Battle-tested drone interceptors show up at U.S. training exercise in Germany

U.S. soldiers trained on a counter-drone defense system during a course at the Combined Arms Training Center in Grafenwoehr, Germany, the U.S. Mission to NATO said in a social media post.

The training center, known as CATC, is run by the 7th Army Training Command and offers close to 60 courses for U.S. troops, ranging from transporting hazardous materials on European public roads to combat skills practiced in simulated environments. The post did not specify which counter-drone course the soldiers attended or name the specific system they used.

Grafenwoehr has become a regular training site for U.S. and allied forces working on countering small drones, a threat that has grown more urgent as cheap attack drones have played a larger role in combat in Ukraine and the Middle East. The U.S. Air Force runs a separate Joint Multidomain Counter-Unmanned Aerial Systems Course at the same training area, which brings together Air Force, Army and Marine Corps personnel for a program that ends with a 48-hour field exercise.

Images accompanying the post also showed Merops AS-3 Surveyor interceptor drones built by California-based Perennial Autonomy, a company whose systems have been used against Russian Shahed-style drones in Ukraine. The Merops interceptor costs roughly $15,000 per unit, according to Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll, compared with an estimated $30,000 to $50,000 for a Shahed-type drone. The U.S. Army has since bought large numbers of the interceptors and has used them against Iranian-designed drones in the Middle East, alongside Patriot air defense batteries.

In May, the Pentagon’s Joint Interagency Task Force 401 awarded Perennial Autonomy a three-year contract worth up to $500 million to supply the Merops interceptor along with two other drone systems, the Bumblebee ISR quadcopter and the Hornet strike drone, across the U.S. military. All three systems were already in use by American forces before the contract was signed.