WASHINGTON — The Department of Defense has begun accepting small, one-way attack drones. The Pentagon ordered 20,000 small first-person view drones from 10 vendors that participated in the Gauntlet 1 competition.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a directive last summer to expand the domestic drone manufacturing sector. That directive requires every military squad to be outfitted with small one-way attack drones by the end of fiscal year 2026.
Neros shipped 2,400 Archer small quadcopter drones to the military, and the Pentagon has accepted 1,040 of these drones. Other contracted vendors have shipped a combined 560 drones to the department. Napatree, which placed third in the Gauntlet 1 competition, has not yet received a contract award.
The department plans to spend approximately $1 billion on drone purchases over a two-year period. The initial Gauntlet competition featured 25 companies, and officials ranked the top 11 vendors.
In a memorandum, Defense Secretary Hegseth stated, "U.S. units are not outfitted with the lethal small drones the modern battlefield requires." He added, "While global military drone production skyrocketed over the last three years, the previous administration deployed red tape."
The Pentagon plans to host a second Gauntlet competition. This upcoming event will focus on long-range strike and close-quarters tactical assault drones. Forty-nine companies have been invited to bring 79 drones to a qualifier event at Camp Grayling, Michigan. The 20,000 drone order is 10,000 fewer than the previously predicted amount. First-person view drones have been used in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia. Bravo Ordnance, Kela Defense, Kraken Kinetics, Mountain Horse, and Northrop Grumman were selected as winners of a lethality challenge to potentially supply payloads for Group 1 drones weighing 20 pounds or less.
No independent assessment was available for this report.