Counter-Drone Goes Program of Record: EW-First Kits

Breaking: Counter-drone moves from improvisation to standard issue

For years, militaries patched together counter-drone tools the way a volunteer fire brigade grabs what is on the truck. A radar here, a jammer there, some software glued in between. Over the past month that changed. The U.S. Army and several close allies set budget lines and first-unit fielding for layered counter-uncrewed aircraft systems, the kind that come as a complete kit rather than a science fair. The center of gravity is clear: electronic warfare first, with high-power microwave and low-cost interceptors to catch the leakers.

This is more than a bureaucratic milestone. When a capability becomes a program of record, it gets a shelf in the armory and a line in the budget. Parts get stocked. Training becomes routine. Units stop asking if they will have it and start asking where to mount it. The implication is that every brigade combat team and every air base will deploy with a standard anti-drone kit. The second implication is a new industrial race to supply, sustain, and constantly update that kit.

The new baseline: a layered system you can issue

A modern counter-drone kit now looks less like a single magic weapon and more like a team. Think of it as a neighborhood watch for the sky, with each member good at a different task.

AI RF sensing. Small drones talk over radio. They send telemetry to a controller, stream video, and receive commands. That radio activity leaves fingerprints in the spectrum, like voices in a crowded cafe. AI models trained on those patterns can spot, classify, and geolocate the drone and often its pilot. RF sensing works even when the drone is too small to see on radar or hiding behind clutter.
Short-range radar and optical tracking. Radar provides range and elevation and sees plastic aircraft that keep their radios quiet. Electro-optical and infrared cameras confirm targets. The software fuses these inputs into a coherent track rather than three separate guesses.
Jammers. Once a drone is detected, the fastest and cheapest defense is to interrupt its link or deny its navigation. Jammers do this by shouting louder than the controller at the right frequencies, or by confusing the satellite navigation receiver. Think of it as drowning out the drone's instructions or scrambling its sense of direction. Modern jammers are directional, software-defined, and often paired with AI so they change tactics on the fly without frying friendly networks.
High-power microwave. When a swarm of small drones presses hard, even smart jamming can be saturated. High-power microwave arrays emit an intense pulse that couples into the drone's electronics. It is like a camera flash for circuits, delivering a sharp burst that makes many off-the-shelf boards stumble or fail.
Low-cost interceptors. Some drones are autonomous or jam-resistant. Others fly low and fast. Those are the leakers. Instead of spending a six-figure missile on a five-hundred-dollar quadcopter, units need cheap interceptors. These range from small, agile drones that ram or net the target to guided projectiles with proximity fuses fired from existing guns.

When all of this is integrated, the kill chain looks like this: sense the drone, classify it, assign an effect, take the shot, then watch to confirm the outcome. The key shift is that the default shot is non-kinetic and inexpensive. Kinetic is reserved for what survives.

Why EW-first wins the near term

Electronic warfare is winning today because it scales on the dimensions that matter: cost, speed, and reusability.

Cost. A jammer cycle costs diesel and electrons. A small missile costs thousands to tens of thousands per shot. As the volume of drones rises, the economics favor jamming.
Speed. RF detection fires in milliseconds. Jammers can respond in seconds. That speed is essential when a quadcopter pops up inside a base perimeter or a loitering munition dives at a convoy.
Reusability. After one engagement, the jammer is ready for the next. There is no reload queue, only thermal limits and emissions management.

There are trade-offs. Jamming is a game of control. You need to disrupt the drone without taking down your own radios. You need to avoid creating a signature that invites precision fires back at you. You need to adapt as adversaries switch frequencies, encoding, and navigation modes. That is why this new wave of systems leans on AI that spots tricks quickly and on architectures that make switching tactics almost as easy as updating a phone app.

How high-power microwave fits

High-power microwave is the middle layer between quiet RF finesse and kinetic punch. Engineers sometimes describe it as non-contact kinetic. It delivers energy that can damage or destabilize electronics in a wide area, especially when drones fly in clusters or formation.

You can picture it as a floodlight that briefly turns night into day for any camera caught in its beam. Except here, the flash is tuned to couple with wiring and microcontrollers. Microdrones with hobby-grade components are particularly vulnerable. More sophisticated systems will harden against it, but that costs weight and money. In the near term, HPM is a strong equalizer.

This layer does not replace jamming. It supplements it when the number of targets outgrows what software can deconflict in time. It also helps when autonomous drones navigate by dead reckoning or optical flow and ignore RF entirely.

The last net: cheap interceptors and familiar guns

When a drone shrugs off jamming and survives the HPM pulse, you need a physical stop. The logic is simple: use what you already have and add low-cost options.

Existing guns with smart rounds. Many units already field 30 mm or 35 mm guns. With programmable fuses, a short burst can create a cloud of fragments where the drone will be rather than where it is. That increases hit probability against a small, agile target.
Small guided rounds. Think of palm-size fins and seeker heads placed on a short, cheap rocket. Accuracy beats volume when you cannot afford to shower a base with gunfire.
Reusable intercept drones. These are workhorse quadcopters or small fixed-wings designed to chase and collide or deploy a net. They launch fast, they are inexpensive, and they can be recovered when they survive the intercept.

The win condition is not elegance. It is attrition math that favors the defender. If the shot costs less than the attacker and you can repeat it all day, you can hold the line.

What the standard kit looks like at a brigade and an air base

At brigade level, the kit rides on existing vehicles and masts. RF sensors dot the perimeter of command posts and logistics hubs. Short-range radars sit on tripods. Jammers mount on trucks, with one or two directional dishes and an omnidirectional antenna for close-in defense. A trailer houses a microwave array that can sprint to hotspots. A small tent holds the fusion and control software, and it maps tracks on a common picture shared over the brigade network.

At an air base, the geometry is wider. Towers watch approaches to runways. The base defense operations center takes the fused picture and pushes cues to fire units. Specialized teams handle the kinetic interceptors near fuel and munitions storage, where you cannot risk a rain of fragments. In both cases, line units treat the kit like a generator and a radio: routine gear that deploys first and comes home last.

Doctrine and training: who pulls the trigger

The early years of counter-drone were a cottage industry. A few specialists knew the vendor, the manual, and the trick. Program-of-record status changes that. There are now clear roles and checklists.

Sensor operators monitor the fused air picture and label unknowns. AI helps, but human context matters. A drone over the motor pool at noon is different from a drone over the ammo dump at night.
EW gunners are trained the way air defense gunners are trained: understand propagation, manage emissions, and follow rules of engagement that balance mission with spectrum safety.
Fire units get clear lanes. Guns and interceptors engage only when assigned. This avoids friendly fire conflicts and keeps the cost curve in check.
Commanders learn the new basics. The best kit fails if it is parked under a metal awning or if jammers are left blaring during an air resupply.

Training time is the commodity you cannot buy. The shift to standard issue means counter-drone tasks get baked into rotations and exercises, not left to ad hoc refreshers.

Open architecture and the software race

Drones evolve faster than vehicles or missiles. Keeping up requires two things: open interfaces and software that treats new threats like new apps.

An open architecture lets a unit add a new RF sensor or a better camera without ripping out the whole system. A common data model means a radar and a microphone speak the same language to the fusion engine. An open effects interface lets future lasers or novel decoys plug in with minimal work.

The software that coordinates all of this is now the center of gravity. It hosts the RF classifiers, tracks the targets, forecasts where a drone will be, and chooses the best effect. It must be testable, auditable, and easy to update. Units will need a cadence for model updates the way they now update maps and crypto. That means secure delivery, version rollback, and red team validation.

Allies are locking in too

The shift is not limited to the United States. European and Indo-Pacific partners have watched the same drone proliferation. Several have codified counter-drone spending in their defense plans and started first-unit fielding of layered kits around critical bases and deployed brigades. The pattern matches the Army approach: RF sensing and jamming as default, HPM or lasers where appropriate, and cheap interceptors for leakers. Interoperability with NATO air defense pictures and base defense networks is now a requirement rather than a hope.

This matters because adversaries do not respect borders and drones are global commodities. A shared architecture and common tactics make coalition operations safer and cheaper. Parts can be swapped. Data on new drone waveforms can be shared. Lessons learned at one base move quickly to the next.

Trade-offs and risks you should actually think about

Spectrum fratricide. The same bands that carry drone control also carry friendly links. The kit must manage emissions like a thermostat, not a light switch. Expect disciplined playbooks, time windows, and geofences.
Signature management. Jammers and HPM emit energy that can be geo-located. Survivable operations require low duty cycles, deception, and mobility. Do not build a static shrine to your own emissions.
Drone autonomy. Off-the-shelf drones are gaining basic autonomy that can ride out jamming and GNSS denial. The response is layered sensing, better prediction, and effects that do not depend on the link.
Legal and safety constraints at home. Air base defense on allied soil often sits near civilian infrastructure. Rules of engagement must consider collateral effects of jamming and projectiles. Expect more geo-specific planning and non-kinetic preferences near airports and cities.
Supply chain. The cottage industry phase bred variety. Program-of-record standardization will consolidate vendors. This lowers integration risk but can create single points of failure. Mitigate with multiple qualified sources for key components like RF front ends and power modules.

The industrial race: what builders will sprint toward

Now that the kit is standard, the competition moves to weight, cost, and speed of update.

RF front ends that see more with less power, and that can steer beams electronically without heavy gimbals.
AI models that are smaller, train faster on new waveforms, and explain their decisions.
Jammers that are surgical, faster to retune, and safe to run around friendly networks.
HPM arrays that fit on smaller vehicles and that manage heat without bulky generators.
Interceptors that are cheap, modular, and compatible with existing launchers or drones.
Fusion software that is more intuitive for operators, supports simulation for training, and handles degraded networks.
Test and evaluation rigs that let units rehearse against real drones without shutting down an airfield.

Every percent of weight saved or watt of power managed turns into more mobility and more time on station. Every minute shaved from an update cycle turns into days of advantage in the field.

What this means for operators on day one

Practice emissions discipline. Run jammers only when needed, and move after broadcasting. Keep camouflage and decoys in the kit. You are not invisible when you win.
Harden your own drones. Friendly UAS are now part of the fight. They need spectrum plans and protection to survive inside your own jamming bubble.
Make the cheap shot first. Default to RF effects, validate the outcome, and conserve kinetic for the stubborn targets.
Train on misclassification. AI will make fast calls, and some will be wrong. Build drills that show how to recover when a bird is labeled as a drone or a drone as a bird.
Capture the data. Every engagement produces signal and video that can improve the model. Units should have a habit and a pipeline for data curation and secure upload.

What to watch next

Standardized counter-drone kits appearing on unit equipment lists and in pre-deployment photos. The tell will be common masts, common consoles, and common training.
Interceptor cost trends. If unit cost falls by another order of magnitude, kinetic becomes viable at scale even against cheap swarms.
HPM miniaturization. Watch for arrays that fit in pickup-sized packages with silent hybrid power.
AI model stores for EW. Expect secure repositories of RF classifiers with change logs, test cards, and rollbacks, treated like crypto loads.
Civil-military spillover. Airports, stadiums, and energy sites will adopt lighter versions of the kit. Legal frameworks will follow the tech.
Adversary countermeasures. More drones with frequency hopping, optical navigation, and hardened electronics will push the defense toward richer sensing and combined effects.

The bottom line

Counter-drone is no longer boutique. By moving to program-of-record status, the U.S. Army and allies have frozen the near-term playbook: sense with AI in the spectrum, jam first, scorch clusters with microwave, and catch the rest with cheap interceptors. The result is a defense that is attritable by design and affordable at scale. The hard work now shifts to training, emissions discipline, and software updates that keep pace with fast-moving threats.

Clear takeaways

Treat EW as your default shot and budget kinetic for leakers.
Move to open architectures so sensors and effects can evolve without rework.
Build disciplined emissions playbooks to avoid inviting counterfire.
Invest in operator training and data pipelines for continuous model improvement.
Diversify suppliers for critical components to avoid single points of failure.

What to watch next

First-unit fieldings becoming routine, not headline.
Faster update cadences for RF classifiers and fusion software.
Interceptor innovations that bring the cost per kill under a few thousand dollars.
HPM systems shrinking in size and footprint, with better thermal management.
International interoperability standards that make coalition base defense plug and play.