The United States Air Force has been calling it their primary weapon against drones in the Red Sea. Ukraine has been using it against Russian drones since February. And on April 8, BAE Systems announced that the Royal Air Force had test-fired one from a Eurofighter Typhoon for the first time, Breaking Defense reported when it first broke the story. The news looked like a technology announcement. It was actually a purchasing decision.
The system is APKWS: a kit that bolts a laser seeker onto a standard 70mm rocket, turning an unguided projectile into a precision-guided munition. The round costs roughly $30,000. The missiles it replaces, the AIM-9X Sidewinder and AIM-120 AMRAAM, run $450,000 and $1 million respectively, according to The War Zone. For a drone that might cost a few thousand dollars to produce, the old math did not work. The new math does.
The RAF trial, conducted in March at BAE's facility in Warton, Lancashire, was deliberately modest: one rocket, one ground target, a direct hit, according to Aviation Week. Two pods were fitted under the wings, holding 14 rockets total, while the aircraft retained six hardpoints for air-to-air missiles. The next step, testing against aerial targets, is still ahead. The US Air Force, by contrast, has already been firing APKWS from F-16s over the Red Sea against Houthi drones, with multiple confirmed shootdowns. Lieutenant General Derek France, head of Air Forces Central, described the system to The War Zone as the service's primary drone weapon.
The Pentagon signaled its own confidence in December 2025, awarding BAE a contract worth $322 million for thousands of APKWS rounds, part of a broader ceiling that could reach $1.7 billion, The Register reported. That kind of volume purchase does not happen before a system has proven itself in the field.
APKWS itself is not new. The laser-guidance kit reached initial operating capability in 2012, originally designed for close-air support against ground targets. What changed was the tactical environment. Cheap one-way attack drones, deployed at scale in Ukraine and by Iran across the Middle East, exposed the cost asymmetry that had quietly become untenable. Shooting down a $30,000 drone with a $1 million missile is survivable as an occasional necessity. It is not survivable as a sustained tactical posture when the other side can launch dozens in a single sortie.
Ukraine has been running the same playbook for longer than the RAF trial suggests. The Aviationist first documented Ukrainian F-16s using APKWS against Russian drones in February, and the US Air Force has been doing the same against Houthi drones in the Red Sea. These are not laboratory results. They are combat records.
Richard Hamilton, Managing Director of Air Operations at BAE Systems' Air sector, called the Typhoon integration a game-changer in the company's announcement. That is marketing language. The operational reality is more measured but still significant. APKWS travels at 2,200 miles per hour with an effective range of roughly three miles, Military & Aerospace Electronics reported, making it a visual-line-of-sight weapon, closer in character to a supersonic shotgun blast than to a beyond-visual-range missile. It will not replace AMRAAM for engaging aircraft. Against slow-moving drones in the engagement envelope, it is the right tool at the right price.
The Typhoon operators watching this most closely are not only the UK. Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, and Qatar all fly the Eurofighter, and all have had to contend with Iranian drones in regional conflicts over the past year. British and Qatari Typhoons, among others, were credited with shooting down Iranian drones during the recent Middle East hostilities, according to The War Zone. For those air forces, APKWS integration on Typhoon is not a research program. It is an answer to a problem they already have.
Germany, Italy, and Spain, the other Eurofighter partner nations, have not yet publicly stated their position on APKWS integration. The UK Ministry of Defence has not confirmed plans for frontline deployment. These are the open questions. The underlying capability has been validated. The procurement decision has not yet been made for most of the Typhoon fleet.
What is clear is the direction. The Pentagon's volume order, the US combat record in the Red Sea, and Ukraine's months of operational use have collectively answered the question of whether cheap laser-guided rockets work against drones. The Typhoon trial is not discovery. It is the moment the rest of the alliance decided they wanted what the Americans and Ukrainians already had.
