stancrist said:

Interesting that the Stinger replacement is being designed specifically for engaging medium and large tactical UAVs rather than manned aircraft

I think that makes sense due to the overwhelming power of the US Air Force. US Infantry havent faced an attack from a manned aircraft since what, Korea? 

Drones however are going to be much harder to suppress. 

-Cheaper, so even poor countries can field them, and deliver precision strikes (see Ukraine with the TB2 and Russia with Shaheed 136, and Armenia vs Azerbaijan)

-Lower skill. The drones are heavily automated, so a skilled pilot is less necessary. In the future they may be nearly autonomous (say drones launched by China toward Taiwan)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baykar_Bayraktar_TB2#Digital_flight_control_system

-Distributed launch. Smaller drones like Switchblade can be launched out of a tube like a ATGM. Medium sized ones can be launched from a sort of truck deployable slingshot. And even the larger ones like TB2 could be launched from roads or small dirt runways. The result is that while a manned airforce can be grounded by destroying the airbase, drones could be launched from distributed covert sites. 

--> Its far more probable that Drones will not be fully suppressed by the US Air Force, and infantry / ground forces will need to shoot them down themselves.

...

There also may be technical issues that make drone optimization more important. Being small propeller driven, and sometimes electric powered, they generate a lower heat signature than jets and hellicopters, requiring a different/better seeker to reliably target drones?

Our first look at the Stinger with Javelin FCU:

https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/the-army-is-now-firing-stinger-missiles-from-a-javelin-launcher

Interestingly there article mentions the LWCLU will have data sharing, and will allow launching both Stingers and Javelins from the same CLU. So units in the field will only need to carry one CLU to fire both missiles. 

Another advantage is the CLU will offer much better effectiveness at night compared to current MANPADS:

Downside of the LWCLU is that this will dramatically increase the cost of a Stinger, and make it harder to be mass distributed.