Beretta Defense Technologies plans to make Eurosatory 2026 its coming-out party for LIVET, an eight-barrel remote-controlled weapon station built around the kinetic counter-drone logic that has driven the BDT group’s C-UAS (Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems) development for the past several years. The platform mounts no less than eight Benelli Drone Guardian shotgun systems on a single automated turret capable of tracking and engaging drone targets without requiring an operator to physically aim the weapon.

Anti-Drone Shotguns @ TFB:

• Benelli’s M4 Drone Guardian Takes Aim at UAV Threats
• Benelli’s Anti-Drone M4 Shotgun (+Tungsten Ammo): A.I. Drone Guardian
• DSEI 2025: Counter Drone Shotguns

LIVET was developed through a collaboration between Beretta Defense Technologies and Italian technology company DUALEE, and represents the industrialization of the shotgun-based counter-drone approach Benelli has been refining through the Drone Guardian program, now scaled into a multi-barrel, remotely operated configuration suited for fixed-site and critical infrastructure protection.

The underlying logic of putting shotguns on a C-UAS turret rather than conventional automatic weapons comes down to geometry. Small drones present a difficult targeting problem for rifle or machine gun fire because they are small, fast, and maneuverable, and hitting them with a single aimed projectile under pressure is genuinely difficult for human operators. A shotgun’s spread pattern changes that equation at short to medium range, and the Drone Guardian platform was designed to push that envelope further with purpose-built ammunition.

The system consists of the shotgun, associated sighting, and a specific cartridge developed by Norma Precision, also part of the BDT group, with the shotgun itself based on the Benelli M4-A1 self-loading, 12-gauge, magazine-fed platform.

The ammunition component is the purposely developed AD-LER round, standing for Anti-Drone Long Effective Range. It hosts 2.7 mm diameter tungsten shot that leaves the barrel at 405 m/s, exploiting the rifle chamber’s capacity to withstand 1,320-bar pressure.

LIVET takes that proven individual weapon and multiplies it. With eight Drone Guardian systems integrated into a single RCWS featuring auto-tracking and remote engagement capabilities, the platform shifts from a last-ditch individual tool into a layered, automated site-defense asset. BDT says the system is designed to deliver extremely rapid reaction times suited to current operational C-UAS scenarios, which in practice means the kind of FPV swarm and quadcopter threats that have defined drone warfare in recent conflicts.