Joint Interagency Task Force 401 (JIATF‑401) is an Army‑led, Department of Defense joint and interagency task force created in 2025 to be the U.S. military’s premier organization for countering small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS). It consolidates counter‑drone resources and acquisition to deliver affordable counter‑UAS capabilities that protect U.S. personnel and facilities at home and abroad, defend the homeland, support warfighter operations, and coordinate joint training. JIATF‑401 is “joint” and “interagency”: it draws personnel from across the military services and works with a wide range of federal partners. At its inaugural interagency summit, participants included representatives from the Department of Defense (all services), Department of Homeland Security, Federal Bureau of Investigation (DOJ), Department of Transportation, the Federal Aviation Administration, and roughly 50 federal entities with roles in counter‑UAS and airspace security.
Replicator 2 is the second phase of the Pentagon’s Replicator initiative, a fast‑track acquisition “campaign of learning” to field large numbers of relatively low‑cost, autonomous systems. While Replicator 1 focused on deploying “multiple thousands” of attritable drones across air, land, and maritime domains, Replicator 2—announced by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in September 2024—specifically targets the warfighter priority of countering small uncrewed aerial systems (C‑sUAS). Its objectives are to rapidly develop, procure, and field effective anti‑drone defenses to protect critical installations and concentrations of U.S. forces from small drone threats (including swarms), and to tackle barriers such as production capacity, technology integration, open‑systems architecture, and policy/authority gaps so counter‑UAS solutions can be bought and deployed much faster than in traditional programs.
The DroneHunter F700 is manufactured by Fortem Technologies, a U.S. company based in Pleasant Grove, Utah. It is a multi‑rotor, vertical‑takeoff‑and‑landing interceptor drone designed specifically for counter‑UAS missions. Key capabilities include: an onboard Fortem TrueView R20 radar and other sensors to autonomously detect, track, and classify small drones; AI‑enabled guidance and autopilot that allow fully autonomous interception; and multiple “NetGun” launchers that fire tethered nets to capture hostile drones in flight and tow them to a safe drop zone, minimizing collateral damage. The F700 can act alone or in coordinated teams to protect large areas and is advertised as being able to defeat Group 1, Group 2, and some low‑end Group 3 drones, day or night and in adverse weather.
Open reporting indicates the systems are being purchased from Fortem Technologies, the maker of the DroneHunter F700, but none of the publicly accessible sources reviewed state the dollar value of this specific JIATF‑401 contract for two systems. The official-style summary republished by MilitarySpot and trade‑press coverage both describe the purchase and vendor but omit any contract amount, so the contract value is not publicly available at this time.
Neither the JIATF‑401 announcement (as republished by MilitarySpot) nor the accessible trade‑press reporting specify the exact bases or locations where the two DroneHunter F700 systems will be deployed. They note that JIATF‑401 is focused on defending the U.S. homeland, military installations, and critical infrastructure, and that the purchase is an initial step in a broader Replicator 2–driven plan to protect sites such as border areas, the National Capital Region, and other high‑priority locations—but the specific deployment sites for these two systems have not been publicly disclosed.
Public documents about this particular purchase do not list the exact testing, certifications, or approvals required before the two DroneHunter F700 systems enter operational use under JIATF‑401. In general, however, U.S. counter‑UAS systems fielded under Replicator 2 must pass Defense Department test and evaluation events, be validated against joint C‑sUAS performance criteria, and be cleared for use in the National Airspace System in coordination with the FAA and other interagency partners, but the specific test plan and certification milestones for these two F700 units have not been made public.
The JIATF‑401 announcement says only that the two DroneHunter F700 systems “are expected to be delivered by April,” without clarifying whether that date includes installation and operational testing. No open source specifies when they will achieve initial operational capability or be fully mission‑capable. Given normal Defense Department practice, “delivery by April” likely refers to hardware delivery to the government or designated sites, with installation, integration into local command‑and‑control networks, and operational testing following, but no official timeline for mission‑capable status has been publicly released.