BAE Systems says armed TRV-150 cargo drone intercepted multiple attack drones with APKWS rockets

TLDR

• BAE Systems says its TRV-150 drone fired APKWS rockets at several attack drones in one flight at Eglin.¹²
• The trial used a production-ready three-pod launcher, building on a single-rocket firing in July 2025.¹²
• Both outlets rely on BAE's 21 October statement, and neither gives the number of intercepts.¹²

BAE Systems said on 21 October that a modified TRV-150 uncrewed aircraft fired laser-guided Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) rockets at successive one-way attack drones during a US experiment at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida, without landing or reloading.¹² Defence Blog dates the trials to 21 to 25 September, during a Joint Readiness Experimentation exercise run by the Office of the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering, while Defence Industry Europe says only late September.¹² BAE ran the trials with Maryland-based SURVICE Engineering.¹

The TRV-150 is a version of the British-built T-150 quadcopter from BAE subsidiary Malloy Aeronautics, adapted by SURVICE to meet US Army requirements, with BAE's FalconWorks division developing and integrating the APKWS kit.¹² The latest trials used a production-ready three-pod launcher and build on a single-shot firing from an adapted T-150 in July 2025.¹² BAE says the T-150 already serves UK forces as a logistics drone, and that it carried supplies between ships during the Royal Navy Carrier Strike Group's eight-month Indo-Pacific deployment last year.¹² The team plans to extend the counter-drone role to the maritime environment.¹

Defence Blog explains that APKWS fits a laser-guidance section to an unguided 70 mm Hydra rocket, and adds its own context: a May US Navy contract worth up to $98.4 million to L3Harris for proximity fuzes to make APKWS more effective against drones, and a March BAE test-firing of the rocket from a Royal Air Force Typhoon.² Both outlets quote the same BAE FalconWorks and SURVICE executives, so they are not independent confirmation, and neither reports an intercept count, engagement range, target type or cost per shot.

Why it matters: the trial, as BAE describes it, takes a low-cost guided rocket from a single shot to several engagements per sortie on a cargo-class drone, which matters because attack drones often arrive in groups; the claim rests on BAE's own statement with no independent observer reported, so engagement counts, cost per intercept and the planned maritime version are the details to watch.