autotldr Bot , 6 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

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A forthcoming drone made by Autel, a Chinese electronics manufacturer and drone-maker, is being marketed using images of the unmanned aerial vehicle carrying a payload of what appears to be explosive shells.

Two separate online retail preorder listings for the $52,000 Autel Titan drone, with a cargo capacity of 22 pounds and an hour of flight time, advertised a surprising feature: the ability to carry (and presumably fire) weapons.

Samuel Bendett, an analyst with the Center for Naval Analyses, told The Intercept that the shells resembled mortar rounds.

Arms analyst Patrick Senft said the ordnance shown might actually be toy replicas, as they “don’t resemble any munitions I’ve seen deployed by UAV.”

Contacted by email, an OBDPRICE representative who identified themselves only as “Alex” told The Intercept: “The drone products we sell cannot be used for military purposes.” When asked why the site was then depicting the drone product in question carrying camouflage-patterned explosive shells, they wrote: “You may have misunderstood, those are some lighting devices that help our users illuminate themselves at night.” The site has not responded to further queries, but shortly after being contacted by The Intercept, the mortar-carrying images were deleted.

The images bear a striking resemblance to ordnance-carrying drones that have been widely used during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, where their low cost and sophisticated cameras make them ideal for both reconnaissance and improvised bombing runs.

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The original article contains 672 words, the summary contains 232 words. Saved 65%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!