POTD: SA80A3s With Smartshooter SMASH X4 Sight
Modern battlefields are no longer just about bullets and boots. Now it’s also about bytes and blades, and today’s subject in TFB’s Photo Of The Day. With the rapid rise of small, weaponized drones, the fight has shifted upward, and soldiers are turning to new tech to bring those threats crashing down. It’s like having a minefield in the sky, something not many had been thinking about until recently.
Here, a British Army soldier from the Royal Yorkshire Regiment lines up through the optic of a Smartshooter SMASH X4, mounted to an SA80A3 rifle. Captured during Project Flytrap at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center in Hohenfels, Germany, this moment highlights a new era of counter-unmanned aerial systems (CUAS) training.
While I wasn’t able to try it, I did have a look through the Smartshooter sights at EnforceTac earlier this year. To be honest, it did look like a pretty good system, much better than I had anticipated.
Project Flytrap puts low-cost, soldier-portable anti-drone systems to the test in a series of realistic training scenarios, evaluating how well they can track, lock onto, and neutralize small UAV threats in complex environments.
And here’s a striking fact, in case recent online videos already told you, a quadcopter drone the size of a dinner plate can carry enough explosive to disable a vehicle.
Source: Spc. Elijah Magana. DOD © Copyright 2025.
Ex-Arctic Ranger. Competitive practical shooter and hunter with a European focus. Always ready to increase my collection of modern semi-automatics, optics, thermals and suppressors. TCCC Certified. Occasionaly seen in a 6x6 Bug Out Vehicle, always with a big smile.
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