Jeff Schogol
The Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment has tested whether first-person-view drones with an explosive payload can be used against enemy tanks. Army photo by Spc. Luke Sullivan.
The Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment has tested using First Person View, or FPV, one-way attack drones to destroy enemy tanks, drawing heavily from tactics that have become commonplace in the Russia-Ukraine war.
These experiments are one example of how the U.S. military is racing against time to ramp up production of small drones, as both Ukraine and Israel have used the unmanned aerial systems to launch devastating attacks against their adversaries.
The 75th Ranger Regiment demonstrated to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth how FPVs laden with explosives can be used to destroy targets when Hegseth visited Fort Benning in Georgia last week.
These types of drones are cheap to replace and, “The cost per kill is hugely elevated when we have FPVs killing $5-6 million tanks,” said Master Sgt. Andrew Heater, the regiment’s technology and mobility division chief.
Over the past 18 months, the regiment has conducted a series of experiments with FPVs that have included fitting small drones with explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, a type of anti-tank weapon that Shiite militias in Iraq used against U.S. troops, Heater told reporters during Hegseth’s visit to Benning.
“I would comfortably say that, yes, we’ve played with stuff that can penetrate armor, depending on the thickness,” Heater said.
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