A US Army quadcopter engaged and destroyed a winged drone during an exercise at Fort Rucker, Alabama. These days, that’s not such a rare occurrence, but this one is different – it’s the first that used a Claymore landmine strapped to the quad.
As reports from the Ukraine war show, taking a drone and bolting a Claymore mine to it isn’t new. Both Ukrainian and Russian forces have done so on many occasions, but these have been to turn the drones into steerable cluster bombs to attack personnel on the ground.
Given that a Claymore is a curved block of C4 explosive with a layer of epoxy on the front embedded with about 700 ball bearings, the mine is a small, highly lethal munition. It’s simple to set up and can be fired manually or by a trip wire to spray steel shrapnel is a 60-degree arc to a distance of 330 ft (100 m). It’s so effective that it and imitations have been a mainstay of many military forces for almost 70 years as a defensive or area denial weapon.
A Sky Soldier–flown FPV drone. A claymore mine. One midair kill. Over the skies of Fort Rucker, the 173rd Airborne Brigade, Pennsylvania Army National Guard, and DEVCOM AC’s Project Shank made history with the Army’s first air-to-air kill by an armed FPV drone. pic.twitter.com/KXBa74LRj4
— 173rdAirborneBrigade (@173rdAbnBde) August 12, 2025
Today, as part of the US Army’s Project Shank, the Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Armaments Center (DEVCOM AC) is looking at ways to develop small, inexpensive, portable drones that can be controlled by a single field operator. One result of this has been an FPV drone armed with a Claymore mine.
Recently, over Tabernacle Field at Fort Rucker, a winged 7.7-lb (3.5-kg) SkyRaider drone was deployed, followed by the FPV quadcopter controlled by CW2 Nathan Shea, a UAS operations officer with the Pennsylvania National Guard. Under Shea’s control, the quad hunted for and then pursued the SkyRaider. When in range, the fire command was given and the Claymore detonated.
The result was what can safely be called overkill, like hitting a pigeon at point blank range with buckshot – only with a lot fewer feathers. The SkyRaider was knocked out of the air and contact was momentarily lost with the quadcopter due to the massive recoil, though the little aircraft did survive and communications were reestablished.
The ultimate goal is to improve upon and integrate lessons learned from the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Middle Eastern conflicts, and incorporate these into US and NATO tactics.
Source: US Army
