Anti-drone chain gun with 50mm precision-guided ammunition unveiled — Northrop Grumman’s Raid Hunter is designed to wipe out drone swarms and cruise missiles

U.S. aerospace, defense and security giant Northrop Grumman thinks it has a solution that will provide short-range, layered air defense against the increasingly complex aerial threats we see in modern war. The new Raid Hunter uses the firm’s Chain Gun technology to defend targets from cruise missiles, drone swarms and other evolving threats. It thus addresses an area identified as a “critical short-range air defense gap.” Furthermore, the modular Raid Hunter can be rapidly deployed on the C-130 and other vehicles, with networking enabling sensor fusion and coordinated engagements.

We have seen in Ukraine, and more recently in the Middle East, that modern air defense systems are struggling with high-volume drone swarms and low-flying cruise missiles. The sheer amount of aerial threats is overwhelming defense systems that have traditionally been designed to knock out warplanes and cruise missiles. Moreover, expensive anti-air missiles such as the Patriot system seem inappropriate and imbalanced for stopping far cheaper and more numerous drones.