Flying Grenade Launcher Being Tested

This post is also available in: עברית (Hebrew)

Officials from the United States Army are currently testing an experimental drone that is armed with a 40mm grenade launcher designed to destroy hostiles behind cover. The Cerberus GL UAS, developed by Skyborne Technologies Pty. LTD., is being evaluated as part of the Army’s Expeditionary Warfare Experiments 2020.

The unmanned aerial system weighs 14 pounds and has an operational range of two miles. The multi-shot drone is capable of firing three 40 millimeter explosive grenades at enemies well beyond the effective range of the M320 grenade launcher. When the system is armed, it has an endurance of about 28 minutes.

The drone has been developed in order to supply the Army with a counter-defilade weapon. Two years ago, the Army has cancelled the experimental XM25, a shoulder fired weapon designed to take out hostiles behind cover. However, due to its complexity and expensive ammunition, the weapon was eventually discontinued.

Today, infantry experts are looking for simpler solutions towards behind-cover enemies. Last year the U.S. Army has evaluated a drone armed with an M72 Light Anti-tank Weapon (LAW). The system utilized a six-rotor commercial drone to fly the LAW over enemies and directly fire down on them.

Army officials have mentioned that the M72 LAW-Drone innovation worked pretty good, allowing operators to fly the drone behind obstacles and firing on exposed enemies.

The Army has also evaluated a variant of the M72 LAW that was designed to fire a 66mm warhead that would spray targets with approximately 4,000 fragments of shrapnel, according to Military.com.

The Army plans on testing the 40 mm grenade launching Cerberus GL drone until March. Until then the Army will continue evaluating the system and further developing in order to create a low-cost counter defilade system.