Vampires

Vampire Drones

Vincent J. Curtis

1 Nov 25

When you hear the word ‘vampire’, you think of bats, Count Dracula; and I’ve even heard of a ‘vampire facial’! But that’s not what we’re talking about here. This about another kind of vampire: the Vampire drone.

The Vampire drone is a product of L3 Harris (NYSE: LHX); production began in 2022 for Ukraine, and procurement was funded by the first aid package of $3 Billion from the United States. The Vampire system is essentially a re-purposed laser-guided rocket. These rockets cost only about $35,000 per (cheap!), making them economical to use against their intended target, Shahed drones, which cost about $50,000 each; Vampires are much less expensive than the Coyote Block 2s, which. run a little over $125,000 per. The economics of the Vampire drone tilts in favor of the defender over the attacker. (For comparison, a Stinger missile runs $400k, and an SM2 about $2.2M).

A cool name like VAMPIRE has to stand for something: it’s an acronym for:  

Vehicle Agnostic, Modular Palletized, ISR Rocket Equipment. (The marketing guys at L3 Harris got a little creative, and there’s more to come.)  As advertised, it is a low-cost, mobile, counter-UAV “solution.” (Does any military supplier offer something other than a “solution”?). In January, 2022, L3 Harris got $40 million to build 14 of them, and by August, they were ready for shipment to Ukraine.

To keep costs low, the system uses off-the-shelf components already in production for other projects. The rockets themselves are taken from Advanced Precision Kill Weapons System (APKWS), which, in turn, uses “dumb” Hydra 70 rockets and makes them “smart”.  These laser-guided rockets are currently used by the U.S. Army, USN, USMC, and USAF for air-to-ground strikes, and volume production keeps unit cost down.

Vampire rockets are fired from a land LRG4 launcher made by Arnold Defense.  Weighing only 60 lbs, the launcher holds 4 rockets, and will fit on a Toyota Hilux, or, if you’re into old classics, an M-113.

The Westcam (once a Canadian company, bought by L3) MX10D RSTA pods are carried on the MQ9 Reaper, OA1K Skyraider 2, and is the detector and designator for the Vampire system. The Westcam optical system relies on line of sight: from a height of 6’, it can see 3 miles to the horizon; at a height of 35’, it can see 7 miles, close to the range of the rocket of 9 miles.

Fire is controlled by a tablet, mountable in the cab of the truck, using a program called “Widow software”, which integrates with the forward area air-defense C&C network (FAD C2).

In Ukraine, the Vampire is used to defend sensitive rear-area and logistics points; it is not autonomous, not all-weather, and not designed to handle mass drone attacks alone. Vampires would comprise a close-in kinetic kill layer in a layered anti-drone defense, which would also include jammers, spoofers, and guns. The system works well when target is visible, line of sight can be maintained, and crews are trained; it struggles when targets are flying erratically, diving fast behind cover, and visibility is poor. Smoke, dust, complex terrain, fog, electronic dazzlers and reflective surfaces all contribute to poor visibility because they interfere with laser designation, but Vampires are less susceptible to jamming, as radar or GPS guided systems are. The Vampires can fill in where radar and electronic warfare might struggle.

In October, 2025, L3 Harris announced expansion of the Vampire system, with more marketing creativity.  The ‘Stalker’ XR is the Vampire system intended for land deployment on a truck and that uses the Arnold Hydra system MLHS, with a 23 rocket capacity.  The Vampire ‘Killcode:’ is a pair of antennas that shoot radio “bullets.”  The Vampire ‘BAT’: (Base Anti-Drone Turret) is an automatic weapon that uses non-kinetic effects to minimize collateral damage.  Finally, the Vampire ‘CASKET’ (Containerized Anti-drone System with Kinetic Effects Turret is a self-contained Vampire in a box that is ready for rapid deployment in remote locations.

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