US Army unveils MALET, a clip-on kit that lets drones drop standard 60mm and 81mm mortar rounds

TLDR

• The US Army's Armaments Center says its MALET clip-on kit lets drones drop standard 60mm and 81mm mortar rounds.¹
• The Army says live 60mm rounds dropped from a moving drone oriented correctly and detonated in the desired target area.¹
• Stars and Stripes says fielding timing is unclear; TWZ could not independently confirm how well MALET works.²³

The US Army Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM) Armaments Center at Picatinny Arsenal, New Jersey, announced on 4 November the Munitions Air-dropped Lethal Effects Tool (MALET), a kit that converts munitions so they can be dropped from unmanned aerial systems.¹ The Army says soldiers will be able to use rounds they already hold in abundance, such as 60mm and 81mm mortar rounds, instead of buying purpose-built drone munitions.¹

Work began in 2024, when experts in the Armaments Center's Fuze and Mortar Divisions saw a chance to let soldiers safely drop existing munitions without field modifications or manually removing safety mechanisms, with input from the Energetics and Warheads Directorate.¹ The kit adds a fuze function and the aerodynamic stability needed for a drone drop.¹ Fitting it is non-destructive, so an unused round can be returned to its original state and fired as a conventional mortar.¹ Senior scientific technical manager Ryan Gorman says the architecture can be applied to munitions beyond 60mm and 81mm mortars, and that mortars were demonstrated first because of their maturity and fit with large-UAS requirements.¹

The Army says test drops at multiple US Army facilities have matured the fuze function and safety elements, and that a recent test with live 60mm mortars dropped from a UAS on the move saw the rounds orient correctly and detonate within the desired target area.¹ Its next step is to distribute the kit to major military exercises in the fall for soldier feedback, and to transition the system to industry partners and the acquisition community.¹ Stars and Stripes reports that it is not clear when the system could be fielded.²

TWZ reports that MALET is part of the Picatinny Common Lethality Integration Kit (CLIK) family, which also includes the AUDIBLE weapons release system and the Gunslinger fire-control software.³ It adds that the Army did not say which drones were used in the tests, that a solicitation earlier this year sought drones with a desired operational range of 20km to 40km, and that the Army provided only still images of the round after release and impact, so TWZ could not independently confirm how well the system worked or how easy soldiers would find it to use.³ Stars and Stripes notes that modifying mortar rounds in the field would involve tampering with explosive safety mechanisms, which MALET is intended to avoid.²

Why it matters: the Army says MALET lets soldiers drop mortar rounds they already hold from drones without field modification of safety mechanisms, and that the kit can be removed to return a round to conventional mortar use.¹²