The U.S. Marine Corps is buying a new mobile counter-drone system that puts a radar and missile launchers on a lightweight off-road vehicle, giving Marine units another way to deal with increasingly common unmanned aerial threats.
V2X announced on September 8 that it had received a $19 million indefinite-delivery/indefinite-quantity contract to provide its Tempest counter-unmanned aerial system (C-UAS), along with software management, spare parts, training, maintenance and engineering support. The contract covers 10 Tempest vehicles, according to contract information reported following the August award.
A missile launcher built around mobility
Tempest is designed around a relatively simple idea: detect an incoming drone, engage it quickly and then move before the enemy can target the counter-drone system itself.
The publicly demonstrated vehicle uses a commercially derived 4×4 off-road platform fitted with a radar and two launchers for AGM-114L Longbow Hellfire missiles. V2X says the system is intended to detect, engage and defeat Class 2 and Class 3 unmanned aircraft, including larger reconnaissance and attack drones.
That makes Tempest quite different from traditional air-defense vehicles built around heavy armored chassis and large sensor suites. Its lightweight configuration prioritizes mobility and a small footprint, allowing it to operate alongside maneuvering forces and rapidly relocate after an engagement.
The concept reflects a problem that has become increasingly visible in Ukraine and other conflicts: relatively inexpensive drones can threaten troops, vehicles and other high-value assets, forcing militaries to find ways of defending against them without relying exclusively on expensive traditional air-defense missiles.
Why put Hellfires on a buggy?
The most unusual feature of the publicly displayed Tempest is its combination of a small off-road vehicle with the much larger Hellfire missile. The AGM-114L uses an active millimeter-wave radar seeker and is designed to operate without continuous guidance from the launching vehicle after firing.
That supports the “shoot-and-scoot” concept behind Tempest: the vehicle can engage a target and quickly leave its firing position rather than remaining exposed while guiding the missile.
V2X first publicly showed Tempest at the Association of the United States Army’s annual meeting in 2025. The company described it as a commercially based combat vehicle designed for rapid, low-exposure missions and said stationary trailer-mounted versions were also available.
The exact configuration that will be delivered to the Marine Corps, however, has not been fully disclosed. The contract does not publicly specify the final interceptor, radar arrangement or other detailed equipment, so the publicly displayed Hellfire configuration should not automatically be assumed to be identical to all 10 Marine Corps vehicles.
A new layer in Marine Corps air defense
The Marine Corps already operates mobile counter-UAS and short-range air-defense systems, including the Light Marine Air Defense Integrated System (L-MADIS). Marines have recently been training with L-MADIS to counter drones threatening amphibious forces.
Tempest adds another approach. A highly mobile kinetic interceptor that can accompany maneuvering forces and engage selected drone threats at relatively short range. That distinction could become increasingly important as drone warfare evolves. Electronic warfare can disrupt some unmanned systems, but autonomous drones, resistant communications links and other technologies can make jamming less reliable.
A missile-based system gives commanders another option when electronic defeat is insufficient. At the same time, Tempest is not intended to replace an entire air-defense network. With only two publicly demonstrated ready-to-fire missiles, a vehicle like this would be poorly suited to independently handle a large drone swarm. Its value instead comes from being mobile, distributed and able to rapidly respond to individual threats while operating as part of a wider defensive network.
For the Marines, that mobility may be the most important feature. Rather than protecting a fixed site with a large air-defense vehicle, Tempest can move with combat formations, engage an approaching drone and then relocate before becoming an easy target itself.
As drone threats continue to spread across battlefields, systems built around that combination of mobility, rapid engagement and relatively simple commercial hardware could become an increasingly common part of frontline air defense.