The broader Marine Air Defense Integrated System is meant to shoot down drones, fixed-wing aircraft, and helicopters and includes both non-kinetic (jamming) and kinetic weapons to down drones. The kinetic weapon is a 7.62-millimeter minigun mounted on the new Humvee replacement, the Joint Light Tactical Vehicle. The Marine Corps plans to eventually add laser weapons to LMADIS.
The incident took place in the Strait of Hormuz, which connects the Gulf of Oman to the Persian Gulf. The 11th Marine Expeditionary Unit, embarked on the amphibious assault ship Boxer, parked a LMADIS jammer on the Boxer’s flight deck to provide a defense against Iranian UAVs known to operate in the area. The marines detected an Iranian unmanned aerial vehicle and jammed it when the drone closed to within 1,000 yards of the Boxer.
The system is comprised of two vehicles — one a “command node,” and the other a “sensor node.” The vehicles are outfitted with radar sensors, cameras, and radio frequency detectors and signal jammer. Once the crew is able to detect a threat, they use the jammer to disrupt the signals from the drone. While the system has been tested out on land by ground forces, Military.com reports that the Navy and Marines began testing the system on ships earlier this year.
If the signal-cell phone jammer fails, then the buggy’s radar technology can direct conventional missiles towards the same target to finish it off. The radar can detect targets ranging from small commercially available drones up to bombers and passenger jets, at heights ranging from 30 to 30,000 feet.
The DroneGun MKIII is a portable pistol-shape drone cell phone jammer designed for one hand operation, coming in at a weight of 4.3 lbs. The company believes this product is peerless globally, for its combination of size and effectiveness.