The US Army reports its 52d Air Defense Artillery Brigade (52d ADA BDE) is testing and evaluating new counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems (c-UAS) capabilities, including IonStrike, a radar-agnostic, low-cost kinetic interceptor designed to strengthen layered defence against drones.
“IonStrike, produced by DZYNE Technologies, offers a potential new mid-range intercept capability for air defense formations facing increasingly complex UAS threats,” according to a US Army report. “The system integrates with existing command-and-control architectures, including the Forward Area Air Defense (FAAD) System and the Integrated Battle Command System Maneuver (IBCS-M), enabling soldiers to employ the interceptor through systems they already use to detect, track, classify, and engage one-way attack drones.
“These developmental tests focused on evaluating IonStrike’s suitability for the Eastern Flank Deterrence Initiative (EFDI), the transformational warfighting concept that leverages unmanned and minimally manned systems, backed by an integrated mission command network that uses live data to accelerate decision-making and offset forward posture and adversary advantages in mass and momentum. The EFDI is spearheaded by the vision of the United States Army Europe and Africa (USAREUR-AF) and NATO Allied Land Command (LANDCOM).
“During recent test and demonstration events this spring, DZYNE brought IonStrike to Europe and demonstrated its capabilities to senior leaders from USAREUR-AF and LANDCOM.
IonStrike is launched from a multi-interceptor pallet and is cued by radars already integrated into approved command-and-control (C2) systems. The test configuration uses a 4-interceptor launcher, and the brigade is working with DZYNE to field a 12-interceptor configuration to increase magazine depth against larger raid profiles.
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52d ADA BDE assesses IonStrike interceptors to support EFDI | Article | The United States Army