The USAF arms an F-15E fighter jet with dual-guided rockets to shoot down drones

The proliferation of attack drones has become a challenge for the air defenses of many countries, including the United States.

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Attack drones are very cheap weapons that can be used in large numbers and cause great damage, as has been seen recently in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The challenge against these weapons is to develop a system that allows them to be shot down effectively and at a low cost. This is a problem that could be solved by aviation in a type of weapon that began to be used in World War II: rockets.

There's a weapons system that's upgrading rockets used by various NATO countries to turn them into anti-drone weapons. The Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) is an unguided Hydra 70 rocket converted into a laser-guided weapon. BAE Systems began developing it in 2002, and like the rocket it's based on, it has a diameter of 70 mm and can be fired from rocket launchers of that caliber. Three years ago, BAE Systems published the video you can see above these lines showing different applications of this weapons system. In this other video, we can see the APKWS launched from the ground against a drone:

The advantage of these guided weapons is that they can be launched from any aircraft, whether fighter or helicopter gunship. The APWKS uses semi-active laser homing. These rockets reach a speed of 3,600 km/h (Mach 2.9) and can be used against ground targets as well as aerial targets.

The APWKS II entered service in 2012. The latest version of this system, the AGR-20F APWKS II, unveiled in April 2025, features dual guidance that adds a passive infrared sensor to the laser guidance of the original APWKS, so that the rocket – already a missile, as it is guided – can first be guided by the laser and finally directed towards its target by following its infrared signature.

The United States is now testing the AGR-20F on F-15 Strike Eagle fighter-bombers. This Wednesday, the United States Air Force (USAF) released a series of photos taken on May 22 at Eglin Air Force Base in Florida, showing tests carried out with this weapons system. The photos you see in this article correspond to those tests.

The tests were conducted by the USAF's 96th Test Wing (96 TW) "in an effort to get the capability to the warfighter as quickly as possible." That unit has several types of aircraft for its tests: A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft, Northrop AT-38 Talon training aircraft, C-130 Hercules transport aircraft, F-15 Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon fighters, and even older UH-1 Huey helicopters.

In this case we see tests with an F-15E Strike Eagle fighter-bomber. In the image we see a test version of this aircraft. The aircraft has a camera under the fuselage and wings to record shots. This F-15E carries four rocket launchers (two under each wing) with a capacity of seven projectiles each, that is, with the capacity to launch a total of 28 AGR-20F guided rockets.

Although these guided rockets do not have the range of large air-to-air missiles, they are very practical for shooting down drones, thanks to their relatively low cost, which is the goal of these weapons.

According to Joseph Trevithick at The War Zone, each guidance section to convert a Hydra 70 into an APKWS II costs between €15,000 and €20,000. According to Sofrep.com, the cost of each APKWS II would be around $35,000. However, an AIM-120 AMRAAM medium-range air-to-air missile costs around $1 million, while an AIM-9X Sidewinder short-range air-to-air missile costs about $450,000.

Shooting down a swarm of drones with a traditional air-to-air missile would be enormously expensive compared to the cost of the downed drones. That's a different story with APKWS II.

It should be noted that this weapons system has already been used by the USAF in combat actions, specifically in the Middle East, a few months ago, with up to six launchers of seven rockets each on a single aircraft (i.e. 42 rockets in total), as seen in this photo released by the U.S. Central Command on May 30. The development of the new AGR-20F is expected to be completed in 2026 and could