As Promised, War Department Moving Out Fast on Drone Dominance

The War Department announced Feb. 3 the selection of 25 vendors who will help the department achieve its goal of getting some 300,000 drones into the force, both quickly and inexpensively, by 2027.

Those companies will compete in the first phase, or "gauntlet," that makes up the department's Drone Dominance Program - an acquisition reform effort designed to rapidly field low-cost, unmanned one-way attack drones at scale.

This first gauntlet begins Feb. 18 when program participants will bring unmanned aircraft system prototypes to Fort Benning, Georgia. There, participants will teach military personnel how to use those prototypes, and then military operators will use them to complete various mission scenarios, including an evaluation on their ability to find, lock on and destroy a target.

By the end of the first gauntlet, vendors will be scored on the systems, and up to 12 of the 25 vendors will be invited to produce their drones, at scale, for the department.

As part of the first phase, the selected 12 vendors will produce a total of 30,000 units, at an average price of $5,000 for each, and deliver by July.

Over the course of three additional gauntlets - a total of four in all - the number of vendors will go down from 12 to five, the number of drones ordered will increase from 30,000 to 150,000, and the price per drone will drop from $5,000 to just $2,300.

The Drone Dominance Program will do two things: drive costs down and capabilities up, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said in a video posted to social media late last year.

"We will deliver tens of thousands of small drones to our force in 2026, and hundreds of thousands of them by 2027."

Through the program, funding will allow for the manufacture of some 340,000 small UAS to combat units over the course of two years.

After that, it's expected that American industry's interest in building drones, as a result of the program, will have strengthened supply chains and manufacturing capacity to the point that military services will be able to afford to buy the drones they want, in the quantity they want and at a price they want, through regular budgeting.

Last year, President Donald J. Trump signed an executive order outlining how the United States would up its drone game in both the commercial and military sectors, including how it would deliver massive amounts of inexpensive, American-made, lethal drones to military units, so they can amplify their own combat capabilities.