Japan’s minister of defense Shinjirō Koizumi recently announced that the island country had begun deploying easily-replaceable combat drones made almost entirely of corrugated cardboard. Developed by Japanese arms manufacturer AirKamuy, the AirKamuy 150 drone is a fixed-wing craft constructed out of the same stuff as Amazon boxes, designed to be spat out of an assembly line en masse.
According to a post by Koizumi on X-formerly-Twitter, the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force is already using the drones as “targets,” though whether for Japanese military target practice or as some type of decoy isn’t entirely clear.
According to Tom’s Hardware, the flying shoeboxes cost between $2,000 to $2,500 per piece, which are bargain bin prices compared to the already low-cost Shahed drone deployed by Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps that cost anywhere from $20,000 to $50,000 apiece.
Each drone is also foldable, and can be fully assembled out-of-the-box in around five minutes, an AirKamuy employee told NHK World-Japan. Despite sporting a basic propulsion system held up by cardboard, they boast a flight-time of 80 minutes, and an impressive top-speed of around 62 miles per hour.



This feels like these probably have incredibly limited use cases
I’m talking defeated by the rain, American style type shit
I’ve seen hobbyists make RC planes from Coroplast (corrugated plastic, like for political yard signs). I’d think that would be better than cardboard.
I’m imagining sneaky republicans stealing democratic signs en masse and then using them to make “suicide drones” to attack people at dem political events outside. And when local GOP gets asked out it they say it was a false flag the dems did with their own lawn signs.
STEP AWAY FROM THE LATHE
Don’t worry. The dems will tell everybody to vote harderrr andtherkj asfkj kl;ajf klj ;lakjf kjhidfgu ndjfmdggdddddddd
Sorry. I had a fit of laughter at the end.
Would be easy to spray them with a hydrophobic coating though right
Fuckin chemicals
There’s always chemicals
Or wax
Wax is a chemical!
No, it comes from the earth. Earth can’t be chemicals.
Everything is chemicals
It’s the one thing I retained from chemistry 101
Is numbers chemicals? No, I don’t think so.
Numbers aren’t real. Stop doing math. You have been played for an absolute fool
Damn, you got me there
oh yeah? what flavor? semiconductor, ink, carving or neurotransmitter
Today I learned that uranium isn’t a chemical
Learn to Build With Cardboard! STRONG, Waterproof and Free. Learn to quadcopter/drone.
this is classified Japanese intelligence you fool
You can make a cardboard Gundam
You can make a cardboard Gundam, I’m making a cardboard Toyota Hilux.
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy: