US Army unit deploys drone assembled completely in-house, uses 3D-printed 'Dragoon Bombs' with ball bearing shrapnel

What happened

Army’s 2nd Cavalry Regiment (2CR), based in Bavaria, Germany, has successfully launched an attack drone it claims is the first the unit has built and flown. Army soldiers are training to assemble drones and 3D-print bomb casings for field use.

According to Stars and Stripes , the soldiers of 2CR, also called Dragoons, used an Orqa MRM2-10 drone that they assembled and fitted with an electronic safety and arming device attached to a 3D-printed casing called “Dragoon bombs.” The explosives in the bomb could also be modified, such as adding ball bearings to target enemy personnel or using a shaped charge to defeat light armor.

You can see the drone in action in the video embedded below. “This is a conventional Army first, potentially an Army-wide first as far as a live, kinetic drone strike conducted without any contractor support (or) any external unit support,” company commander Capt.