US Stryker opens fire, downs drones in Lithuania

A US Army Maneuver Short-Range Air Defense Stryker has fired its 30mm cannon against aerial targets during counter-drone live-fire testing in Lithuania, part of the V Corps experimentation effort known as Project Flytrap.

The vehicle, an M1265A1 assigned to the 5th Battalion, 4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, engaged with its XM914 30mm cannon at the Pabradė Training Area on 14 May 2026. According to imagery released by US Army V Corps, the cannon is one of three weapons fitted to the platform’s Reconfigurable Integrated-weapons Platform turret, which also carries a Stinger missile launcher and an M240 7.62mm machine gun, giving crews several means of engaging air threats at different ranges.

The system fielded by the battalion is the production form of the U.S. Army’s Maneuver Short-Range Air Defense programme, which was named Sergeant Stout in 2024 after the only air defence artillery soldier to receive the Medal of Honor. Built on the Stryker A1 eight-wheeled chassis, it pairs General Dynamics Land Systems as platform integrator and prime contractor with a Leonardo DRS mission equipment package, while the turret at the centre of that package is Moog’s Reconfigurable Integrated-weapons Platform. The fielded configuration combines the cannon, machine gun and Stinger missiles with radar and sighting systems intended to detect, track and defeat unmanned aircraft as well as rotary- and fixed-wing threats.

The 5th Battalion, 4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment forms part of the US Army’s forward presence in Europe, and the live-fire serial placed its crews against the kind of low, slow and small aerial targets that have become a defining feature of recent fighting. Drone threats have reshaped the air picture over Ukraine and elsewhere, pushing Western armies to rehearse short-range air defence against systems that conventional anti-aircraft assets were not built to counter.

Project Flytrap runs from 27 April to 31 May 2026 and is being conducted by US and allied forces as one of a set of linked exercises that also includes Sword 26, Saber Strike, Immediate Response and Swift Response.