The US Army is turning its AH-64 Apache attack helicopter into a drone hunter thanks to a new 30-mm round for its M230 chain-gun that can take out Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) using a proximity fuse that unleashes a blast of high-velocity shrapnel.

Serving with the US Army and others since 1986, the Boeing Apache AH-64 made its name as a tank-killing ground-attack helicopter notorious for its ability to penetrate enemy territory using terrain for cover, hover in wait, and then pop up to destroy its target without warning.

However, the one thing it's never been known for is air-to-air combat — much less as an anti-drone platform. That would be like using a howitzer to hunt pigeons. It's theoretically possible, but I wouldn't set the table for pigeon pie just yet.

Unfortunately, with drone warfare evolving by leaps and bounds, that's pretty much what the US Army’s Counter-Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (C-sUAS) strategy wants the Apache to do.

To achieve this, the Army has looked back eight decades to the Second World War. During the conflict, bombers posed a major strategic threat, so ways of shooting them down were filling the drawing boards. The biggest problem was how to destroy enemy aircraft with the primitive anti-aircraft guns of the day. Direct hits were often a matter of luck, and time-delay fuses only made sure the shells detonated at a given altitude — neither of which was satisfactory.

In 1939, Britain's Telecommunications Research Establishment (TRE) came up with the concept of turning anti-aircraft shells into tiny radar sets. With built-in circuitry, they could transmit radio waves. When the shell came near an aircraft, this would distort the waves and detonate the shell. Put simply, the shell didn't need to hit the aircraft, just get in the proximity of it. Hence the name, proximity fuse.