U.S. Army Puts Defenses To A 'Stress Test' Using Massive Drone Swarms

The U.S. Army used Exercise Scarlet Dragon 26-3 at Fort Bragg to stress layered defences against coordinated swarms of roughly 25 to 100 drones. The event combined AH-64 Apache helicopters, Sentinel radars, shared command networks and a larger unmanned aircraft that released smaller daughter drones. Artificial intelligence and distributed sensors helped identify and prioritise targets, while low-flying F11 Core drones challenged radar coverage. Officials said the trials showed that no single detector can handle every geometry or flight profile, underscoring the need to fuse multiple sensors and effectors against massed unmanned threats.