APKWS Goes Air-to-Air: The F-15E Becomes a Drone-Killing Magazine with Wings

Could Ukraine's F-16s get this modification next?

It might not have the sexy curves of an F-35 Lightning II, but hot damn, this is one badass looking mofo. I will always love the Strike Eagle for its hunting ability. A US Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle assigned to the 335th Fighter Squadron, Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina, taxis on the runway during Checkered Flag 25-2 at Tyndall AFB, Florida, May 14, 2025. Fourth and fifth-generation aircraft integrate during Checkered Flag, one of Department of Defense's largest air-to-air exercises, to train for high-end, rapid response operations, ensuring the delivery of decisive combat airpower anytime, anywhere. (US Air Force photo by Airman 1st Class Asha Wiltshire) Public domain

I’ve talked about APKWS before, Ukraine’s improvisational use of it, its tactical flexibility, and its bargain-bin price tag compared to million-dollar air-to-air missiles.

But now it’s time to talk about the next evolution: not Ukraine, but the F-15E Strike Eagle turning into a flying arsenal of drone-killing laser-guided rockets. It’s a smart answer to the current drone apocalypse, and it just might change how we think about missile defense in the skies.

From Ground Pounder to Sky Hunter

The OSINT big brains over at The War Zone spotted some interesting modifications to an F-15E recently… What appeared to be pods loaded with APKWS rockets, specifically for drone hunting.

Holy shite, boy-o. I guess the USAF is taking the drone threat seriously after all…

The F-15E Strike Eagle wasn’t designed for counter-drone warfare. It was built to smash enemy infrastructure into rubble from altitude and then dogfight its way home if needed.

But now, in a twist no one saw coming, it's evolving into a low-cost interceptor platform. And it makes sense. We’re not fighting Cold War air forces anymore, we’re fighting swarms. Shaheds. Lancets. Glide bombs with a grudge. And the F-15E, once a sledgehammer, is being retooled into a scalpel.

Its transformation into a drone hunter reflects a doctrinal shift in how the US views air superiority. The modern threat isn’t a MiG screaming in at Mach 2, it’s fifty $20,000 loitering drones trying to crash into a fuel depot. And that’s a threat the Strike Eagle can handle, especially now that it’s pairing long legs and sensor fusion with dozens of APKWS rockets.

The airframe’s massive payload capacity, once reserved for JDAMs and bunker busters, now becomes the perfect testbed for quantity-over-quality munitions that saturate airspace with precision strikes.

And let’s not forget the psychological shift for the crew. This isn’t your grandfather’s Eagle driver. Pilots and Wizzos are now conducting close-range intercepts against maneuverable, low-flying, hard-to-see targets. It’s less about launching a perfect AMRAAM shot at 40 miles, and more about being in the right place with the right tools to kill cheap threats cheaply.

If the F-15E was once a hammer looking for nails, it's now more of a flying Swiss Army knife, agile, adaptable, and outfitted for the asymmetric air wars we’re already fighting.

What Makes APKWS So Perfect for This Moment

APKWS isn’t just a good fit, it’s practically custom-built for the era we’ve stumbled into. We’re deep into the age of mass-produced aerial trash: $10,000 drones causing $1 million problems. That means the old “one missile, one kill” paradigm? It’s dead. We need “lots of cheap kills for lots of cheap threats,” and APKWS fits that bill like a tailored suit made of rocket fuel and frugality.

First, it’s modular. APKWS isn’t some boutique missile you have to redesign an airframe around. It’s a guidance kit that screws onto the middle of an off-the-shelf Hydra 70 rocket. That means any platform already certified to carry unguided rockets can suddenly become a precision shooter without months of integration drama. Just plug, play, and punch drones out of the sky.