Ukraine Equips New Interceptor Drone With 6-Barrel Shotgun

Using shotguns to shoot down drones isn’t new – but mounting a six-barrel recoilless shotgun on a drone to hunt other drones? That’s a different story.

3DTech, a Ukrainian drone manufacturer, is doing just that.

Founded in 2023 by an ex-serviceman from Ukraine’s Azov Regiment, the company is no stranger to first-person view (FPV) drones, but its latest innovation trades carrying a conventional warhead for a six-barrel recoilless shotgun.

3DTech founder Oleksiy Zhulinsky told military news outlet Militarnyi that the drones use modified 12-gauge cartridges using a countercharge to compensate for the recoil during a field testing event organized by defense cluster Brave1.

“We have modified the cartridge in such a way that there is no recoil. Therefore, it can fire single shots, in automatic mode, or even in a volley from all barrels,” Zhulinsky said.

Using 12-gauge cartridges, the drone can be armed with either buckshot or slugs, depending on the mission. Its six-barrel design also removes the need for reloading or cocking mechanisms.

Swapping warheads for shotguns also makes the drone reusable, transforming it from a one-way kamikaze platform into a reusable one – while the cost presumably remains closer to that of a disposable FPV drone.

The six-barrel setup can also be replaced for a lighter two-barrel variant when high-speed interception is needed, allowing the drone to reach speeds of up to 150 kph (93 mph) when the mission demands it.

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According to Militarnyi, the drone – currently undergoing combat testing with frontline troops – is being used to shoot down Russian-operated DJI Mavic drones used for reconnaissance, with future plans to enable it to also directly engage enemy infantry.

3DTech also envisions it as a potential counter to fiber-optic drones – systems immune to electronic warfare (EW) jamming – leaving physical interception as the only way to bring down these increasingly common threats on the Ukrainian front line.

“A fiber-optic drone is even easier to hit because it has several large modules, such as a fiber coil or batteries,” Zhulinsky told Militarnyi.

He did not disclose the pricing of the new shotgun drone, and it is unclear when it will enter mass production.

Experimenting with gun-wielding drones

Ukraine is no stranger to mounting guns on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), but 3DTech’s six-barrel drone represents a more serious push toward scaling the concept.

In January 2025, a Ukrainian drone equipped with a shotgun could be seen chasing down Russian Mavic drones.

The footage posted on X, reportedly captured near Synkivka and Petropavlivka in the Kupiansk sector of the front line in the Kharkiv region, shows the Ukrainian drone downing the Russian Mavics, then firing at a Russian soldier with the shotgun before dropping a grenade on him.

Before that, Ukrainian troops experimented with carrying grenade launchers.

In September 2024, a video circulated on social media showing Ukrainians testing an FPV drone equipped with an RPG-18 grenade launcher.

The RPG-18 Mukha, a Soviet-era grenade launcher developed in 1972, fires a 64mm high explosive shaped chargegrenade up to 200 meters (218 yards). A Ukrainian aerial scout, speaking anonymously to Kyiv Post at the time, said arming drones with various weapons represented a significant evolution in battlefield tactics.

The idea was revisited by frontline troops in May this year, when combat footage showed Ukrainian troops firing a grenade directly at Russian troops from the sky above.