Toner...
Neal Stephenson, eat your heart out... or, perhaps, weep...
A tiny drone that can apparently fit in the palm of your hand has been developed by U.S. military boffins. According to the AFP, the "micro air vehicle" – which was named after the cicada insect – is a bit like a mobile handset with wings. A prototype of the dinky drone cost a few thousand dollars to make but the Naval …
They will indeed fly "home". This can be an order of magnitude bigger that 11km away. You do have to let them live at home for a while or they may bugger off to their last loft. Pigeons do have a good record in getting home, just ask any fancier.
I think we could make it cheaper by dumping rocks with microchips from drones and accomplish more at the same time. Those that don't yield intelligence will at least send a clear message, your mobile tents are insufficient to protect your heads. Better invest in helmets and more solid structures which are easier for us to trace and harder for you to move, not to mention expensive. We could call it the Hailstorm 250 and charge 100 bucks per rock. Maybe we'll get lucky and it will bop some of them hard enough they forget why they are there and go home.
It's not mythical, it's standard industry practise. Google does it: http://royal.pingdom.com/2007/04/11/fedex-still-faster-than-the-internet/.
"Ah but that was eight years ago" I hear you say. Good point: has the internet overtaken a van full of disks since then? If not, will it ever? These questions have been answered as only xkcd can: https://what-if.xkcd.com/31/.
If they have a lethal payload it'll be a more expensive version of cluster bombs, or the repeat of a seriously bad idea where bombs were dressed up as something cute like dolls so kids would get killed. If used for intelligence, it will simply ensure a surge in the use of jammers, not to mention the fact that they will be adding more hay instead of finding more needles.
The next thing to worry about when it comes to lethal payloads is the not-exactly-sterling reputation for targeting and (worse) for keeping control of them drones. There's also the problem that these things are small, so a lot easier to transport and hide.
Oh, wait, I see what this is. Just planning ahead for the next war to grab a nice handful of tax dollars. There is no *need* for this to make sense. OK, got it now, sorry.