Shield AI announced two V-BAT items this week. In the first, the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA) has ordered additional V-BAT vertical-takeoff-and-landing aircraft for the Hellenic Armed Forces. In the second, Shield has signed a maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO) contract with Japan’s NIPPI Corporation. Neither release gives a quantity, value, term or delivery timing. Shield’s newsroom dates the Greek release 10 November and the Japan release 11 November, while the release texts carry datelines of Athens, 11 November, and Tokyo, 12 November; outlets date the Greek item 11 November.

The Greek order

Shield’s headline says the order is for the Hellenic Army and Navy, while the body says only the Hellenic Armed Forces and never gives a split between services; Defensehere writes Army only. The release says the contract is awarded by the NSPA within its UAS Support Partnership legal framework. It describes the V-BAT as already in Hellenic service for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance on land and at sea, and says a common fleet will support interoperability, standardized training and maintenance, and runway-independent operations for both services. James Lythgoe, Shield’s regional director for Eastern and Southeast Europe, said: “V-BAT is exceptionally well suited to the Aegean, where forces need long-endurance ISR from islands, coastlines, ships and austere sites without dependence on runways.” Army Technology and The Defense News report that no quantity or financial value was disclosed.

Whether it is the June programme

Shield has not said whether this order is part of the programme Greece approved earlier this year, and Army Technology and The Defense News both note that Shield has not confirmed it; Lens found no source that says so. On 2 June 2026 Shield announced that the Hellenic Army had signed an agreement to add V-BATs for maritime domain awareness in the Aegean, again without a quantity, value or NSPA reference. Naval News (Dimitris Mitsopoulos, 12 June) reported that the Hellenic Parliament’s Special Permanent Committee on Armament Programs and Contracts approved on 11 June a €71 million V-BAT programme of ten systems, six for the Army (12 aircraft) and four for the Navy (eight aircraft), delivered through the NSPA over four years with two years of follow-on support; Naval News attributes the Army and Navy split to the Greek site defencepoint.gr, which Lens did not read. Ta Nea reported on 23 July that Greece’s KYSEA defence council approved the purchase of ten additional V-BAT-type systems. The first two systems, four aircraft, entered Hellenic Army service in May 2025 after a €5.75 million donation from the Laskaridis Foundation, according to Naval News, Flight.com.gr and Greek City Times.

The Japan contract

Shield says it signed a contract with NIPPI Corporation for V-BAT maintenance, repair and overhaul in Japan, which it calls the first domestic MRO agreement of its kind. According to the release, NIPPI will become Shield’s primary in-country MRO and training provider and will give technical and maintenance support for the V-BAT directly to the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF), with potential to extend the capability to other forces. Shield lists faster repairs, less shipping of components to the United States and a trained Japanese workforce as the benefits. It gives no value, term, milestones or start date, and the headline says the companies “to establish” support while the body says the contract is signed. The release describes NIPPI as founded in 1934, working in aircraft component manufacturing, composites and aircraft MRO, and supporting Japan’s Self-Defense Forces and US Navy aircraft from facilities in Yokohama and Atsugi; Lens read no independent profile. Shield says the JMSDF selected the V-BAT in January 2025 as its first maritime ISR platform and that the trading company Sumisho Aero-Systems has facilitated its procurement.

Kunihiro Asaji, NIPPI’s project manager, said: “For the Japan Self-Defense Forces, establishing a sustainable domestic maintenance and support capability is essential to ensuring equipment readiness.” Eugene “Sunshine” Choi, Shield’s managing director for international business development in Japan, said: “This agreement reflects our commitment to be a long-term partner here, not just a supplier.”

The aircraft, as Shield describes it

These are Shield’s claims. The V-BAT is a ducted-fan aircraft with a heavy-fuel engine that Shield calls a Group 3 system in its Japan release and NATO Class I in its June release, with more than 12 hours of endurance and unassisted launch and recovery from ships, rooftops and austere sites. Shield’s product page lists a maximum takeoff weight of 165 lb (75 kg), a payload of up to 40 lb (18.1 kg) and a range of 81 miles (130 km) or 112 miles (180 km) depending on the data link, with a 15 ft by 15 ft landing zone. Janes (10 June) gave endurance of up to 13 hours with an electro-optical and infrared payload and a landing zone of about 5 square metres.

Sources and notes

Sources: Shield AI’s two releases, read in full on shield.ai, plus its newsroom, its 2 June 2026 release and its V-BAT product page; FlightGlobal (Craig Hoyle, 11 November, paywalled), Army Technology (11 November), Greek City Times (Stella Mazonakis, 11 November), Flight.com.gr (in Greek), The Defense News and Defensehere on the Greek order; Securities.io, whose byline is an AI research agent, and StartupHub.ai on the Japan contract; and Naval News and The Defense News (12 June), Janes (10 June) and Ta Nea (23 July, in Greek) on the background, with the Greek articles read through machine translation. GreekReporter returned HTTP 403, and Lens found no NIPPI, Japanese defense ministry or Japanese-press statement on the contract. Outlets also differ on the years of Shield’s Greek memoranda of understanding listed in the release, and the release text does not say whether spares, training and ground support equipment are part of this order or describe the NSPA programme in general.

Image: A V-BAT drone landing on the flight deck of the US Coast Guard cutter Kimball during RIMPAC 2026, 15 July 2026. Photo: US Coast Guard, Petty Officer 2nd Class Ryan Graves, via DVIDS, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Stand-in image of a V-BAT on a US cutter; it is not a Hellenic or Japanese aircraft or ship.