The Army Is Clearing Out for Coyote Drone Hunters (2024)

Big businesses continuously lay off and hire workers in response to market trends and financial consideration. The U.S. military, though endowed with the largest defense budget on the planet, has its own version of such trends driven by congressional budgets and the evolving capabilities of foreign adversaries.

Recently released budget document now indicate that means the Army’s elite commando forces are bound for downsizing while the service dramatically expand short-range air defense troops specialized in killing the most timely of new threats: drones.

As part of a reduction to the authorized force from 494,000 to 470,000 personnel, the Army plans to phase out 3,000 positions from the Special Ops Command (SOCOM), while opening 7,500 new positions standing up eight new short-range air defense battalions and nine batteries specialized in disabling flying drones, a field of warfare known as C-UAS (for Counter Unmanned Aerial Systems.)

Special Ops personnel won’t literally get laid off, however, because the Army, currently with 445,000 active-duty personnel, is actually well below its authorized strength in part due to a recruiting shortfall, and the cuts are targeted at frequently empty billets.

The new counter-drone batteries (‘batteries’ being the artillery term for company-sized units that are subcomponents of battalions) will mostly go to two types of units specialized in air defense but with neatly non-overlapping remits.

Indirect Fire Protection Capability (IFPC) battalions are assigned to protect relatively static U.S. military bases and rear-area units. The primary armament of these unit historically are robotic Land Phalanx (LPWS) close defense gatling autocannons adapted from Navy warships to gun down incoming mortar bombs and Katyusha rockets hurtling towards said bases.

The guns are complemented by man-portable FIM-72 Stinger missiles famously used with success against Russian helicopters in Afghanistan, and now active in Ukraine. Both are assisted by AN/MPQ-64A3 Sentinel radars mounted on a towed trailer to provide early warning and targeting of low-altitude threats.

Meanwhile, M-SHORAD battalions (for ‘Maneuver Short Range Air Defense’) are designed to accompany mobile U.S. ground forces the battlefield —particularly infantry and armored units. In the field, the battalion’s batteries and platoons would be divided up and attached to protect specific brigades and battalions as operationally appropriate.

Until recently M-SHORAD units relied upon Stingers launched from TWQ-1 Avenger Humvees. However, several battalions are now receiving Stryker M-SHORAD eight-wheeled armored vehicles combining Stingers with laser-guided Hellfire missiles and a 30-millimeter M230LF chain gun.

In total, the Army plans to stand up:

• Four new IFPC battalions
• Four new M-SHORAD battalions, with 550 personnel each and 36 Stryker M-SHORAD armored vehicles divided between three batteries. The Army eventually hopes to field a total of Nine M-SHORAD battalions.
• Nine new counter drone batteries (a company-sized unit) which will be embedded into IFPC and M-SHORAD battalions, armed primarily with Coyote drone-hunting drones integrated with LIDS low-altitude air defense system

The Army’s long-term objective is to field a total of nine M-SHORAD and nine IFPC air defense battalions.

It’s worth recalling the Army formerly fielded a much more diverse range of mobile air defense vehicles, including the M163 VADS (an M113 APC armed with a 20-millimeter Vulcan gatling cannon), the M48 Chapparal (M113 with radars and Sidewinder heat-seeking missiles) and the M6 Linebacker (a Bradley fighting vehicle armed with Stingers.)

Hunting for drones with Coyotes

The Army’s new drone-hunting units will fight fire with fire using missile-like interceptor drones to hunt enemy drones.

Towards that end, in December 2023 the Army ordered 6,000 rocket-boosted Coyote Block 2 drone hunters and 700 more sophisticated Block 3s for delivery through 2029. To launch Coyotes, the Army’s is also acquiring 252 static launchers (for base security), 25 mobile launchers, and 100 Ku-band AESA radars (known as KuRFS) to detect drones in advance and coordinate intercepts.

Coyotes have already been successfully employed in combat in the Middle East against bigger Group 3 drones (most likely Iranian designs).

Coyote Block 2s are fitted with rockets and a turbine engine resulting in an effective range of 6-9 miles when ground-launched, endurance of four minutes, and a high (for a small drone) maximum speed exceeding 345 miles per hour, comparable to an early World War II Messerschmitt fighter plane.

Initial target detection for Coyotes is performed by mobile KuRFS-M (mounted on M-ATV or JLTV trucks) and static KuRFS-T. Both types provide 360-degree coverage thanks to their four AESA phased array panels covering 90-degree arcs. These can detect Groupe 3 or smaller drones 4.3 and 9.3 miles away respectively.

Upon launch, Coyote Block 2s are guided towards their target via datalink, but switch to a small radar-seeker for terminal guidance. Once in range, they detonate a tungsten fragmentation warhead. But if they fail to close with their target, they can swoop around and try to attack a second time.

Each Coyote Block 2 round reportedly costs roughly $100,000—significantly cheaper than a Sidewinder or Stinger missile, but still uncomfortably pricy for killing smaller drones costing just hundreds or low thousands of dollars. (Some earlier sources claim a cost of $15,000 per Coyote, but this number may reflect the cost of the original Block 1 Coyote without a warhead, seeker or rocket propulsion.)

However, the 600 Coyote Block 3s the Pentagon is also procuring are reusable and can reportedly knock out multiple targets at once using a mysterious ‘non-kinetic’ payload (perhaps a jammer or laser.) These use an electrically turned propeller for propulsion and have longer range.

Technically, Coyotes are just components of the broader LIDS system, which stands for ‘Low, slow, small Integrated Defeat System.’ This will come in a Fixed Site variant (FS-LIDS) installed on tripods or tall towers (ie. presumably mostly in IFPC battalions), and the Mobile (M-LIDS) variant on a 4x4 Oshkosh M-ATV mine-protected vehicle.

For longer-range early warning, LIDS additionally incorporates SRC’s L-Band AN/TPQ-50 phased array counter-battery radar, which offers 360-degre coverage and a maximum detection range of 21 miles, or 9 miles in the counter-battery role. That’s supplemented up by an electro-optical/infrared sensor, and an electronic warfare system called CUAEWS-Direction Finder which can both detect electromagnetic emissions from aircraft (particularly drones), ascertain their location, identify said aircraft, and jam their navigation and remote-control communication links.

The mobile M-LIDs version is split between two differently configured M-ATV vehicles. One M-ATV carries a Moog RiWP turret armed with two Coyotes, a 30-millimeter M914 autocannon, an M240 machine gun, a KuRFS-M radar and a stabilized electro-optical/infrared sensor. The partner electronic warfare vehicle is instead equipped with the CUAEWS system and an M2 .50-caliber machine gun. The guns in theory offer a cheaper short-range protection option.

Perhaps over time the Army may pickup additional drone-based C-UAS systems, such as Fortem’s reusable F700 DroneHunter, combat-tested successfully in Ukraine against Russian Shahed-136 and Orlan-10. It’s interceptor uses two-shot net-guns to disable enemy drones but- can also optionally ram targets the nets don’t work against. The Army has also tested a drone called “Mobile Force Protection” that sprays hostile SUAS with something resembling pink silly string, causing a crash.

C-UAS batteries also seem likely to also field some of the many portable directional jammers, or ‘drone guns’ available off-the-shelf and already seeing some operational use such as Flex Force Dronebuster and Drone Guns with ranges of .6 and 1.2 miles respectively. These disable smaller drones by drowning out access to GPS and radio command signals, which can cause drones to crash or be forced into automatic landing by safety software.

That said, improved software algorithms and/or autonomous capabilities on some military small drones may render this defeat method less effective in the future.

It's worth noting that new electronic warfare platoons equipped with Terrestrial Layer System (TLS) jammers on Stryker and AMPV armored vehicles may also be employed in a counter-drone role, as well as longer-range TLS-EAB trucks and HEDEA defensive jamming systems.

A companion article looks at how the Army is testing several different laser and microwave weapons intended to play a role in counter-UAS and missile defense, including an DE-Stryker variant armed with 50-kilowatt lasers currently undergoing testing.

Why special ops is shrinking

Whatever you call them—commandos, snake-eaters, operators—special forces are elite troops trained to insert and operate beyond friendly lines, carry out sensitive counter-terror and covert operations, and advise foreign allies on how to fight often while cut off from regular logistical support.

The Bush administration’s ‘War on Terror’ in 2000s was the hey-day of special forces drawn from all services and grouped under SOCOM, which doubled in size. They were seen as ideal ‘low-footprint’ spearheads combating local insurgencies and multi-national terrorist networks in Afghanistan and Iraq, and more covertly in places like Libya, Mali, Somalia and The Philippines. U.S. Army units specifically under SOCOM include the ultra-elite Delta Force, the Green Berets, the 75th Ranger Regiment, the 160th Special Ops Aviation Regiment, and the shadowy Intelligence Support Activity.

Though the Obama administration sought to pivot away from these wars in the 2010s, ISIS and the Taliban had other ideas, and the team-up of SOCOM soldiers on the ground and U.S. warplanes overhead ended up doing most of the legwork in an additional dozen years of war in the Middle East and Afghanistan.

While the U.S. still hasn’t entirely disentangled itself from Middle Eastern wars, its national security strategy is now focused on ‘Great Power’ conflict with other powerful states—above all China, followed by Russia. While special ops would play a role in such a dreaded conflict, it would be much smaller than that of conventional ground forces in Europe, and naval forces in the Pacific.

While the planned cuts drew opposition from members of Congress and SOCOM itself in 2023, the Army insists they will mostly fall upon mostly vacant positions and affect headquarters and support personnel in civil affairs, psyops and intelligence roles, rather than field operators. Critics of the cuts argue these non-combat specialties may actually be more valuable for combatting non-wartime media and 'grey zone' operations by China, Iran, North Korea or Russia, however.

The cuts aren’t falling only on Special Ops. Another 10,000 authorized positions will trimmed from maneuver combat units, including inactivation of cavalry squadrons in U.S.-based infantry brigades, downsizing of infantry brigade weapons companies to platoons, and trimming of security force assistance brigades engaged in training foreign militaries.

While Coyote, LIDS and other systems have proven effective against in tests and some operational use in the Middle East, it’s hard to tell now how they would fair in sustained operations against a broader-scale threat as seen in Ukraine. Drone warfare itself is simply evolving too fast. However, it’s promising the service is cognizant of the need to reorganize its forces to face that threat—even if those requires painful reallocations of human resources.