'One Bullet Will Not Be Enough': Shooting Down Drones with a Standard Rifle
By Felice Friedson, The Media Line | via Ynet News | April 5, 2026
As reported by Ynet News on April 5, 2026, in a reprinted feature from The Media Line's Felice Friedson, Israel Weapon Industries is fielding ARBEL, a computerised trigger upgrade that turns a standard assault rifle into an infantryman's drone interceptor, and the company says the system is already in implementation stages across 10 to 15 countries, with Europe expected to be the dominant market in 2026.
The Ynet feature, written after a visit to IWI's Israeli headquarters and hands-on time at the company's range, frames ARBEL as IWI's answer to one of the most stubborn new problems in modern combat: small, cheap tactical drones that appear briefly, move unpredictably, and can only be reliably brought down with more than a single round. Rather than designing a dedicated anti-drone gun, IWI chose to enhance the most ordinary weapon a soldier already carries. Semion, IWI's director for Europe (surname withheld for security reasons), told Ynet that the system represents IWI's first venture into bringing computerised fire control directly to small arms, with the current iteration tailored to assault rifles and light machine guns used by dismounted infantry, and the explicit goal of enabling fast, consecutive follow-up shots under the tight time pressure that drone engagements impose.
Mechanically, ARBEL changes what the rifle does only after the first trigger pull. The opening round is fully conventional; from the second onward, the system reads the shooter's micro-movements and stability and releases each follow-up shot at the moment it calculates gives the highest probability of a hit, as long as the trigger is held. Installation is minimal, a computerised lower receiver replaces the standard one while the upper stays unchanged, held in place by two pins. The added weight is around 400 grams, mostly from a battery located in the buttstock, and Semion said the training burden amounts to adjusting to a new rhythm rather than learning a new weapon. Against small aerial targets, IWI's test results cited in the article include engagements out to roughly 450 metres with standard day scopes and around 250 metres at night using thermal optics, with the practical ceiling set less by the system than by the shooter's own ability to see the drone. In one range demonstration at 100 metres, four of five shots found the target, striking the drone's battery compartment, disabling its camera, and breaking pieces holding its propellers.
The economics are arguably as important as the technology. ARBEL uses standard 5.56mm ammunition, specifically the SS109 round, which Semion priced at around a dollar, meaning a typical interception runs between $10 and $20 in ammunition cost, well below the per-shot expense of high-end counter-UAS systems. The unit itself, Semion indicated, is priced in the same range as standard assault rifles rather than as premium specialist equipment. For Europe, where the drone threat has become, in his words, "the new methodology of war," the cost curve matters as much as the kill radius: militaries expecting to face large volumes of cheap drones need an equally scalable response. On that front, Semion told Ynet that IWI already sees 10 to 15 countries at various stages of ARBEL implementation and projected that engagement could extend to between 40 and 50 percent of European nations over the course of 2026. Asked who the buyers are, he answered simply: basically everyone.
Beyond ARBEL itself, the Ynet piece places the system inside SK Group's wider commercial argument, that a single holding company able to offer rifles, light machine guns, submachine guns, pistols, optics (through sister company Meprolight), and integrated systems like ARBEL can give procurement officials a one-stop package most competitors cannot match. With production centralised in Israel, an expanded facility running at higher capacity, and Europe's demand curve climbing, the next phase for ARBEL is simply scale: turning the current dozen-plus implementation conversations into signed, delivered, fielded systems, and watching whether the $10-to-$20-per-interception economics hold up once the rounds are being fired not on a test range but in sustained operational use.
To read the full article in Ynet News, click here.