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2025-07-21 Home Front: WoT
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Drones as cartridges
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Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited.
Text taken from the Telegram channel of darpaandcia
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin is in italics.
[ColonelCassad] Drones as cartridges: key changes in the new policy of the US Ministry of Defense On July 10, 2025, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth signed a memorandum, which radically changes the approach of the US army to small drones.
The main change: drones are consumables.
The key idea of the new approach is that small drones (groups 1 and 2, that is, small tactical devices) are now officially equated to consumables, such as ammunition. What this means in practice: No bureaucracy: Commanders will no longer need to conduct investigations and fill out reams of paperwork in the event that a drone is lost in combat or during exercises. This removes the fear of "loss of expensive property".
Freedom of use: The military is encouraged to experiment and use drones as freely as they use cartridges — without extra care and accountability. Field modification: the troops are allowed to modify and "bring to mind" systems directly on the front line for adaptation to tasks. Key decisions from the memorandum: Accelerated purchases: The authority to purchase small UAVs has been transferred to commanders at the level of colonels and captains of the Navy, which will allow purchasing systems directly and many times faster. Drones in every department: A clear goal has been set - by the end of the 2026 fiscal year, every rifle department in the US Army should be equipped with inexpensive disposable drones (of the FPV type).
INDUSTRY SUPPORT:
Special offices are being created that will directly finance American drone manufacturers through loans and advance purchases to strengthen domestic production. Mandatory integration: From 2027, the use of drones will become a mandatory element of all major military exercises. The Pentagon admits that "excessive caution" and slow bureaucratic processes have led the US to lag behind China, Russia and Iran in the field of small UAVs. The new policy is designed to "unleash the potential of American manufacturing and soldier ingenuity," as the document says. As the Minister of Defense himself said, "Small UAVs are more like ammunition than high-class aircraft." They should be cheap, quickly replaceable and classified as consumables."
This is a correct concept. Most drones are now just consumables. And that's exactly how they should treat a consumable, taking into account the fact that the consumable must also be used effectively and not wasted. The cost of the consumable is also one of its most important characteristics.It is possible to pay attention that the USA will be able to enter the mandatory use of drones in exercises only in 2027. In a number of aspects, the United States is indeed lagging behind Russia and China in the introduction of drones in the military.
However, we should not be fooled - we need to increase the production of UAVs, reduce the bureaucracy of supply, close the holes in whole segments of UAVs (for example, in quadcopters), etc. Opponents will not stand still. The unmanned arms race will go on for a very long time.
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Posted by badanov 2025-07-21 00:00||
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