US Army wants palletised short-range air defences against drones in service by late 2029

The US Army aims to have new palletised short-range air defence systems in service before the end of 2029, according to briefing slides reported by TWZ. The slides were made for an industry day held in Huntsville, Alabama, last month.

The programme, Maneuver-Short Range Air Defense Increment 4, now aims for initial operational capability in fiscal year 2030. The Army wants a battalion-sized unit equipped in the first quarter of that year, which runs from October 1 to December 31, 2029. It had earlier talked of fielding systems between fiscal years 2027 and 2029.

The systems must defeat drones from small quadcopters to one-way attack drones such as Iran's Shahed 136, alone or in swarms, and protect units from helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. Each is built as a pallet, a Self-Loading Equipment Dock (SLED), for Joint Light Tactical Vehicles, Infantry Squad Vehicles or uncrewed ground vehicles, and can also be set down for static defence.

Under the slides, the systems must work on their own for 72 hours, fit in a C-130 and be air-droppable. The Army leaves sensors and weapons open, asking only for a mix of kinetic weapons such as missiles and guns, and non-kinetic defeat.

Marc Pelini, then an Army colonel and now its top air defence artillery officer, described the idea in 2025 as “a pallet or a sled that I could put in the back of any vehicle”.