforce the intelligence and fire support capabilities of the units involved.”
Below: Note the plexiglass bracket in front of the ejection port to avoid brass flying around and hitting one of the rotors or any other sensitive parts.
The French Army also uses other kinds of unmanned vehicles.
Here is a video with the flying Avatar UAV H&K: https://youtu.be/Ss9EenM_XNg?t=290
Source: French Armée de Terre and Cenzub 94ème RI. SCH Basile P. / SGT Laëtitia C. / 1CL Jade C.
Ex-Arctic Ranger. Competitive practical shooter and hunter with a European focus. Always ready to increase my collection of modern semi-automatics, optics, thermals and suppressors. TCCC Certified. Occasionaly seen in a 6x6 Bug Out Vehicle, always with a big smile.
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Probably just a propaganda photo.
If they were serious, they would have taken off all the extra weight. No stock, no hand-guards, no pistol grip, flash hider, etc. And, as you said, a way to fire the weapon.
Good news is that they will get their point across to 90% of the uneducated masses with their scare tactic. (Many who might not have recognized it without those parts.)
There is a little relevance to your last statement. Often, training aids are either so poorly crafted or unrecognizable that troops lose the training value. An orange traffic cone on a broom handle is not an RPG. In 2006-7, we were training in MOUT conditions. At that moment, ISIS was trying to provoke coalition troops into engaging for propaganda. The faux RPG was so comical that we did not react to the threat thinking we were being baited.
In this case, a stripped down AR on a drone would have the opposite issue but the same outcome. It would appear to be a video or camera drone and not an armed UAV. It would help if the troops had been familiarized with the drone as equipped.