The system: Northrop Grumman named its 50mm gun-based air defence system Raid Hunter, pairing a Chain Gun with precision-guided ammunition and a networked controller, designed to counter drone swarms and cruise missiles that could exhaust missile-based defences' magazines.
The economics: The pitch centres on cost — deep magazines and high rates of fire against massed cheap threats, rather than expending interceptors worth hundreds of thousands of pounds on drones costing a fraction of that, echoing recent Red Sea engagements against Houthi drones.
The context: Raid Hunter sits within Northrop's Raid Defense Solutions portfolio, built on a C-130-transportable palletised format with vehicle and container variants planned, and reflects a wider industry return to guns via guided ammunition, alongside Rheinmetall's Skyranger and Britain's DragonFire laser work.
