This Marine unit now has its own tool to blast drones out of the sky

One of many Marine Corps’ latest operational formations just lately fielded an important “workhorse” air protection system to counter enemy drones and different aerial threats.

Leathernecks with the third Littoral Anti-Air Battalion, third Marine Littoral Regiment in Hawaii obtained the Marine Air Protection Built-in System, or MADIS, because the newly fashioned unit positions itself to counter threats within the Indo-Pacific area, based on a Marine Corps Programs Command launch.

“The fast rise of UAS, used for surveillance, concentrating on and assaults, has made superior air protection techniques like MADIS vital to defending our Marines and preserving our fight effectiveness,” mentioned Lt. Col. Craig Warner, Future Weapons Programs product supervisor. “MADIS not solely detects, tracks and defeats aerial threats but additionally serves as a robust deterrent, signaling to adversaries that their aerial belongings is not going to succeed in opposition to U.S. forces.”

All companies proceed to face a rising drone risk in each space of operations. In 2018, the Marines responded by starting to construct capability for a “layered protection,” one that will ultimately use the MADIS, Col. Andrew Konicki informed Marine Corps Instances. Konicki manages the Corps’ Floor-Primarily based Air Protection program workplace.

Marine officers have referred to as the MADIS, constructed by Kongsberg Protech Programs USA, the “primary constructing block of the LAAD battalions’ floor base air protection functionality.”

For non-air defenders, MADIS permits Marines to deal with their mission as a substitute of the sky, giving Marines one main risk they now not have to fret about.

“MADIS creates its personal [anti-access, area-denial] bubble,” Warner mentioned.

The system replaces a cumbersome legacy platform Marines have lengthy used to defend the skies. The Man-Transportable Air Protection System, or MANPADs, features a hearth unit car, part chief car and the Stinger shoulder-fired missile as its main weapon system, based on the Marine Corps.

Some model of that platform has been in place for the reason that Military and Marine Corps first developed anti-aircraft safety measures in opposition to fast-moving plane within the Nineteen Fifties.

MADIS, in the meantime, removes the necessity for a Marine to ever exit their car, manually sight in and destroy an enemy plane.

The Joint Mild Tactical Automobile-mounted MADIS permits customers to trace and detect each pleasant and enemy plane and choose kinetic choices, akin to missiles or gunfire, and non-kinetic choices, akin to sign jammers or lasers, earlier than disabling the risk.

The MADIS, which makes use of two JLTVs, contains a number of techniques, akin to radar, surface-to-air missiles and command and management parts. Every car enhances the opposite.

“In layman’s phrases, one detects, and the opposite assaults,” based on a Marine launch.

The brand new unit fielding the MADIS, the Hawaii-based third MLR, is the Corps’ first operational littoral regiment. The service seeks to ascertain two extra regiments within the Pacific, with the twelfth MLR slated for Okinawa, Japan, and the 4th MLR deliberate for Guam.

The brand new regiments are a slimmed down model — about 1,800 to 2,000 Marines — of the normal infantry regiment, with missiles as a substitute of typical artillery, their very own touchdown craft, anti-air battalions and different options purpose-designed for littoral fight. A traditional Marine infantry regiment can comprise as much as 2,200 Marines.

A lightweight model of the MADIS, aptly named the L-MADIS, noticed its operational debut in July 2019, when Marines aboard the amphibious assault ship Boxer used the system, mounted on a Polaris MRZR all-terrain car, to shoot down an Iranian drone, Marine Corps Instances beforehand reported.

The sunshine model is “uniquely aligned” to the Marine Expeditionary Items, smaller than an MLR with a broader vary of missions. The MADIS can deal with the air protection wants of bigger formations and may synchronize and coordinate with the L-MADIS, Konicki mentioned.

The Corps’ Fiscal Yr 2024 finances request included $130 million for 13 MADIS Increment 1 techniques.

In 2022, the Marines held an business day to develop capabilities for the subsequent model of MADIS to defeat bigger drones.

“Fielding MADIS to [3rd] LAAB is just step one,” Konicki mentioned. “What MADIS is at present is not going to be the identical system 12, 24, 36 months from now.

By means of 2035, the Corps is planning to subject a complete of 190 MADIS techniques to the first, 2nd and third Low Altitude Air Protection battalions — that are separate from the Littoral Anti-Air Battalions — and the third, 4th and twelfth MLRs.

Past continued upgrades to software program, energy consumption and capabilities for the system, Marine officers launched a request from business for proposals on a smaller, dismounted model of the MADIS functionality earlier this 12 months, Konicki added.

System fielding by the LAAD battalion will start within the fourth quarter of fiscal 2025, based on the discharge.