U.S. Marines fly the Neros Archer one-way attack drone with live explosives at Camp Fuji, Japan, for the first time

U.S. Marines have flown the Neros Archer one-way attack drone with a live explosive payload at the Combined Arms Training Center (CATC) Camp Fuji in Japan, in what the range’s own staff describe as the first such use at the site. The training took place on 20 October 2026 and was reported by the U.S. Marine Corps through DVIDS.

Battalion Landing Team 1/1, part of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit, flew the drone twice in front of a few dozen observers. One flight simulated an anti-armour ambush. According to the account, both runs ended with successful detonations on their targets, and explosive ordnance disposal technicians who attended did not have to search for unexploded ordnance.

What the Marines say they tested

Chief Warrant Officer 2 Stephen Bilbo, Camp Fuji’s gunner and range control officer, said it was the first time the camp had deployed the Archer “in a live kinetic variant”. He described the Archer as “the current Marine Corps’ program of record for one-way attack drones flown by a first-person view pilot”. In other words, the aircraft is flown through a camera feed and is designed to be expended on its target.

The unit presented the event as a proof of concept tied to its hunter-killer teams. The stated aim is to extend the reach of those teams in defeating armour. Training at Camp Fuji differed from the drills the 1st Battalion, 1st Marines had previously run at its home station at Camp Pendleton.

Who flies it

The Marine Corps also stressed who flies the system. Operators are junior enlisted Marines, from lance corporal to sergeant, picked by unit leaders for a three-week course. No previous drone experience is required, which the unit says helps trainees learn the skills from scratch. Master Sgt. Glenn Dayton said the work was done by noncommissioned officers and junior Marines, whom he called “the heart and soul of our ground force”.

Staff Sgt. Francisco Melandez of the camp’s explosive ordnance disposal section explained why his team attended: a drone carrying a warhead that fails to detonate becomes unexploded ordnance, which falls to range clearance crews.

Elsewhere in Japan, the large bilateral exercise Keen Sword 27 is under way; see Keen Sword 27 opens on Ishigaki with 45,000 Japanese and 11,000 U.S. personnel and seven partner nations. The DVIDS report does not link the Camp Fuji drone training to that exercise, and it gives no figures on how many drones the Marine Corps plans to field or when.