From here:

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/technology...ing-sphere.html

Weighs less than a pound, is quiet, hovers, darts, and can even roll around under things to take off flying again afterwards.

And, of course, it has a camera.

Now, it just needs guns...

With a bit better battery life they could outfit one with a metal storm type of weapon (tube of bullets, electronically fired).
This thing would make an interesting hunter-killer bot.

I still like the idea of a Metal Storm tank.

Dear lord that was beautiful. You could wipe out entire city blocks in seconds with a full auto tank gun.

Too bad the tank crews hate the damned things with a passion.

They used the bodies of the tanks as "Boards" to unstick a larger tank (The Metal Storm Abrams was considered insufficiently armed for the role it was developed for), and they all cheered and pulled out the Snivel Grub to celebrate as the tanks were crushed under the larger vehicle.

With proper ammo management should make it atleast on par with a normal tank in terms of ammo capacity and combat duration.
The only real logistics problem would be reloading, because you'd need either a depot setup to maintain and reload the barrels and/or a mobile reload truck with a LOT of barrels towed behind it.

Full auto could only be used in cases of assured safe passage back to base or as retreating fire.


Metal storm is still more suited for smaller calibers in applications that either need insane refire rates (point defense) or have a configurations that precludes the bulk of a reloading mechanism (like that drone).