Terror drone (Red Alert 3)

"Comrade, I have just received a demostration brief of our new anti-armour weapon. They are affectionately referred to as 'Terror Drones'. Do you like it, Comrade? I thought you might like to play rough in battle."

- Zofia

Created by Sversky Robot Works, Kazminov Design Bureau's rival, 'terror drones are small, robotic units, about half the height of a normal Soviet Conscript, seen in Red Alert 3.

Overview
Essentially, they are a large sphere with cutting and ripping tools attached to four legs, capable of latching onto, and eventually destroying, land vehicles. While almost insanely quick, easily able to outrun a military truck at full speed, they have little in the way of armour and easily succumb to any kind of opposition that has proper anti-armour weapons. This is compensated by their lethality against infantry (a drone can kill any infantry with just one jump) and their primary function - latching onto a vehicle and tearing it apart.

The terror drone has the ability to swim in water and therefore the ability to attack ships. And are also equipped with a powerful stasis ray which prevents vehicles from moving, as long as targeted by the ray, giving the opportunity for another drone to enter. All this makes the terror drone much more dangerous than before.

Terror Drones are again available to Soviet commanders at a War Factory. However, they are only as big as an infantry. Five can be transported in a Twinblade or Bullfrog. The appearance of the terror drone inspired another Soviet unit, rival Kazminov Design Bureau's Sickle.

Deployments
Fast, cheap and effective, it is no wonder that many Soviet commanders chose to use terror drones in battle (Commander Moskvin is known to be a particularly heavy user). It is a true menace to Imperial and Allied forces yet these robots have their drawbacks, too. The drones take more time to take down heavy armoured units like MCVs or the Apocalypse Tank - even the much dreaded Shogun Executioner. Repair drones can remove these drones, and if an infected vehicle was destroyed the drone inside would be likewise destroyed. Due to their light armour, certain weapons can quickly decimate terror drones, such as aerial attacks, machine guns, torpedoes, Yuriko's Special Ability, Stingray Tesla Surges and other weapons.

History
The drone was originally developed as a remote control scout unit, however, commanders soon realized the potential of the terror drone as a weapon platform. Early prototypes were mounted with a variety of weaponry, from machine guns to missile racks, but limited room for ammunition in the terror drone’s small chassis and recoil issues prevented the ranged-assault terror drone from ever leaving Soviet engineering labs, though further iteration on the initial design concept would ultimately result in the creation of the manned KDB-5 Sickle.

To maintain the advantages inherent in the minute frame, designers installed iridium-alloy claws capable of slicing through several inches of reinforced steel to each of the legs. The terror drone would use these Dismantler Claws, as they came to be known, to burrow into vehicles (or chest cavities, when appropriate) and then destroy the vehicle and crew from the inside.

A long-range Zmeika Electro-Stasis ray was installed to allow the drone to immobilize enemy vehicles. Essentially a variable-frequency electro-magnetic beam, it allowed the drones to engage vehicles without exposing themselves to return fire.

However, there was a major problem. Designers realized early on that the drone needed some on-board sensory and guidance system capable of locating the weak points in enemy armour within seconds of contact to minimize the exposure to enemy fire. The vast neural networks designed for this task were fiendishly difficult to program, and development stalled until a brilliant young member of the design team, Konstantin Belousov, found a solution – program the neural net through a direct interface with a human brain. Confident in his solution, he volunteered for the process.

The experiment was a success. The newly-programmed terror drone destroyed vehicles 94% faster than its predecessors, increasing its kill rate and survivability. After interfacing with the drone, however, Belousov began to show signs of mental illness. He quickly fell into dementia and was finally arrested in a subway after attacking passers-by with a cattle prod. While several commentators wondered out loud whether his behaviour was a result of directly interfacing with the Terror Drone’s military neural network, his condition was officially attributed to stress. The Bureau of Robotics has refused to comment on whether later versions of the Terror Drone are still controlled via human interface.