The US Army Asks Industry for a 50mm Gun-Based Counter-Drone System

The issuing office is the Project Manager for Maneuver Ammunition Systems, and the government-furnished equipment list, cannon assembly, ammunition, technical data, test facilities, covers everything except the thing being asked for. Respondents are asked to describe their counter-UAS capabilities, a proposed system architecture, fire control and sensor integration, a draft test or demonstration plan, and how the platform would employ 50x228mm ammunition against the specified target set, according to Military Times' account of the notice.

The gun and the rounds exist. Military Times reports the XM913 would use the XM1203 armour-piercing fin-stabilised discarding sabot round and the XM1204 high-explosive airburst round. The government-furnished equipment list stops there. What the notice asks industry to supply is everything that would turn a vehicle cannon into an air-defence weapon: the tracking, the fire control and the sensor integration.

Aviation Week frames the effort as part of the Army's press for cheaper options against drone threats. The economics are the underlying logic: engaging a low-cost drone with an interceptor that costs multiples of its target is a losing exchange at scale, and gun rounds sit at the affordable end of the effector cost curve.

The 50mm survey is one of several concurrent Army moves down that curve. A separate request for information, reported by Breaking Defense on 5 August, seeks a Next Generation Counter-Small UAS Missile priced under $150,000 per missile, compatible with Raytheon's Coyote launcher with minimal to no modifications, against Group 2 and 3 targets. The Army is also funding a mobile high-power microwave prototype, ThinKom's Alecto, covered in a separate Drone Intelligence briefing. On the public record, guns, low-cost missiles and directed energy are being explored in parallel.

The notice quoted by Stars and Stripes is unambiguous about its own status: this is a market survey, not a pre-solicitation notice. Aviation Week adds that no requirements have been set yet. The target set is defined, Class 1 through 3 covers everything from small quadcopters to aircraft of roughly 1,320 pounds travelling at up to 250 knots, according to Military Times, but thresholds, quantities and platforms are not fixed in any public document.

The XM913's origin matters for reading the platform question. The cannon is slated to be the primary weapon on the XM30 Mechanized Infantry Combat Vehicle, the Bradley successor, according to Military Times, but the notice as publicly reported does not commit the counter-UAS application to any firing platform. Respondents are asked how their proposed system would employ the ammunition, which leaves the platform as part of the answer rather than part of the question.