The U.S. Army has set a goal of buying one million new drones of all types over the next two to three years. This comes as senior officials within the service have acknowledged that it continues to lag behind global trends when it comes to fielding uncrewed aerial systems, especially weaponized types within smaller units. The Army’s planned drone shopping spree could also include large numbers of longer-range one-way attack types, something TWZ laid out a detailed case for doing just a few months ago.
Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll talked about his service’s new drone acquisition plans in a recent phone interview with Reuters from Picatinny Arsenal in New Jersey. The service also hopes the purchases will foster an industrial base that can churn out uncrewed aerial systems at similarly high rates for years to come.
“We expect to purchase at least a million drones within the next two to three years,” Driscoll told Reuters. “And we expect that at the end of one or two years from today, we will know that in a moment of conflict, we will be able to activate a supply chain that is robust enough and deep enough that we could activate to manufacture however many drones we would need.”
The report from Reuters does not provide a detailed breakdown of what might be included in that million-drone bundle. It does indicate that Driscoll was talking primarily about smaller weaponized types, such as first-person view (FPV) kamikaze drones and ones configured to drop small munitions. These kinds of uncrewed aerial systems have existed in various forms for years, but have now been fully thrust into the public consciousness by their daily use on both sides of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.
“Driscoll and Picatinny’s top commander, Major General John Reim, spoke to Reuters about how the United States was taking lessons from Russia’s war in Ukraine, which has been characterized by drone deployments on an unprecedented scale,” according to that outlet. “Ukraine and Russia each produce roughly 4 million drones a year, but China is probably able to produce more than double that number, Driscoll said.”
“Driscoll said he fundamentally wanted to change how the Army saw drones – more like expendable ammunition rather than an ‘exquisite’ piece of equipment,” Reuters‘ story added.
This latter point is also directly in the stated aims behind a sweeping array of drone policy and other changes the Pentagon announced back in July. The main focus of that initiative, described as “unleashing U.S. military drone dominance,” is to accelerate the fielding of huge numbers of uncrewed aerial systems, especially weaponized types, across the entire U.S. military, as you can read more about here.
All this being said, the Army’s plans to buy at least a million new drones could easily include a wide array of types intended to perform an equally diverse set of missions. As mentioned, long-range kamikaze drones in the vein of the Iranian-designed Shahed-136 could be part of this equation, as well. Russia also regularly uses variants and derivatives of that design, including ones it now produces domestically, in attacks on targets in Ukraine. Forces in Ukraine have been moving to field their own comparable designs, among many other one-way attack types.
Directly influenced by Israeli kamikaze drones, the Shahed-136 has become something of a global standard for uncrewed aircraft of this type, with similarly-sized delta-winged designs steadily emerging globally, including in the United States and China. Developments out of China include the Feilong-300D from state-run conglomerate North Industries Group Corporation, which is reportedly particularly geared toward low-cost, high-volume production. So far, the examples being built in the United States have been sold largely as training aids reflecting growing threats to friendly forces. TWZ‘s feature in September delved deeply into the benefits they could offer to the U.S. military as operational weapons in line with broader long-range fires initiatives across the services.
“Absolutely,” Maj. Gen. James “Jay” Bartholomee, head of the Army’s Hawaii-based 25th Infantry Division, said in response to a question from our Howard Altman about interest in Shahed-like drones at the Association of the U.S. Army’s (AUSA) annual symposium in October. “We are behind on long-range sensing and long-range launched-effect strike.”
“I think we do,” Army Lt. Gen. Charles Costanza, commander of V Corps, which has its main headquarters at Fort Knox in Kentucky and a forward command post in Poland, said separately at the AUSA gathering in response to a similar question from Howard Altman about the need for Shahed-type drones.
Costanza also offered a blunt assessment of the service’s work to field various tiers of drones, as well as capabilities to counter the growing threats they pose.
“We’re behind. I’ll just be candid. I think we know we’re behind,” the V Corps commander said. “We aren’t moving fast enough.”
“And it really took Russia’s invasion of Ukraine [in 2022], and the way they’re innovating, and Ukrainians are innovating, to realize, hey, we need to move fast,” he added.
For Ukraine, moving fast has become a matter of life or death, and rapidly iterating capabilities has become critical because of the speed at which countermeasures are also developed.
Army units in Europe have been very much at the forefront of current efforts to accelerate and expand the fielding of new weaponized drones, as well as counter-drone systems. However, some of those activities have drawn criticism for how much they still appear to be behind the curve, especially compared to what is regularly seen on battlefields in Ukraine.
Army Secretary Driscoll’s million-drone plan is clearly a new push toward a real paradigm shift, in line with the direction from the Pentagon in July. At the same time, there are significant questions about whether the service will be able to even come close to reaching its new procurement goals, especially when it comes to funding, contracting processes, and the capacity of the U.S. industrial base. The policy changes rolled out earlier this year did include several aimed at simplifying contracting processes.
Just today, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth announced further plans for even more sweeping changes to acquisition processes across the U.S. military. The goal here is also to fundamentally change how the Pentagon works with the U.S. defense industrial base, all with an eye toward moving things along faster.
“This relates to the whole industrial base, and most importantly, to the large primes [prime contractors] that we do business with today,” Hegseth said in a speech earlier today. “These large defense primes need to change, to focus on speed and volume and divest their own capital to get there.”
As TWZ often notes, there has been steadily growing interest across the U.S. military in recent years when it comes to engaging with smaller or otherwise non-traditional companies, including to help meet complex requirements on aggressive timelines.
“Instead of partnering with larger defense companies, he [Driscoll] said the Army wanted to work with companies that were producing drones that could have commercial applications as well,” according to Reuters.
“We want to partner with other drone manufacturers who are using them for Amazon deliveries and all the different use cases,” Driscoll said.
Whether or not the Army ultimately acquires a million new drones in the next few years, and what is included in that mix, remains to be seen. However, Secretary Driscoll has started the clock now on what could be a transformational shift for the service when it comes to fielding unrewed aerial systems.
Contact the author: joe@twz.com