U.S. Army drone-defense vehicles shield artillery in Germany

U.S. Army air defense crews used a Stryker-based system called SGT STOUT to shield artillery units from drone attack during Saber Junction 26, a training exercise that ran Aug. 15 to Sept. 13 at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center in Hohenfels, Germany. A platoon from Alpha Battery, 5th Battalion, 4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, part of the 52nd Air Defense Artillery Brigade, operated the vehicles in support of the 173rd Airborne Brigade.

SGT STOUT is the Army’s name for what was formerly called the Maneuver Short-Range Air Defense vehicle, or M-SHORAD. Built on a Stryker A1 chassis, it carries a 30 mm cannon, Stinger missiles and a 360-degree radar that lets a crew track threats in every direction. The radar and sensors are meant to spot drones early enough for a crew to act before the drones reach their target.

That early warning was the point during the exercise. Bravo Battery, 4th Battalion, 319th Airborne Field Artillery Regiment, towed howitzers into firing positions at Hohenfels on Aug. 28. Setting up a howitzer position normally means splitting a small crew between operating the gun and watching for drones, which slows both jobs. With SGT STOUT crews handling the watch, the artillery battery could keep working the guns.

“The [SGT STOUTs] are a tremendous asset for us,” said 2nd Lt. Gordon Turner, platoon leader assigned to Bravo Battery. “The more help that we have from these [M]-SHORAD guys to focus on the UAS threats, we can enable our guys and use them most effectively to shoot artillery.”

“With the incorporation of air defense on this kind of rotation right here, it allows us to see how a maneuver [unit] would employ us,” said 1st Lt. Christopher Barkley, executive officer for Alpha Battery. “Our [SGT STOUTs] are emplaced in order to provide the most applicable early warning as it applies. With our Sentinel [radar] we’re able to forecast over this entire terrain so that essentially everyone is informed of what threats are currently going on.”

“If we do receive any contact, and that can come from a UAS threat, we have to pick up and move to the next location,” said Turner. “But if we can deal with that threat before it affects us then we can stay at our firing point and continue to provide fires to the maneuver unit.”

The exercise put those systems against a heavy simulated drone threat. The opposing force at Saber Junction 26, the 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment, fielded about 1,900 autonomous systems against the roughly 2,300 paratroopers of the 173rd Airborne Brigade and more than 2,100 allied troops from 10 nations, Stars and Stripes reported. Brig. Gen. Terry Tillis, who leads the 7th Army Training Command, called that drone count large even by the standards of a training center built to stress modern threats.

SGT STOUT has been in limited Army service since 2024, when it was renamed for Sgt. Mitchell W. Stout, an air defense artilleryman who received the Medal of Honor for actions in Vietnam. The Army began delivering the vehicles to air defense units in early 2025 and plans full-rate production starting in fiscal year 2026.

The 52nd Air Defense Artillery Brigade, based in Europe, is built to defend critical assets and maneuver forces and to counter unmanned aircraft, rotary-wing and fixed-wing threats across the European and African theaters.