France’s “Drone Killer” Turret Faces the Real Test: Can It Stop Fast FPV Drones?

Описание: France is adapting a widely fielded remote weapon station into a close-in counter-drone system—but the early test details reveal a critical gap between shooting slow quadcopters and defeating high-speed FPV attack drones. In this video, we break down Arquus’ Hornet Air Guard concept, why France is prioritizing detection in upcoming trials, and what it takes to compress the kill chain when an FPV can cover the last 150 meters in just a few seconds.

Hornet turrets are already common across French Army platforms like the Griffon and Serval. The key idea behind Hornet Air Guard is not a full redesign, but an adaptation kit that can be installed quickly—potentially at unit level—so fleets can evolve faster than procurement cycles. Reported tests showed the system engaging small quadcopters at a few hundred meters with 7.62 mm fire, using short bursts to down targets in flight and on approach. Encouraging? Yes. Decisive? Not yet.

Because speed changes everything. A drone moving “a few tens of kilometers per hour” is a fundamentally different target than an FPV that can exceed 100 km/h, jink near the ground, and appear with minimal warning in cluttered terrain. That is why sensors matter as much as the gun: radar cueing, electro-optical tracking, classification, and automation to reduce operator workload and react in time. France’s DGA reportedly ordered a small batch for further evaluation, with a near-term emphasis on detection performance—arguably the real bottleneck in counter-FPV defense.

We’ll examine what this implies for hard-kill C-UAS on armored vehicles: engagement geometry, reaction timelines, caliber tradeoffs (7.62 vs 12.7), ammunition economics, saturation attacks, and how turret-based solutions fit into layered protection alongside EW and dedicated air defense assets.