The Marines are testing its mobile drone-killing machine, equipped with Stinger missiles and machine gun turrets, for full deployment

However, until now, the full-strength version of the system — equipped with Stinger surface-to-air missiles as well as jammers and purportedly able to neutralize some conventional aircraft as well as unmanned systems — has not passed the prerequisite testing to enable it to be fielded to the total force.

Known as Integrated Operational Testing and Evaluation, or IOT&E, this is the battery of assessments conducted by the Marine Corps Operational Test and Evaluation Activity (MCOTEA) that proves a new warfighting system works as advertised, without major vulnerabilities or drawbacks. Like the Pentagon’s Director of Operational Test and Evaluation, which oversees all weapons testing for the DoD, MCOTEA doesn’t publicize specifics about the plan and scenarios for individual tests.

But according to its testing guidebook, IOT&E requires testing in “realistic combat conditions” and without intervention or maintenance from contractors on-site.

“MCOTEA uses a mission-oriented context in operational testing to relate evaluation results to the impact on the Warfighter’s ability to execute missions,” the guidebook states. “Focusing on the mission context during operational test planning and execution provides a more robust operational test environment and facilitates evaluation goals.”

IOT&E will also involve Marines from 3rd LAAB, a unit created in 2022 as part of a new category of unit designed from the ground up to focus on detection, early warning, and defense against threats from the air in coastal regions, particularly those in the Indo-Pacific.

Col. Andrew Konicki, the Marines’ program manager for Ground-Based Air Defense, came away impressed.

“MADIS is a game changer for counter [sic] UAS,” he said in a released statement. “This system provides the Marine Corps [with] an operational advantage — increasing our lethality on the battlefield.”

During IOT&E, a two-week test period set to take place in the coming months, more 3rd LAAB Marines will put MADIS through its full paces. And while that’s happening, Marines at Camp Pendleton, California, will get trained up on how to use MADIS, according to officials. New equipment training will take about two months, Blackstock said.

While MADIS is loaded with tech to provide 360-degree surveillance and detection and a buffet of “kill” options for electronic and kinetic drone neutralization, Capt. Taylor Barefoot, the Corps’ Counter Unmanned Aerial Systems Capabilities Integration officer, said this spring at the Modern Day Marine Expo in Washington, DC, that the hunter and killer capabilities have centralized operation points.

“All of that is operated from internal to MADIS from the gunner seat,” Barefoot said of the suite of weapons.

At the same event, Barefoot and Lt. Col. Robert Barclay, the Marines’ ground-based air defense advisor for aviation expeditionary enablers, also acknowledged a built-in weakness of MADIS and all the weapons currently developed to fight drones. They don’t have foolproof ways to tell the difference between friendly UAS and hostile ones. Small drones, Barclay pointed out, aren’t equipped with “friend-or-foe” transponders like aircraft are.

As technology matures and UAS becomes more ubiquitous, not just in the warfighting environment but also in everyday civilian life, MADIS and systems like it will have to adapt to stay effective. Likewise, as more systems become autonomous and hardened against electronic jamming, MADIS will likely have to adopt more powerful weapons to neutralize the threats it identifies.

This fall, 3rd LAAB will finally get its first 13 MADIS systems right as the weapon achieves initial operating capability, marking it ready for combat. Program managers said earlier this year that the Marine Corps wants a total of 190 MADIS and 21 L-MADIS systems.

“Full-rate production of the MADIS continues through FY29,” officials said.

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