HOPE HODGE SECK
Despite daunting technological challenges with no clear solution, the Marine Corps is forging ahead with a comprehensive counter-drone strategy that leaders say will have a role for every service member, whether infantry or those in administration.
Of the three components of the Corps' drone defense plan, as laid out by officers leading the effort at the Modern Day Marine Expo in Washington, D.C., that wrapped up on May 2, the unit protection tranche is the most developed. Some eight years after officers deployed to the Middle East began citing an urgent need for a weapon that would dispatch hostile unmanned aerial systems, the service is now getting close to fielding the vehicle-based Marine Air Defense Integrated System, or MADIS, and L-MADIS, its lighter counterpart specialized for ship defense.
An early version of L-MADIS made headlines in 2019 when it shot down an Iranian drone from the deck of the amphibious assault ship USS Boxer during its operational debut. The current system is designed to be mounted on two Polaris MRZR all-terrain vehicles and be transportable via MV-22 Osprey or CH-53 Super Stallion/King Stallion.
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