
After 12 years of technical hurdles and scepticism, China has successfully tested artillery-launched drones capable of surviving the crushing load in a 155mm (6 inches) cannon shell.Five live-fire trials at a western test base confirmed the drones endured launch forces exceeding 3,000 times their own weight – comparable to 35 adult African elephants on a person.The advance centres on a pyrotechnic ejection mechanism co-developed by the Shaanxi Applied Physics and Chemistry Research Institute,...