Air defense has been around since people began going up in the air in balloons. That’s not something many think of today, but during the American Civil War, the Union Army Balloon Corps pushed the Confederacy to come up with countermeasures. That was the first instance of what we’d call air defense, and it’s been evolving ever since. While Confederate methods were largely unsuccessful in taking out the Union’s ship-launched balloons in the 1860s, when the age of airplanes arrived, new methods proved far more effective.

The constantly evolving nature of air defense mirrors that of aircraft, missiles, rockets, and more. Continuing that tradition is the Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC), which produced the Battery Revolving Adaptive Weapons Launcher—Reconfigurable (BRAWLR), an all-in-one air defense tool that’s modifiable, easily deployed, and, according to the company, incredibly successful. SNC revealed in October 2025 that its BRAWLR system had intercepted 400 aerial threats but declined to say where.

The U.S. government approached SNC in 2023 to design a system for an unspecified foreign military customer, and SNC eventually produced the BRAWLR. The BRAWLR stands seven feet tall and consists of four independent weapons systems and associated sensors. It uses these to identify airborne threats, engage them, and shoot them out of the sky. What’s impressive about BRAWLR isn’t necessarily its ability to engage enemy airborne targets. Instead, it’s relatively inexpensive, uses preexisting hardware, and can be built fairly quickly. This allows for rapid deployment and use in contested areas all over the world.

The BRAWLR can accommodate a variety of weapons, including legendary AIM-9M Sidewinder air-to-air missiles (AAM), AIM-132 advanced short-range AAMs, and more. While its ordnance primarily consists of AAMs, these can be fired from the ground. In the Russo-Ukrainian War, Ukraine has already found a way to fire AAM missiles at Russian jets using small uncrewed surface vehicles, and SNC is doing something similar. For the BRAWLR, its ordnance capabilities include a Beast Mode that involves a great deal of firepower.

When configured for Beast Mode, the BRAWLR can be outfitted with 46 AGR-20 Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System (APKWS) rockets. One of the most impressive features of the BRAWLR isn’t its lethality; it’s how easy it is to use. Traditional anti-air weapons systems often involve separate radars, multiple personnel, and more. The BRAWLR can be set up in ten minutes by a single person, who can then operate it, tear it down, and place it in storage, which takes only three minutes.

BRAWLR is only one element of what SNC has been producing, as it’s the centerpiece of a truck-mounted air defense system called the Mobile Anti-Air Weapons Launcher-Reconfigurable (MAAWLR). When utilizing the more robust system, two people and 20 minutes are needed to set it up, use it, and then tear it down. More components allow for additional targeting via added sensors and radar equipment. In terms of the types of threats SNC’s systems can take out of the sky, these include aircraft, cruise missiles, and drones.