Marines Rushing To Equip Amphibious Combat Vehicles With New Anti-Drone Jammers

The image of Marines storming a beach has long been the Corps' signature vignette. But the modern amphibious assault begins not with a wave of landing craft, but with a swarm of small drones watching, jamming, and potentially striking from above. That is the context for the Marine Corps' urgent push to equip its Amphibious Combat Vehicles (ACVs) with Anduril's Pulsar-L anti-drone jammer. The service has acknowledged a pressing need to field these systems quickly, tying the effort to broader plans to harden the ACV against unmanned threats. The news is not merely another sensor or jammer buy; it is a recognition that the ship-to-shore movement—the most vulnerable phase of any amphibious operation—has been fundamentally altered by the proliferation of cheap, attritable drones.

The ACV was designed to replace the aging Amphibious Assault Vehicle, offering better protection, mobility, and growth margin. But its original threat baseline did not fully anticipate the explosion of small unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) that now populate every modern battlefield. In Ukraine, the Black Sea, and the Middle East, drones have proven capable of disabling armored vehicles, directing artillery, and swarming defenses. For an ACV swimming toward a hostile shore, the threat is compounded: it is slow, predictable, and operating in open water with limited cover. The Pulsar-L, a software-defined electronic warfare system, is intended to detect and jam the command-and-control links of nearby drones, disrupting their ability to target or coordinate. It is a soft-kill countermeasure, not a kinetic one, and it must be integrated without compromising the vehicle's amphibious integrity, power budget, or crew workload. That integration challenge is why the Marine Corps is calling this an urgent need rather than a routine upgrade.

The demand signal here extends beyond the ACV. Across the Pentagon, counter-UAS has become a top modernization priority, with the Army, Navy, and Air Force all racing to field layered defenses. Anduril has positioned itself as a key supplier of modular, software-centric EW and counter-drone systems, and the Pulsar-L is part of that portfolio. For the Marine Corps, the choice of Anduril reflects a broader shift toward working with non-traditional defense firms that can deliver capabilities faster than legacy acquisition programs. The service has been explicit about its desire to field emerging technology rapidly, even if it means accepting some risk in integration and sustainment. The ACV jammer effort is also a signal to industry: the Corps wants plug-and-play electronic warfare that can be updated as drone threats evolve, not a one-off, frozen requirement.