The Drive has a new post, “Our Best Look At A VAMPIRE Counter Drone System For Ukraine.”
We have known for a while that APKWS was being used by Ukraine and that it was being mounted on vehicles along with Electro-Optic fire control systems to counter unmanned air systems (drones). (More here.)
What surprised me most in the new “The Drive” article was that the systems were developed my NAVAIR. That means this is a Navy developed system. Since the Coast Guard gets all of its weapons, other than small arms, from the Navy, that may mean the Coast Guard may be more likely to be able to get the system.
The Vampire combination of APKWS, Electro-Optic Sensors, and Firecontrol seems to be the easiest way for the Coast Guard to protect high value targets from potential air and surface suicide drone attacks without spraying bullets that may cause collateral damage. It is also flexible enough to be used against small, fast, highly maneuverable surface threats. It might even be useful against larger targets. It certainly seems to be exceptionally effective for its cost, weight, support requirements, and minimal footprint.
I would like to see them on all cutters, but getting this sort of capability for the cutters in PATFORSWA is most urgent.
Chuck Hill's CG Blog 
So these are just going to Ukraine now? It will be interesting to see how effective these are.
Currently, the Ukrainians are saying the German Gepard 35mm anti-aircraft gun is their most effective anti-drone weapon.
It is certainly a fine weapon, but very expensive and very heavy. It is a very different sort of weapon from Vampire. Wikipedia says the Ukrainians are finding it takes and hour and a half to reload.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flakpanzer_Gepard#Guns
They might be able to group it with simpler types of AAW systems like the Vampire of MANPADS to exploit the Gepard’s radar detection capability.
I don’t disagree. I wonder how effective Vampire can be (due to lack of radar) but it’s certainly lightweight, portable and easily adapted to many platforms.
Hopefully it works great. Time will tell.
“L3Harris’ VAMPIRE System Helps U.S. Navy Fill Ukraine’s Counter-UAS Gap with Speed and Agility”
https://seapowermagazine.org/l3harris-vampire-system-helps-u-s-navy-fill-ukraines-counter-uas-gap-with-speed-and-agility/