BAE Systems unveiled the new Tridon Mk2 C-UAS system at Eurosatory this week. (Ashley Roque/Breaking Defense)
EUROSATORY 2024 – BAE Systems unveiled a modified version of its Bofors 40mm gun today, dubbed the Tridon Mk2, as a new anti-aircraft system that can be integrated onto trucks.
“On today’s battlefields, tens of thousands of drones are shot down every month, and this new threat has exposed a dangerous gap in current air defense capabilities for NATO allies. The Tridon Mk2 offers a solution to help fill that gap,” the company wrote in a press release.
The system includes day and night acquisition sensors, a fire control system and a gun. It requires three soldiers inside the truck’s cab — a commander, driver and operator — for it to operate, communications director Henrik Graff-Hedberg told Breaking Defense today.
He estimated that the system can fire 300 rounds per minute but only holds 100 ready rounds. Potential targets include all sizes of drones and even swarms of incoming unmanned aerial threats.
“When we have a swarm of drones, we use a firing pattern,” Graff-Hedberg added. “So, we are having a deliberate dispersion of the rounds, which means we are looking at fragments over a wide area.”
BAE Systems’s Swedish division kickstarted development work on the modified system in September 2023 and in February began a series of test firing in the Nordic nation. The plan is to host a more comprehensive week of test firings in mid-August to make sure the system is ready for customer demonstrations.
“When it comes to customers, we have several good dialogues … and that’s where we stand,” said Stefan Rostlund, a senior program manager for weapon systems in Sweden.
If testing goes as planned and the company finds a customer, that military could have the Tridon Mk2 by the end of the year. “We’re very close,” said Graff-Hedberg.
