BRITISH air defence troops have downed more than 50 Iranian drones with Rapid Sentry missile launchers.
The RAF Regiment forces’ tally is ten times that of Top Gun comrades flying Typhoon and F-35B jets.
The soldiers are protecting allied bases near Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan.
The ground-based launchers they use were procured in secret in 2022.
They fire superlight 13kg missiles up to five miles at up to 1.5 times the speed of sound.
The Regiment’s Air Commodore Paul Hamilton said the launchers were a “credible safeguard” when a drone “cannot be defeated electronically”.
He added: “We always have options — detect, disrupt or defeat.”
Defence Secretary John Healey said they had been active almost every night since Feb 28 when the US and Israel launched massive air strikes across Iran.
The regiment’s troops are drawn from 2 Force Protection Wing, based at RAF Leeming in North Yorks.
The RAF regiment said its specialists were “actively detecting, tracking and neutralising airborne threats, working closely with coalition partners to ensure the safety of personnel and the continuity of operations”.
The MoD said it was working “closely with Ukraine” to applying lessons on how to ramp up air defences in high threat environments.
Separately five types of aircraft – Typhoon and Lightning jets and Wildcat and Merlin helicopters and Voyager refuels – conducted “defensive air patrols” over the eastern Mediterranean.
