The Terror Drone


Designation: Anti-Vehicle Drone
Manufacturer: Kazminov Design Bureau
Country of origin: USSR
Mass-produced at: Soviet War Factory

Key features:

• Four iridium-plated Dismantler claws
• Zmeika Electrostatic Beam
• Lightweight honeycomb-shaped aluminium chassis



Of all the weapons in the Soviet arsenal, the one that most aptly lives up to its name can be none other than the Terror Drone. For an Allied Commander, these robotic spiders inspire fear, in stark contrast to their small size. The now-familiar sound of mechanical legs scurrying across the ground is enough to strike fear into an entire platoon of Soldiers, each desperately trying to catch one last glimpse of the moonlight reflecting off the Terror Drone’s metal carapace before it is too late. For vehicle crews, whose engines mask the sounds of the approaching threat, the fear is constant and relentless.


Unarmed vehicles, such as harvesters and VCMs, are particularly vulnerable to attack by the Terror Drone.

This fear is far from unfounded. Originally developed as a remote-controlled reconnaissance unit (a role in which it still excels), commanders eventually realised the Terror Drone’s true potential as an armed platform. Early prototypes were fitted with a variety of weapons, ranging from machine guns to missile launchers, but limited ammunition storage space within the Terror Drone’s small chassis and recoil issues prevented the Terror Drone from leaving the Soviet engineering laboratories, although a new iteration of the original design concept eventually led to the creation of the Sickle KDB-5. To retain the inherent advantages of its tiny chassis, the designers opted to add iridium-alloy claws to each of its legs, capable of cutting through the hardest steel. The Terror Drone will use these Dismantler Claws to gain access to the interior of vehicles (or to rip open chests, when necessary) and then destroy both the vehicle and its crew.

Two problems remain. Because the Terror Drone is lightly armoured, it is vulnerable to any kind of fire. The designers have therefore added the long-range Zmeika Electrostatic Beam, a variable-frequency electromagnetic beam capable of rendering targeted vehicles completely immobile. As its range is greater than that of most weapons, this has enabled the drones to engage vehicles without exposing themselves.


In one highly publicised case, the fear of a Terror Drone attack led to the mental breakdown of a Guardian Tank conductor who had never seen combat.

The second problem was more difficult. The designers realised early on that the drone needed an on-board sensory and guidance system capable of locating weak points in the enemy’s armour during the few seconds of contact with the vehicle, in order to minimise exposure to enemy fire. The enormous neural networks designed for this task proved devilishly difficult to programme, and development stalled until a brilliant young member of the design team, Konstantin Belousov, found a solution: to programme the neural network via a direct interface with a human brain. Confident in his solution, he volunteered to undergo the procedure.

The experiment was a success. The newly programmed Terror Drone destroys vehicles 94 per cent faster than its predecessors, increasing both its destruction rate and its survivability. However, following the interface with the drone, Belousov began to show signs of mental illness. He quickly descended into madness and was eventually arrested on the Underground after attacking passers-by with a stun gun. Whilst several commentators wondered aloud whether his behaviour was a direct result of the connection to the Terror Drone’s neural network, his condition was officially attributed to stress. The Robotics Service declined to comment on future versions of the Terror Drone, or whether they would still be controlled via a human interface.


Reconnaissance on the battlefield has at least revealed the following facts about Terror Drones:

• Rapid Scout– The Terror Drone was originally designed as a reconnaissance unit and is, in fact, very good at this. Their high speed allows them to quickly scout a battlefield, and their effectiveness against vehicles and infantry gives them an advantage during skirmishes with the enemy. Terror Drones are, however, lightly armoured and vulnerable to small arms fire.

-Take cover!- Terror Drones can attack both enemy infantry and vehicles with their Dismantler Claws. The claws allow the Drone to pierce a vehicle’s armour and gain access to the electronics and instrumentation inside. Once inside a vehicle, only repair crews trained in the use of equipment such as the Armor Facility, the Mechanical Centre or the Demolition Crane are capable of successfully destroying a Terror Drone. Against infantry, the claws allow the Drone to… let’s just say the results aren’t a pretty sight.

-Don’t move- The Terror Drone’s Electrostatic Beam can completely immobilise enemy vehicles, and a swarm of drones can bring an entire division of enemy armoured vehicles to a standstill. The beam has no effect on the weapon systems of targeted vehicles, but its long range allows the Terror Drone to remain outside the firing range of almost all tanks, except for Artillery.

-Cannot attack aircraft - Neither the Dismantler Claws nor the Electrostatic Beam are capable of targeting aircraft. Terror Drones can survive aerial threats by entering an enemy vehicle or taking cover in the nearest Bullfrog.