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The Navy’s New Secret Sauce for Drone Swarms? Microwaves!
It’s not just for your Hungry Man TV dinner anymore…
Let’s face it: If Ukraine has taught the West anything, it’s that battlefield drones have become a real pain in the ass.
As drone swarms become more ubiquitous, nations around the world will start to discover what Ukraine figured out years ago: that kinetic effectors are often too slow, too expensive, or too limited to deal with the swarm-era battlefield.
But the US Navy may have just found its silver bullet, or rather, its electromagnetic wave. Meet Leonidas H2O, the latest iteration of the US military’s high-power microwave (HPM) arsenal developed by California-based defense firm Epirus.
This isn’t theoretical. It has already been tested. And it’s already changing how the Navy thinks about boat-stopping, drone-zapping, and swarm-breaking technologies. Spoiler: it does all three at once.
Zap Boats and Drones in the Same Shot
In the never-ending race between defense systems and the threats they’re designed to counter, the US Navy may have just leaped ahead a generation.
It pains me to say that — as an Army and Air Force vet, I never like to give the Navy more credit than they deserve.
