Marine anti-tank missilemen are getting attack drones for a new precision-strike role

A Marine instructor at an East Coast infantry school checks a Neros Archer drone on Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.

Cpl.

Jose Flores/US Marine Corps Anti-tank missile Marines are set to get new loitering munitions in January.

The drones could let small infantry units strike targets without calling in aircraft or artillery.

The Corps is also fielding new counter-drone gear and training rifle squads to use it.

US Marine Corps anti-tank missilemen trained to destroy enemy armored vehicles are getting a new weapon: one-way attack drones that can hunt and strike targets far beyond the reach of their traditional missiles, a top general told reporters recently.

The first Marine units are set to receive the loitering munitions in January, part of the service's broader redesign of its ground force for large-scale combat in the Pacific and for battlefields increasingly filled with drones and disrupted communications.

The changes underway within the Corps represent a marked shift from the post-9/11 wars that saw Marines involved in counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The Corps has already shed its tanks and some other heavy equipment, created new units focused on coastal warfare, and prepared to disperse Marines across remote islands and coastal areas inside an adversary's weapons range.

The new loitering munitions provide small Marine units with their own ability to conduct precision strikes at distances that previously would have required calling in strikes from nearby aircraft or artillery.

The Marines set to receive these weapons first are troops whose core mission has long been engaging and destroying tanks and armored vehicles with Javelin and TOW missiles.

Lt.

Gen.

Jay Bargeron, the Corps' director of strategy, plans, and policy, told reporters last week that the service is set to field its Organic Precision Fires-Light system in January.