The title alone would bring smiles to airsoft players who dabble in drones. Why not mount a 40mm airsoft gas grenade launcher into a drone for use in airsoft games? The idea is not farfetched as there are a lot of civilian drones out there in the market that can carry that payload. It’s just a matter of being creative enough in mounting a launcher, a FPV camera, and of course the remote to fire the gas grenade shell.

With drones, big and small, now playing roles in military organizations around the world, we see different capabilities from reconnaissance to being attack drones. The U.S. Army is testing a drone that can fire 40mm grenades according to Military.com’s Kit-Up Blog and it is designed to take out targets hiding behind cover.

The drone is the Cerberus GL, a man-packable drone that weighs 6kg. Made by Skyborne Technologies, it is a multi-round UAV, as the company describes it:

Cerberus GL has the ability to fire multiple 40mm grenades and perform ISR tasks before, during and after its fire mission, then return to the soldier for re-loading with cost-effective ammunition. All in a package under 6kg and with an endurance of 22 minutes.

Unlike the small drones that we are used to seeing in videos and images, the Cerberus GL is a tri-rotor UAV that features a tilt mode for easier aiming of the launcher and it has a superior hover efficiency which us explained that the lesser rotors, the more efficient it is in hovering like a helicopter which usually has two rotors as explained by the company. The design of the UAV allows it to aim using the whole airframe, allowing the launcher to be placed near the center of gravity, reducing the recoil moment arm.

Apart from a 40mm grenade launcher, the Cerberus GL can be mounted to fire small munitions and a 12-gauge shotgun. The company literature on the UAV cites a lot of situations in which it can be used such as firing smoke grenades for screening; counter-UAS using a mounted shotgun to take down enemy drones; and even firing flash grenades to start an assault in a hostage rescue mission.

The Cerberus GL is just one of the systems being tested by U.S. Army according to the Kit-Up! and data collected will be put into a report that will be completed in March 2020, as it seeks to develop low-cost counter defilade programs.

Whereas before, death from above for hard to dislodge enemy troops comes in the form of support aircraft or helicopters, in the future, they will come in smaller packages such as the Cerberus GL, freeing up such expensive flying vehicles for more important missions.