Overview

• The Sept. 7–16 event at Saudi Arabia’s Shamal-2 Range brought together more than 300 personnel operating 20 counter‑UAS systems.
• Testing linked sensors and command-and-control with tools such as Signal Hunter, the Buffer Passive Acoustic Detection System, Vanguard, Skyguard, Shikra and MLIDS alongside electronic warfare.
• Live-fire scenarios employed AC-130 and AH-64 aircraft with Saudi F-15s and Typhoon fighters, plus shoulder‑fired Drone Defeat Rounds from 12‑gauge shotguns containing 720 tungsten pellets.
• Adm. Brad Cooper and Gen. Fayyadh bin Hamed Raqed Al‑Ruwaili observed the culminating events during Cooper’s first regional trip as CENTCOM commander.
• This fourth Red Sands iteration followed months of rapid prototyping in response to one‑way attack drones and missiles used by Iran and proxies that have caused casualties and disrupted maritime traffic.