The latest piece of military hardware to hit our radar is China's Jiutian ("Nine Heavens") unmanned aerial mothership, capable of hauling up to six tons of guided bombs, air-to-air and anti-ship missiles, or entire racks of kamikaze drones.

Jiutian's internal bay can deploy up to 100 kamikaze drones for a saturation-swarm attack, flying in coordinated patterns to strike targets simultaneously and overwhelm defenses.

Jiutian was first revealed at the air show in Zhuhai, in China's southern Guangdong province near the border with Macau, last year. Now footage has surfaced of the mothership drone taking off for the first time.

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