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The United States Navy selected the VAMPIRE counter-unmanned system for coastal and littoral defence on 8 September 2026.
VAMPIRE stands for Vehicle-Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment and is built by L3Harris Technologies, headquartered at Melbourne, Florida.
It is a palletised kit that can be fitted to different vehicle platforms and fires 70 mm AGR-20A APKWS laser-guided rockets at aerial, ground and sea-based targets.
The baseline system uses a WESCAM MX-10D RSTA electro-optical and infrared sensor on a telescopic mast and runs the Widow Mission Management System, compliant with the FAAD C2 architecture.
L3Harris is ruggedising VAMPIRE for maritime conditions and has also developed a maritime variant called Black Wake for crewed and uncrewed vessels.
The launcher, sensor and fire-control electronics sit on a self-contained pallet that can be bolted into the cargo bed of almost any suitable vehicle or onto a vessel, instead of requiring a dedicated platform built around the weapon.
Simple Analogy: A weapon kit in a crate, not a custom-built gun truck.
US defence and aerospace technology company that developed VAMPIRE and its maritime variant Black Wake; formed in 2019 by the merger of L3 Technologies and Harris Corporation
Selected VAMPIRE for coastal and littoral counter-unmanned defence; the customer for the maritime-ruggedised system
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Vehicle-Agnostic Modular Palletized ISR Rocket Equipment, a palletised counter-unmanned system by L3Harris.
Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System - a laser guidance kit that turns unguided 70 mm rockets into precision munitions.
The shallow coastal zone where sea and land operations overlap.