• The Marines are fielding new medical gear to treat casualties when evacuation is delayed.
• New portable blood coolers and warmers will help corpsmen treat wounded troops closer to combat.
• AI-assisted ultrasounds could help front-line medics identify internal injuries and prioritize evacuation.

The US Marine Corps has begun fielding new medical equipment meant to help troops survive when wounded service members can't be quickly evacuated from the battlefield.

The new technology is designed to store blood, identify internal injuries, and treat wounded service members closer to the battlefield as the military prepares for future wars in which casualties may be unable to reach a hospital for hours or even days.

The equipment includes improved, lighter-weight mobile blood coolers, better blood warmers, and small AI-assisted ultrasound devices and is designed to help Navy corpsmen and other providers treat casualties with less bulky equipment and less reliance on extensive medical infrastructure.

During the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, US air supremacy frequently allowed helicopters to quickly evacuate wounded troops to well-equipped and defended medical facilities near the battlefield.

The proliferation of drone warfare and other technological advancements seen in Ukraine has, however, raised doubts about whether rapid casualty evacuations will be possible in future conflicts. Now, military planners assume that a sophisticated foe is likely to possess tools that could severely disrupt military tasks such as casualty evacuation, resupply, and communications.

Throughout the post 9/11 wars in the Middle East, the military planned on getting wounded troops to advanced medical facilities within an hour, said Navy Capt. Shari Gentry, the Marine Corps' deputy medical officer, speaking to reporters at a media event near Quantico, Virginia. "And we do not foresee that being the case."

The Corps has already begun distributing the systems to medical units, with some equipment reaching troops deployed to the Middle East.

Among the new devices is a portable refrigerator capable of storing approximately 30 units of blood, potentially enough for four seriously wounded Marines, according to military medical guidance. Each battalion aid station is set to receive one, giving medical personnel a supply of blood closer to the battlefield.

Weighing about 60 pounds, it replaces a system that weighs over twice as much and uses rechargeable batteries already common throughout the Marine Corps. The smaller refrigerator allows medical teams to maintain blood supplies without relying continuously on generators or fuel deliveries, said Navy Cmdr. Kyleigh Hupfl, the Corps' clinical lead for Expeditionary Medical Systems.

The capability has already proved useful in the Middle East, Hupfl said. The Corps accelerated delivery after units raised concerns about the reliability of existing refrigeration equipment. One unit told her that the new device allowed it to maintain a ready supply of blood throughout its deployment.

Small deviations in temperature can render blood and other pharmaceuticals unusable. "We need to be able to bring cold chain distribution forward without relying on heavy generators, and we need to be able to do that in a sustainable way," she said.

The service is also fielding new portable blood warmers that can deliver warmed fluids faster than the previous equipment. The warmer works by passing blood through a tube, warming it before it flows into a patient's veins. Such warmth is crucial to prevent hypothermia, a serious complication in injured patients.

Another major change involves portable ultrasound machines equipped with AI-assisted imaging. Previously held only at higher levels of battlefield medical care, the new machines are now being pushed toward the lowest level of tactical care, known as Role 1 facilities, where Navy corpsmen and physicians provide immediate life-saving care for wounded Marines.

The AI software helps users identify anatomical structures on ultrasound images, allowing providers with less ultrasound experience to spot signs of internal bleeding or other injuries that might otherwise be difficult to detect. That information can also help medical teams determine which casualties need evacuation or surgery most urgently, said Navy Chief Petty Officer Matthew Brown, the chief biomedical equipment technician for the Corps' Expeditionary Medical Systems.

"I have 10 people that are hurt. Who should I get out?" Brown said of the dilemma and the new ultrasounds being fielded to front-line medics to address it. "And at the end of the day, that's what's going to save their life."

• Ukraine is funding air defense missiles with a hard cap of $20,000 per shot, Brave1's chief said.
• That's about a sixth the cost of a Stinger missile, and still cheaper than an APWKS 70mm rocket.
• It's one of Kyiv's responses to Russia's thousands-strong, inexpensive Shahed fleets.

Ukraine has been running a yearslong weapons program to develop cheap surface-to-air missiles that cost no more than $20,000 each, said Andrii Hrytseniuk, the head of its Brave1 startup incubator.

Several firms have been testing prototypes under this framework, and Kyiv is "preparing to put two of these companies into combat," Hrytseniuk said in a video interview published with Ukrainska Pravda on Thursday.

He expressed hope that a third would soon reach a similar stage.

Hrytseniuk said some of these manufacturers have managed to get costs down to $10,000 per missile, though the program has set a hard price cap of $20,000 per shot.

"This is significantly cheaper than the cost of a Shahed. Even if you need two or three missiles, it is still several times cheaper than the cost of a Shahed," said Hrytseniuk of the limit.

Hrytseniuk said the program was launched by Brave1 as a competition between Ukrainian firms to "create the cheapest anti-aircraft missile systems possible."

"Funding for missiles began in 2024, but making a missile takes even more time than making an interceptor drone," he added.

A price limit of $20,000 would make these Ukrainian missiles even cheaper than the AGR-Falco Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System, an American-made unguided 70mm rocket fitted with a laser guidance kit.

Costing about $30,000 to $35,000 each, these were traditionally air-to-ground rockets that have now been converted for air defense in Ukraine. The cheapest US standard surface-to-air missile is the shoulder-mounted Stinger, which costs about $120,000 per missile.

The Ukrainian effort to lower air defense costs comes as a response to Russia's extensive Shahed attack drone fleets, which are numerous and cheaper to produce than typical missiles. Ukrainian officials have estimated that the Russian Geran-2, for example, costs $70,000 each, while jet-powered drones like the Geran-3 cost at least $100,000.

Kyiv uses a layered network of defense systems, including machine gun crews, interceptor quadcopters, and electronic warfare, to fight against these drones, which Russia can launch hundreds of at a time.

But Moscow has increasingly used jet-powered Gerans, which fly too fast for regular interceptor drones and human gun crews to keep up with. A new AI-powered terrain mapping system found on some Gerans has also raised concerns that Russia will soon be able to bypass Ukrainian jamming.

Ukraine's alternative has been air-defense missiles, such as the air-launched AIM-9 Sidewinder, which can cost about half a million dollars per shot.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said earlier this month that his country was working on a "small missile program" as a counter to jet-powered Gerans.

"There are several types. We will clearly see the result this month. At the end, in the second half of this month," he told reporters at a press conference.

In September, Hrytseniuk told Business Insider's Jake Epstein that several Ukrainian companies were also integrating artificial intelligence into strike missile systems and were seeing "first successes."