Here’s What Leonardo DRS’ Laser-Equipped Counter-Drone Stryker Armored Vehicle Is Capable Of

Branded Content: How the new Stryker drone-killer could add a critical new layer to mobile air defense for the U.S. Army.

By Jamie Hunter

Updated on Oct 16, 2024

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The War Zone met up with Leonardo DRS’ Ed House and Blue Halo’s Trip Ferguson at the Association of the United States Army’s biggest annual symposium, AUSA ‘24, which is currently underway in Washington, D.C. to get all the details on the new Counter-Uncrewed Aerial Systems Directed Energy (C-UAS DE) Stryker. You can read our initial report on the armored vehicle that is bristling with counter-drone capabilities here, but House and Ferguson put much more color on the canvas for us in terms of exactly what their creation is capable of and where it will sit in a forces’ air defense force structure.

Check it out in the video posted at the top of the story.

Background: 

The new C-UAS DE Stryker is armed with a 26-kilowatt version of the LOCUST laser directed energy weapon from BlueHalo, installed on a retractable mount. It’s also equipped with laser-guided 70mm rockets, a 30mm XM914 automatic cannon that fires proximity burst shells, an M240 machine gun, a potent counter-drone electronic warfare suite, radars, electronic surveillance measures, and other sensors and communications gear. Combined, it’s a feature-packed, multi-layer, counter-drone-optimized, short-range air defense battery that can spot, track, and defeat drones — both kinetically and non-kinetically. All of this is packed into a fast-moving armored vehicle that can easily keep up with the troops it is tasked with protecting.

C-UAS DE Stryker’s gun, rocket and laser, as well as its electronic warfare suite, work in tandem to best defend against incoming drone threats. (Leonardo DRS/Screencap)

The U.S. Army is looking to significantly grow its short-range air defense capabilities in the coming years, especially to counter the ballooning threat from drones, and the service is specifically interested in directed energy options.

Leonardo DRS led a team that developed this unique Stryker variant that included seven other partners – BlueHalo, EOS Defense Systems USA, Northrop Grumman, BAE Systems, Arnold Defense, AMPEX, and Digital Systems Engineering. It took this eclectic consortium just eight months from design, build, and test, to culminate in a live fire exercise at the White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico that resulted in multiple drones being swatted out of the sky. 

Now, after unveiling their creation at AUSA ‘24, C-UAS DE Stryker is heading to more trials.