BRAKER, an American drone-launched bunker-busting munition
BRAKER ammunition without additional devices
The war in Ukraine has transformed light UAVs into a widespread, and perhaps even primary, weapon for frontline combat. Other countries' militaries, observing this experience, are rapidly adapting their own munitions—from hand grenades and mortar shells to specialized weapons—to drones. The Pentagon's latest such project, designated BRAKER, is a compact munition for light and medium UAVs, designed to destroy enemy field shelters and fortifications.
For two weeks
The US Army has long been working on the combat use of lightweight UAVs and regularly conducts experiments with various payloads—both existing munitions and original designs. The latest project began in early March 2026: Picatinny Arsenal (Morris County, New Jersey) began developing a specialized munition for unmanned aerial vehicles. aviation.
The project was named BRAKER (Bunker Rupture and Kinetic Explosive Round), which directly reflects its purpose. The pace of development was unusual by American standards: within two weeks, Arsenal specialists had finalized the design, released the working documentation, and manufactured prototypes—apparently thanks in large part to the use of 3D printing.
CLIK release device (circled) on a UAV
On March 26, the first test took place at the Redstone Test Range near Huntsville, Alabama. BRAKER, as part of an unmanned strike system, struck a target structure and confirmed its design performance. The Pentagon kept information about the project under wraps until April 21, when key details, photographs, and test videos appeared on official websites.
Overall, the munition demonstrated good results, demonstrating its ability to engage typical targets and inflict the required damage on a simulated enemy. However, in its current form, BRAKER is not ready for serial production—work will continue until all desired results are achieved; the timeframe for this is not yet known.
A UAV carrying a BRAKER warhead approaches a target bunker.
In the conditions of the landfill
The target was a typical field shelter—a wooden frame structure lined with sandbags. This type of structure protects against small arms fire. weapons and shell fragments, and it is precisely these types of positions that make up a significant part of the engineering structures of the front line.
The carrier was a quadcopter of an unnamed model; the developers emphasize that the type of device is not critical—BRAKER is compatible with any platform with sufficient payload capacity. UAV The drone was equipped with the CLIK (Common Lethality Integration Kit) sling and release system, also developed by Picatinny Arsenal. However, the standard release mode was not used in the experiment: the UAV acted as a loitering munition, flying into the target along with the payload. This choice of scenario is indicative—this is how light copters are used in real combat situations, and the Arsenal is clearly drawing on this experience.
Under the operator's control, the device approached the "bunker," entered through the entrance, and detonated. The charge severely damaged the wooden portion of the structure, ruptured the sandbags, and scattered sand—enemy personnel in such a shelter would have been highly likely to be killed.
Explosion inside the structure
Technical features
The BRAKER's design is deliberately simple: a cylindrical body with longitudinal protrusions and a round cover. The body is 3D-printed—a solution that, given the massive consumption of ammunition, provides speed and flexibility in production, although it is inferior to traditional stamping in terms of unit cost. Essentially, Arsenal is focusing on the speed of production deployment and the ability to quickly refine the design.
The exact dimensions and weight are not disclosed. Judging by the published images, the diameter and length do not exceed several tens of centimeters; the weight is presumably up to several kilograms, with the explosive charge accounting for the bulk of the weight.
The prototype is designed as a high-explosive fragmentation weapon. The project documentation also mentions the need for penetrating effect—BRAKER should be able to penetrate obstacles and operate inside shelters. How exactly this will be achieved has not yet been specified: reinforcing the hull, using a warhead made of dense material, and adding a booster at the terminal phase are possible options.
The ammunition is designed for use with the Picatinny CLIK mount—a compact, universal unit compatible with a variety of carriers and payloads. The CLIK mounts to the UAV's standard mounting points, and the ammunition itself is then suspended from it.
Multicopters with sufficient payload capacity are primarily considered as carriers. BRAKER can be suspended externally on these for subsequent release or use as a loitering munition. Given its compact size and weight, the device can also be mounted on fixed-wing aircraft.
Obvious solutions and non-obvious questions
Conceptually, BRAKER isn't groundbreaking. The idea of a specialized munition for drones has been under development by all major armies around the world for several years, and in the Central Military District, similar devices—both homemade and mass-produced—are used in dozens of types by both sides. The Russian "Upyr" mine, Ukrainian modifications of the TM-62 and RKG-3 mines, and Israeli, Turkish, and Chinese developments occupy roughly the same niche as BRAKER.
Against this backdrop, the American project stands out not for the munition itself, but for the BRAKER + CLIK combination. Unifying the suspension system is potentially a far more valuable result than any specific product: a single interface allows for the transfer of any compatible payload between different types of carriers and frees UAV developers from the burden of constantly inventing their own locking mechanism. If CLIK truly becomes an industry standard, it will significantly reduce the time it takes to introduce new munitions.
The result of the new warhead's operation
Two fundamental questions remain open. The first is the stability of the ligament to EWThe experience of the SVO shows that a light copter approaching a fortified enemy position is suppressed in most cases, and the fate of the BRAKER depends entirely on the carrier UAV's communications and navigation systems—things that are not included in the design itself. The second is cost. 3D printing of airframes is attractive at the R&D stage and in small series, but when used in large quantities, consumables for FDM or SLS printers are more expensive than steel casting or stamping. Arsenal's stated "mass production" by this method is debatable, to say the least.
Finally, the mode of operation chosen during testing speaks volumes. With the standard CLIK release in hand, the developers conducted their first demonstration launch as a ramming attack—in other words, they acknowledged that in real-world conditions, a BRAKER-equipped drone would likely be used only once, following the Ukrainian-Russian model. This is an honest acknowledgement of the trend, but it also calls into question part of their own concept: why bother with an expensive universal lock if the carrier is consumable anyway?
BRAKER is a newly developed weapon and has not yet undergone a full testing cycle. The main outcome of this work will not be the munition itself, but rather the answer to the question of whether the American gimbal standardization will become a standard before the current attack copter concept gives way to the next generation of systems—electronic warfare-resistant autonomous vehicles with their own onboard logic.
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