U.S. and Saudis conduct Middle East’s largest counter-drone exercise
A days-long joint U.S. and Saudi military exercise will help to counter unmanned drone attacks, such as Russia’s drone attack that hit a Ukrainian warehouse near Kyiv on Tuesday. Photo by State Emergency Service of Ukraine via EPA
Sept. 17 (UPI) — U.S. and Saudi forces engaged in the Middle East’s largest live-fire exercise to counter unmanned drones and other aerial munitions through improved detection and tracking.
Newly placed U.S. Central Command leader Adm. Brad Cooper and Gen. Fayyadh bin Hamed Raqed Al-Ruwalli, chief of the general staff for the Royal Saudi Armed Forces, oversaw the exercises at the Red Sands Integrated Experimentation Center in northeastern Saudi Arabia.
“Threats posed by the proliferation of advanced drones are a pressing challenge,” Cooper said Wednesday in a news release.
“Working shoulder-to-shoulder with regional partners to innovate and adapt is more critical than ever,” he added.
Iran and its proxies have launched thousands of one-way attack drones and missiles that have injured and killed civilians and disrupted maritime traffic, while destabilizing the Middle East, the CentCom release said.
The counter-drone exercise started on Sept. 7 and lasted for several days while using more than 300 personnel fielding 20 counter-unmanned aerial systems at Saudi Arabia’s Shamal-2 range.
“Red Sands brought together U.S., Saudi and industry capabilities and expertise to identify ‘best in breed’ systems for detecting, tracking and eliminating modern aerial drone threats,” Cooper said.
Such systems included the body-worn Signal Hunter passive radio frequency and geolocation device and the Buffer Passive Acoustic Detection System, both of which rapidly detect simulated air threats.
Counter-measures used included the Vanguard system, which CentCom describes as a “scalable firing solution for eliminating drone swarms.”
Also used were ground-based counter-unmanned aerial systems, electronic warfare options and rotary and fixed-wing aircraft that detect, track and engage aerial threats.
Troops also used shoulder-fired Drone Defeat Rounds containing 720 tungsten pellets fired from a 12-gauge shotgun.
The exercise was the fourth conducted between the United States and Saudi militaries since 2023.
The September exercise occurred after several months of rapid prototyping and development of arms and systems used in prior exercises.
