So, I've been digging into some reports about Anduril Industries, you know, the defense tech startup that's been making waves with its autonomous weapons systems. Apparently, things aren't going quite as smoothly as they'd hoped. We're talking about some serious hiccups during testing – stuff that makes you raise an eyebrow, like a bunch of drone boats crapping out during a Navy exercise. I mean, who wants to see that?

And it's not just the boats. There's also the story of their unmanned jet fighter, Fury, having engine trouble during a ground test. Then, get this, a test of their counter-drone system, Anvil, caused a pretty big fire in Oregon. I'm not an engineer, but that doesn't sound like ideal performance to me.

It gets worse, though. Remember that whole thing in Ukraine? Apparently, their Altius loitering drones weren't exactly hitting the mark. Reports say they were crashing and missing targets so frequently that Ukrainian forces just gave up on them earlier this year. Ouch.

Now, Anduril, founded by Palmer Luckey and backed by serious cash, is saying that these kinds of growing pains are normal in weapons development. And you know what? They might have a point. Building cutting-edge tech is hard, especially when lives are on the line. It's possible that some of these issues are part of the process, and maybe they're learning and improving as they go. But at the same time, you can't ignore the potential risks when these systems are deployed in real-world situations. I guess the big question is: can they iron out these wrinkles before something truly bad happens?