Palladyne AI’s Gremlin-X Group 1 quadcopter mini-bomber Federal Ammunition, Mossberg, and Palladyne AI have announced the launch of a joint development of SwarmShot a "purpose-built ammunition, an airborne weapon module". The new consortium plans for SwarmShot to first be developed as a modular mission add-on for Palladyne AI’s Gremlin-X Group 1 quadcopter mini-bomber with future plans to develop an integration kit for compatible third-party drones. The consortium's announcement explained:"SwarmShot will be engineered as one integrated system. Federal will lead ammunition design and terminal-effect optimization, leveraging experience from its recent U.S. Army counter-UAS ammunition contract. Mossberg will lead development of the lightweight airborne weapon module, including remote operation, recoil management, reliability, and safety. Palladyne AI will lead UAS integration, fire control, terminal-intercept autonomy, and coordination among multiple interceptors." Ukrainian shotgun drone from 3DTech So what is SwarmShot? Essentially is a small drone mounted with a shotgun which can shoot down other drones. Mossberg's press release explains that: "SwarmShot will combine Federal’s specialized counter-UAS shotshell ammunition, a lightweight Mossberg weapon module purpose-engineered for airborne operation, and Palladyne AI’s IntelliSwarm™ autonomy system, which combines Brain avionics with SwarmOS™ collaborative autonomy software."This type of gun-armed small drone have been seen in operational use in Ukraine. The Ukrainian drones utilise a recoilless system which has shot loaded into longitudinally mounted tubes which are electrically fired. More on these drones here. They take a considerable level of operator skill to aim the drone's onboard gun so it it makes sense for Palladyne to incorporate their collaborative autonomy software.“SwarmShot is a defensive application of the true autonomous swarming capability we demonstrated with the Army at PC-C6 and other exercises,” said Ben Wolff, President and CEO of Palladyne AI. “One SwarmShot-equipped aircraft is a reusable interceptor. Multiple aircraft operating through IntelliSwarm become a coordinated kinetic swarm. Gremlin-X gives us the first complete system, and the multi-OEM kit gives the partnership a path to scale.” Palladyne AI’s Gremlin-X Group 1 quadcopter mini-bomber “This is not simply an existing shotgun mounted to a drone,” said said Doug Bell, President and COO of O.F. Mossberg & Sons. “Mossberg will engineer a lightweight airborne weapon module around the unique requirements of recoil, remote actuation, reliability and safety. SwarmShot extends trusted firearms engineering into an entirely new defense application.”Which gun system Mossberg will base the new SwarmShot system on is unclear but it is likely to be a semi-automatic design potentially a development from the 990 series.