The US Army held its first anti-drone shoot out

The US Army held an anti-drone shoot out at Fort Drum, New York earlier this month to test out various systems for taking down drone attacks. This comes as every nation seems to be increasing its drone war plans as continued use of them in battle aren’t slowing down.

The 10th Mountain Division of the US Army, a unit regularly still deployed in combat against ISIS forces in the Middle East, hosted the shoot out according to Defense One.

The purpose of the shoot out was to give soldiers of the 10 Mountain a chance to familiarize themselves with attacking drones with various weapon systems. All types of counter-drone systems were used, including lasers, bullets, and electronic warfare systems. This lead to the need to set up new procedures to secure a range not just on the ground but in the air as well.

The 10th Mountain have been dealing with drone attacks for years now. While not as common as attacks carried out by Ukraine or Russian forces in Eastern Europe, units deployed as part of Operation Inherent Resolve, have undergone hundreds of drone attacks by combatants.

“I did not have a single air defender under my battalion that was in charge of defending Al Assad Air Base,” Major Anthony Padalino told Defense One when discussing what kind of soldiers are tasked with countering drone strikes. “They were artillerymen, medics, infantry-men.”

The shoot out seemed to only have used large hovering drones as the targets, no fast moving FPV drones. FPV drones have become a highly effective tool in Ukraine for attacks on aircraft, buildings, and units as they can move fast and are much harder to shoot down without adequate systems.

The reason given for the lack of FPV drones at the shoot out was because US bases have been heavily fortified against these size drones. With their smaller size comes smaller payload capacity, so the explosives are less powerful compared to larger, slower drones.

More shoot outs are in the works, and the Army hopes to make them more common to keep soldiers trained on the weapons systems and techniques to combat this new reality of war.