During Exercise Saber Junction, the annual multinational training exercise led by U.S. Army Europe and Africa in Germany, Army soldiers launched more than 1,000 disposable drones, treating them like ammunition, according to a senior officer. Brig. Gen. Terry Tillis, head of the 7th Army Training Command, said in a roundtable discussion with overseas reporters last week that of the roughly 2,000 drones used during the exercise, 1,000 were consumable.
The exercise, held at the 7th Army Training Command in Germany, was used as a test site to replicate challenging environments, including counter-drone systems and electronic warfare, to give soldiers a more realistic experience. Tillis said soldiers used the one-way drones in different combat scenarios and treated them as immediately disposable.
Retired Marine intelligence officer Hal Kempfer, in an interview with Military.com, described expendable drones as one-way, kamikaze, or disposable drones that go in, do the mission, and don’t come back. He said this marks a shift for the U.S. military, which has historically invested billions of dollars in reusable, long-term equipment. Kempfer noted that the traditional aircraft procurement process is bureaucratically cumbersome and often results in expensive systems that may be outdated by the time they are fielded.
The Army’s shift toward low-cost, one-way drones has been driven by its Drone Dominance Program, which aims to equip soldiers with enough autonomous systems to make them expendable. Kempfer cited Ukraine as a laboratory for robotic and autonomous warfare, and noted that other countries, including the United Kingdom, Japan, and South Korea, are developing similar disposable drone programs.
Kempfer said the result can be calculated in dollars and the saving of human lives. He also referenced a recent Army airborne operation where larger drones carried smaller combat drones into conflict zones, describing them as one-way drones designed to go in, kill people, blow things up, and not survive.
Kempfer said it’s a lesson learned in real-time with the war in Ukraine and other recent conflicts in the Middle East. Since last fall, the Pentagon said the Iran-backed Houthi militia group has targeted commercial shipping vessels in the Red Sea, using aerial vehicles, uncrewed surface vessels and cruise missiles to attack U.S. ships as well as on the ground installations in the region.
“Those drone numbers continue to increase in every rotation, and we will continue to increase them in future rotations,” Norrie said. “These drones are now a part of our basics of being able to survive and integrate into protection plans, using them to sense further and strike faster.”
Sources: Defence Blog · Military.com