U.S. Army takes drone killers to Africa for testing

The U.S. Army plans to test up to 15 counter-drone and base protection systems in Morocco next spring and aims to get the ones that work into soldiers’ hands within 180 days, under a new fast-track effort run by its Africa-focused command and a rapid acquisition team. U.S. Army Southern European Task Force, Africa, known as SETAF-AF, is teaming with the service’s Global Tactical Edge Acquisition Directorate, or G-TEAD, on what they call an accelerated capability event. The first one will take place in Tan-Tan, in southern Morocco, and will focus on protecting early-entry command posts and small operating locations from Group 1 to Group 3 drones, a range that runs from hand-launched quadcopters to unmanned aircraft weighing several hundred kilograms. Soldiers will put the candidate systems through demonstrations in Tan-Tan in February and March 2027. The systems will then go through an operational assessment in April and May during African Lion 2027, U.S. Africa Command’s largest joint military exercise on the continent, which Morocco co-hosts each year. G-TEAD plans to validate up to 15 solutions, with the U.S. Army’s Portfolio Acquisition Executive for Fires lined up as the office that would take the winning systems into wider service. “The ACE is structured around five capability categories,” said U.S. Army Maj. Katlin VanWye, a G-TEAD representative embedded with SETAF-AF. “An overarching, completely integrated fly‑away kit and four subcategories focused on sUAS detection, kinetic defeat, nonkinetic defeat and passive protection. Solutions will integrate into the Army’s C-UAS command and control Integrated Battle Command System-Maneuver.” The categories cover the full chain of drone defense: spotting small drones, shooting them down, jamming or otherwise disabling them, and hardening positions so drones that get through do less damage. The fly-away kit is meant to package those pieces into a single set a unit can deploy quickly. The U.S. Army chose Africa partly for its testing conditions. The command says open radio spectrum, uncongested airspace and varied terrain give soldiers room to test drone detection and jamming equipment in ways that crowded training ranges in the United States and Europe cannot easily match. G-TEAD operates under the U.S. Army Pathway for Innovation and Technology and places small teams inside the service’s regional component commands, including U.S. Army Europe and Africa, U.S. Army Pacific and U.S. Army Central, to turn commanders’ urgent needs into requirements that acquisition offices and prize-authority partners can act on. It assigned a team to SETAF-AF in summer 2026. “ASCCs always had priorities, they’ve always had capability gaps, but the two things they’ve never had is acquisition authority and research, development, test and evaluation dollars,” said U.S. Army Col. Christopher Hill, director of G-TEAD. Hill said that because G-TEAD has visibility across several commands, it can line up modernization efforts, stretch funding and push systems that prove themselves in one theater out to the rest of the U.S. Army. Each event follows three phases: submission and preparation, soldier-led demonstrations, and follow-on operational evaluation. “ACEs are driven by real, urgent, theater-specific technology gaps,” said VanWye. Small drones have become one of the main threats to command posts and bases after their mass use in the war in Ukraine and in attacks on U.S. forces in the Middle East, and the U.S. Army has been buying and testing counter-drone systems at a rapid pace to keep up. “Soldiers need capability,” Hill said. “We have to come in, and we have to actually perform and produce.” The demonstrations in Tan-Tan begin in February 2027, with the operational assessment at African Lion running through May.