Shotgun-Armed Drone Clears Pentagon's Blue UAS List, Signaling Shift Toward Reusable Weaponized Small UAS

Skyborne Technologies' Cerberus MI — an 18kg drone firing a 12-gauge shotgun or 40mm grenade launcher — just passed DoD cybersecurity and supply-chain vetting for federal procurement.

A drone purpose-built to fire a shotgun has been added to the Pentagon's Blue UAS list, the vetted catalog of unmanned systems cleared for purchase by the U.S. military and federal agencies. The Cerberus MI, manufactured by defense tech firm Skyborne Technologies, received approval in October 2026.

The Cerberus MI is not a consumer drone with a gun strapped on. Skyborne designed the airframe from scratch to absorb the recoil of its proprietary CHAOS 12-gauge shotgun. The system weighs roughly 40 pounds (18 kg), flies for approximately 35 minutes with weapons loaded, and can engage targets beyond 300 meters. It also mounts a five-round HAVOC 40mm low-velocity grenade launcher. Critically, the drone is reusable — operators launch, fire, return the platform for reloading, and launch again. This distinguishes it from the one-way attack drones that dominate the Ukraine theater. The Blue UAS program, established in 2020, exists to solve a specific procurement problem. Chinese manufacturers control roughly 90% of the commercial drone market, and U.S. officials have long flagged supply-chain and cybersecurity risks. The Blue UAS list pre-screens drones for compliance with federal standards — including the absence of Chinese-made components — so agencies can procure faster without repeating the vetting cycle for each purchase. Shotgun-armed drones are not conceptually new. Ukraine's 3Dtech has fielded a six-barrel recoilless shotgun drone for counter-UAS missions. Federal Ammunition, Mossberg, and Palladyne AI are collaborating on SwarmShot, a project coordinating multiple armed drones to intercept enemy UAS. What is new is formal U.S. government certification of such a system for military procurement — a bureaucratic stamp that accelerates fielding. The underlying dynamic is Ukraine-driven. Shotguns have become the last line of defense against small drones on the battlefield, and the U.S. military is absorbing that lesson. By mounting the shotgun on a drone rather than handing it to a soldier scanning the sky, the concept moves the human further from the threat while preserving the kinetic option. The Blue UAS listing also reflects the Pentagon's broader urgency to field unmanned systems faster. The Defense Contract Management Agency launched a public website in 2025 to make the approved list accessible, signaling institutional commitment to speed over traditional acquisition timelines. The Cerberus MI's inclusion suggests the approval pipeline can now accommodate armed systems, not just surveillance platforms. The strategic question is scale. A single reusable armed drone is a capability demonstration. Hundreds of them, coordinated by AI, represent a different kind of force structure — one that raises questions about autonomous targeting, escalation dynamics, and the industrial base needed to sustain drone attrition in a real conflict.