Yes. Yes we have, Army. What rock have you been hiding under the last 3 years?

https://www.twz.com/air/army-touting-grenade-dropping-drone-shows-just-how-alarmingly-behind-the-curve-it-still-is

Quote:

---

U.S. Army video meant to laud the service's work on fielding small armed drones instead highlights just how much it and the rest of the U.S. military continue to lag behind global trends.

"Have you ever seen a drone drop a GRENADE?" a now-deleted post earlier today from the official U.S. Army account on X read. "Watch Soldiers from @7thATC (7th Army Training Command), the Joint Multinational Training Group-Ukraine (JMTG-U) and @173rdAbnBde (the 173rd Airborne Brigade) execute the Army's first live-grenade drop from an unmanned aircraft system in Grafenwoehr Training Area, Germany."

---

It's amazing that Ukraine and Russia have been making incredible advances in the area of drone and EW warfare for the last 3 years and our Army is proud of finally dropping a grenade for the first time.


Not only that, we seem to be woedully unprepared for countering EW jamming of small drones. If and when the Army needs to field this kind of capability, we don't seem particularly prepared for adverse battlefield conditions, and our domestic development seems laughably inadequate versus Ukrainian companies successfully testing in live battlefield conditions.

https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2025/07/15/jammed-and-confused-alaska-trial-shows-pitfalls-of-fielding-us-drones/

Quote:

---

Trent Emeneker, who leads several autonomy projects for DIU, said the event underscored a reality that many in the national security community are already grappling with the U.S. military's aerial-drone capabilities are lagging behind its competitors.

"There is so much that we need to do right now in the uncrewed systems space," Emeneker told reporters. "We are just really far behind, and we have to catch up."

A project without a partner

Staged over four days, the drone testing was part of a DIU project called Artemis, which aims to identify and then buy en masse low-cost commercial UAS that can fly at long ranges, strike enemy targets and operate through electronic warfare countermeasures like signal jamming and spoofing.

On the range in Alaska, DIU officials wanted to see if the Artemis drones could acquire and maintain targets and then hit them with some degree of accuracy when their navigation and communication signals were disrupted.

Four companies are on contract for the project: AV previously AeroVironment Dragoon and two Ukrainian firms that are each paired with a U.S.-based software firm, one with Swan and the other with Auterion.

Only AV and Dragoon were in Alaska for testing. The Ukrainian firms, which haven't been disclosed due to security concerns, are flying their drones in operations at home. One of the firms has already met its contractual testing requirements, Emeneker said. The second was recently targeted existentian attack that destroyed its production facilities and is now working to rebuild. It hopes to start testing in the coming weeks.

---

Spoiler alert, the American companies didn't do very well.

Quote:

---

While the companies made progress throughout the test event, neither performed as well as DIU expected.

In one scenario during the second day of testing, AV's drone failed repeatedly to find its target when jammed and ultimately crashed into a hill. In another run on the same day, Dragoon's system flew past its target, made impact and went up in flames.

Critically, neither system performed well under EW conditions.

Emeneker said it's too early to diagnose why the drones underperformed or to declare the project a failure.

"Without looking at the data and analyzing it, it's really hard to know because understanding the interplay of the jamming… software bugs, it gets complex," he said. "I don't want to jump to conclusions but it was not what I would have hoped for or wanted to see."

He also noted that while the platforms weren't perfect, that's not the goal. The objective of Artemis is to identify a baseline throw-away drone capability that offers a more affordable option than high-end munitions. By the end of testing, the systems had both made impacts and were closer to hitting their targets.

Still, Emeneker is concerned about what the preliminary outcome says about the state of the U.S. drone industrial base.

---

When someone complains about what we get from supplying Ukraine, this is what we're getting. They're rapidly building and testing and perfecting autonomous battlefield tech while our military struggles to get its head out of its ass, and we will ultimately get a lot of that knowledge and a partner that can build these platforms better then we can. Ukraine is fighting tomorrow's war today, and if we want to be successful in that warfare, we need the experience and capabilities they're developing because we don't seem to be able to do it on our own.

https://nypost.com/2025/07/17/us-news/trump-zelensky-discuss-drone-mega-deal-for-us-to-buy-battle-ready-ukraine-uavs/

Well..................the last administration was much more concerned with DEI and rainbow flags than pesky things like military readiness.

Quote:

---

Not only that, we seem to be woedully unprepared for countering EW jamming of small drones.

---

fly-by-wire. Ukraine is covered in wire because of this. https://www.twz.com/news-features/inside-ukraines-fiber-optic-drone-war

The other alternative is frequency hopping like we do to prevent radio jamming.

Lego sells drone drop grenade toys in Ukraine

They are definitely aware and working on it

🔴 BREAKING: The U.S. Army now has a weapon that can instantly fry entire drone swarms.
It's not a laser.
It's not a missile.
It’s Leonidas — a microwave cannon that sends out a pulse and melts electronics mid-air ⚡

No ammo. No reload. Just pure energy.

One blast = 50+ drones… pic.twitter.com/8vDtRVjjMa

— Defence Index (@Defence_Index) July 14, 2025

It's like a giant can of mosquito repellent!

Urban Ag said:

---

Well..................the last administration was much more concerned with DEI and rainbow flags than pesky things like military readiness.

---

Well........ If you go read the first article, isis was dropping bomblets on tanks in 2016. This has been an emerging threat and capability gap that goes back to Trump's first term, so I wouldn't go throwing around blame. Biden certainly didn't help anything, but the only thing new about this is the proliferation on the battlefield by near peers instead of insurgents.

If you read the second article, you'll notice the Artemis effort got funding and kicked off last year as part of a Ukrainian aid package. They've also run into bureaucratic red tape with acquisition offices not wanting to fund our partner with the project because it isn't tailored to their specific needs. That's a systemic issue that predates Biden and is of the Army's own making, though Trump, or an appointee, could cut through all of that by telling a command or multiple commands to partner with DIU to develop and field this post haste.

Somewhere on X this am there was a quote from a UKR higher up visiting a NATO base recently. He was asked what he thought of the base…

He replied a group of 4 Ukrainian FPV teams could turn it into Pearl Harbor from 10km away.

A concentrated, localized EMP.

For drone defense, yeah sure, but we're talking offensive.

Also, there's some debate on whether or not that system can be defeated by simply shielding sensitive components with a faraday cage or insulators. The manufacturers say it can't and their competitors say it can. The truth is probably in between.

Martin Q. Blank said:

---

Quote:

---

Not only that, we seem to be woedully unprepared for countering EW jamming of small drones.

---

fly-by-wire. Ukraine is covered in wire because of this. https://www.twz.com/news-features/inside-ukraines-fiber-optic-drone-war

The other alternative is frequency hopping like we do to prevent radio jamming.

---

I'm curious when we'll see a disruptive solution to these wires. Thinking a fence strung where fiber optics are likely to cross which cuts or melts quick enough to sever the connection.

My fellow Leatherneck brothers are preparing for the future.

US Marines just created established a new team, the Marine Corps Attack Drone Team, focused on integrating first-person view (FPV) drones into combat operations. This team aims to enhance the Marines' capabilities in reconnaissance, surveillance, and potentially attack roles using these small, remotely controlled aircraft.

https://www.marines.mil/News/News-Display/Article/4139734/marine-corps-launches-attack-drone-team/

I know a guy who works in this field. Without giving away too much...he has extensive military experience (as do most people there), and they are working as a direct contractor for the military.

Our drone capabilities are far far beyond this silly video/post. I'm not sure the point of them posting that, but it was dumb all around.

To OP's hand wringing about a "drone dropping a grenade", I saw a TikTok video TODAY from an account of a military expert who showed the U.S.'s new "attack drone" that can strike a target (both stationary & moving) several kilometers away with a rocket that can take out ANYTHING on the battlefield, including air assets (drones AND aircraft: helicopters & jets in some instances). It's killing rate was 100%!!!

So, while we may not have the best drones to fly above a target to drop a grenade, thus exposing it to counter fire & other jamming tech, where the damage is minimal, we DO HAVE a drone that can blow-up a freaking tank from miles away with a rocket!! Oh, & the costs per drone is $22K up to $35K, depending on the ordnance & battlefield demands.

BAE Systems' new drone that I mentioned. See? The sky is NOT falling!!!!


Here's the link for anyone interested:
https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZPHpdJGwYd4GA-HzMWd/

And we are still funding the Taliban who is preparing the largest Terrorist attack in the history of the world....paid for by US taxpayers.

I doubt that anything important and top secret is posted on X. What you see is "yesterday's news".

Aight so if you want to know what the US has for this rough class of loitering munition, go look at the Aerovironment Switchblade 300, Teledyne FLIR Rogue One, or the Anduril Bolt. We've got lots of these things that are well underway. These are the little antipersonnel doodads that are in the "grenade" class of warheads more or less.

That's a laser guidance kit for a 70mm rocket. You still need a large enough launch platform (like a helicopter or fixed wing aircraft) to get close enough to use it. Sure you could launch it from large drone like a Reaper, but good luck with that in contested airspace. There's a reason you don't hear about Ukraine using Bayraktars anymore.

The drones we're taking about are too small for most anti-air threats and don't require the same infrastructure and footprint as large launch platforms.

Brother, you're worried about a platform to deliver grenades; this platform can carry 125lbs of ordinance. Further, your assumed "requirements" to deploy are unsubstantiated; with respect to Ukraine no longer using a certain weapon system, maybe they weren't given any more?

Still, if grenade dropping drones are such an effective delivery system, why is Russia focusing production on Shaheed drones, which BTW can be modified to fulfill multiple combat rolls.

In other words, I think you're missing the forest for the trees.

A switchblade is $60k. A Rogue One is $90k. Even the Bolt is estimated at $20k to $50k depending on model. That's for one way loitering munitions if you want to strike a target. Ukrainian FPV's used as loitering munitions cost several hundred dollars to a few thousand dollars. Ukraine may just be dropping grenades or flying RPG rounds into vehicles, but there doing it for a fraction of the cost, which allows them to better saturate the battlefield, spread defenses, and hit more targets.

AgGrad99 said:

---

I know a guy who works in this field. Without giving away too much...he has extensive military experience (as do most people there), and they are working as a direct contractor for the military.

Our drone capabilities are far far beyond this silly video/post. I'm not sure the point of them posting that, but it was dumb all around.

---

While this is accurate, the OP has a point too. There is FAR TOO MUCH risk aversion for us to pace our peer/near peer adversaries. I'm not even sure a hot war will remove some of the risk aversion barriers that are deeply engrained in targeting and lethality.

Ag in Tiger Country said:

---

Brother, you're worried about a platform to deliver grenades; this platform can carry 125lbs of ordinance. Further, your assumed "requirements" to deploy are unsubstantiated; with respect to Ukraine no longer using a certain weapon system, maybe they weren't given any more?

Still, if grenade dropping drones are such an effective delivery system, why is Russia focusing production on Shaheed drones, which BTW can be modified to fulfill multiple combat rolls.

In other words, I think you're missing the forest for the trees.

---

That platform also costs $400k, with another $20k-$30k per shot for the APKWS and rocket. A rocket on its own is a couple thousand. It probably has a place on the battlefield in an anti-armor role (Ukraine is using a limited number of a larger model in a resupply role), but one of those rockets also weighs 20-30lbs. That's something you're likely going to move en masse with vehicles or UGV's and operate from a rear area. RPG rounds (remember RPG is an acronym for Russian that translates more to antitank warhead launcher, not rocket propelled grenade), hand grenades, and cheap FPV drones can be much more easily distributed amongst personnel and carried. They're also cheaper and more adaptable for use against multiple hard targets like armor or soft targets like infantry. Ukraine's FPV drones cost about $500-$1000. For the cost of one T150 and 3 APKWS rockets you could have 500-1000 FPV drones dropping grenades on infantry or suicide droning armor across a far wider area. That also means more flexibility across your entire force since you can mix and match models with RC, fiber optic, fixed wing recon, etc.

Ukraine stopped using Bayraktars because the airspace became contested and they were sitting ducks, not because they were no longer given. In the early days of the war, Russia did not have a coordinated or effective air defense. Once they dug in and established a layered air defense with more long range SAMs, Bayraktars become a nonstarter. It's why neither side uses a lot of aircraft near the front. They still have them and use them in primarily naval roles against vessels and oil platforms where the airspace can be less contested.

Russia is also using many small UAS systems. They're the ones who kicked off the arms race with fiber optic tethers to combat EW interference and jamming. Shaheds are just one part of their overall effort. It's the difference between having different aircraft for CAS and strategic bombing. Shaheds are used for massed attacks against infrastructure and civilian centers. Russia's FPV drones are used in tactical roles on the front lines to hunt armor and artillery or hit dug in infantry.

Not all units in the Army are using the same technology. For example, 173rd Abn is rolling their own and not relying on what gets fielded to them by PEO Soldier.

https://www.dvidshub.net/video/969323/173rd-airborne-brigade-tests-fpv-lethality-during-swift-response-2025-lithuania

RGRAg1/75 said:

---

AgGrad99 said:

---

I know a guy who works in this field. Without giving away too much...he has extensive military experience (as do most people there), and they are working as a direct contractor for the military.

Our drone capabilities are far far beyond this silly video/post. I'm not sure the point of them posting that, but it was dumb all around.

---

While this is accurate, the OP has a point too. There is FAR TOO MUCH risk aversion for us to pace our peer/near peer adversaries. I'm not even sure a hot war will remove some of the risk aversion barriers that are deeply engrained in targeting and lethality.

---

It's not just that, is that those capabilities are expensive and slower to produce. It's like the reverse of WWII, where we're the ones who are trying to field complex, expensive weapons systems when our adversaries, namely China, will have a numbers and manufacturing advantage. They may be amazing weapons, but using a $20k-$60k loitering munition with the latest in AI and thermal imagining to kill an infantryman isn't a scalable financial proposition when you're talking a near peer like China.

This isn't silly, it's cost effective. A drone dropping a grenade from COTS hardware platforms isn't as fancy and sexy as the latest in loitering munitions and surveillance platforms, but it's relatively cheap and scalable.

I'll put it this way: China is cranking out the drones that Ukraine is using to drop grenades on the Russians, and those drones retail for a few hundred bucks. For under a $1000 China can have a one way stack munition or a reusable grenade dropping platform that can be carried by every single soldier. Do we have something that can match that kind of lethality and scalability?

AgEngr12 said:

---

They are definitely aware and working on it

🔴 BREAKING: The U.S. Army now has a weapon that can instantly fry entire drone swarms.
It's not a laser.
It's not a missile.
It’s Leonidas — a microwave cannon that sends out a pulse and melts electronics mid-air ⚡

No ammo. No reload. Just pure energy.

One blast = 50+ drones… pic.twitter.com/8vDtRVjjMa

— Defence Index (@Defence_Index) July 14, 2025

---

Wonder how long have they been sitting on "Leonidas" as a badass weapon name

Yes, if only we had the ingenuity if eastern europe

ABATTBQ11 said:

---

Yes. Yes we have, Army. What rock have you been hiding under the last 3 years?

https://www.twz.com/air/army-touting-grenade-dropping-drone-shows-just-how-alarmingly-behind-the-curve-it-still-is

Quote:

---

U.S. Army video meant to laud the service's work on fielding small armed drones instead highlights just how much it and the rest of the U.S. military continue to lag behind global trends.

"Have you ever seen a drone drop a GRENADE?" a now-deleted post earlier today from the official U.S. Army account on X read. "Watch Soldiers from @7thATC (7th Army Training Command), the Joint Multinational Training Group-Ukraine (JMTG-U) and @173rdAbnBde (the 173rd Airborne Brigade) execute the Army's first live-grenade drop from an unmanned aircraft system in Grafenwoehr Training Area, Germany."

---

It's amazing that Ukraine and Russia have been making incredible advances in the area of drone and EW warfare for the last 3 years and our Army is proud of finally dropping a grenade for the first time.


Not only that, we seem to be woedully unprepared for countering EW jamming of small drones. If and when the Army needs to field this kind of capability, we don't seem particularly prepared for adverse battlefield conditions, and our domestic development seems laughably inadequate versus Ukrainian companies successfully testing in live battlefield conditions.

https://www.defensenews.com/pentagon/2025/07/15/jammed-and-confused-alaska-trial-shows-pitfalls-of-fielding-us-drones/

Quote:

---

Trent Emeneker, who leads several autonomy projects for DIU, said the event underscored a reality that many in the national security community are already grappling with the U.S. military's aerial-drone capabilities are lagging behind its competitors.

"There is so much that we need to do right now in the uncrewed systems space," Emeneker told reporters. "We are just really far behind, and we have to catch up."

A project without a partner

Staged over four days, the drone testing was part of a DIU project called Artemis, which aims to identify and then buy en masse low-cost commercial UAS that can fly at long ranges, strike enemy targets and operate through electronic warfare countermeasures like signal jamming and spoofing.

On the range in Alaska, DIU officials wanted to see if the Artemis drones could acquire and maintain targets and then hit them with some degree of accuracy when their navigation and communication signals were disrupted.

Four companies are on contract for the project: AV previously AeroVironment Dragoon and two Ukrainian firms that are each paired with a U.S.-based software firm, one with Swan and the other with Auterion.

Only AV and Dragoon were in Alaska for testing. The Ukrainian firms, which haven't been disclosed due to security concerns, are flying their drones in operations at home. One of the firms has already met its contractual testing requirements, Emeneker said. The second was recently targeted existentian attack that destroyed its production facilities and is now working to rebuild. It hopes to start testing in the coming weeks.

---

Spoiler alert, the American companies didn't do very well.

Quote:

---

While the companies made progress throughout the test event, neither performed as well as DIU expected.

In one scenario during the second day of testing, AV's drone failed repeatedly to find its target when jammed and ultimately crashed into a hill. In another run on the same day, Dragoon's system flew past its target, made impact and went up in flames.

Critically, neither system performed well under EW conditions.

Emeneker said it's too early to diagnose why the drones underperformed or to declare the project a failure.

"Without looking at the data and analyzing it, it's really hard to know because understanding the interplay of the jamming… software bugs, it gets complex," he said. "I don't want to jump to conclusions but it was not what I would have hoped for or wanted to see."

He also noted that while the platforms weren't perfect, that's not the goal. The objective of Artemis is to identify a baseline throw-away drone capability that offers a more affordable option than high-end munitions. By the end of testing, the systems had both made impacts and were closer to hitting their targets.

Still, Emeneker is concerned about what the preliminary outcome says about the state of the U.S. drone industrial base.

---

When someone complains about what we get from supplying Ukraine, this is what we're getting. They're rapidly building and testing and perfecting autonomous battlefield tech while our military struggles to get its head out of its ass, and we will ultimately get a lot of that knowledge and a partner that can build these platforms better then we can. Ukraine is fighting tomorrow's war today, and if we want to be successful in that warfare, we need the experience and capabilities they're developing because we don't seem to be able to do it on our own.

https://nypost.com/2025/07/17/us-news/trump-zelensky-discuss-drone-mega-deal-for-us-to-buy-battle-ready-ukraine-uavs/

---

I can assure you it is not as bad as you are think. Don't take this as gospel.

ABATTBQ11 said:

---

RGRAg1/75 said:

---

AgGrad99 said:

---

I know a guy who works in this field. Without giving away too much...he has extensive military experience (as do most people there), and they are working as a direct contractor for the military.

Our drone capabilities are far far beyond this silly video/post. I'm not sure the point of them posting that, but it was dumb all around.

---

While this is accurate, the OP has a point too. There is FAR TOO MUCH risk aversion for us to pace our peer/near peer adversaries. I'm not even sure a hot war will remove some of the risk aversion barriers that are deeply engrained in targeting and lethality.

---

It's not just that, is that those capabilities are expensive and slower to produce. It's like the reverse of WWII, where we're the ones who are trying to field complex, expensive weapons systems when our adversaries, namely China, will have a numbers and manufacturing advantage. They may be amazing weapons, but using a $20k-$60k loitering munition with the latest in AI and thermal imagining to kill an infantryman isn't a scalable financial proposition when you're talking a near peer like China.

This isn't silly, it's cost effective. A drone dropping a grenade from COTS hardware platforms isn't as fancy and sexy as the latest in loitering munitions and surveillance platforms, but it's relatively cheap and scalable.

I'll put it this way: China is cranking out the drones that Ukraine is using to drop grenades on the Russians, and those drones retail for a few hundred bucks. For under a $1000 China can have a one way stack munition or a reusable grenade dropping platform that can be carried by every single soldier. Do we have something that can match that kind of lethality and scalability?

---

But that's kind of my point. The reason why it's this way is due to our built in risk aversion. We don't need to have zero risk with 99.5% certainty, but moral responsibility that drives policy to minimize CD (as just one example) increases weapon costs.

Another rate limiter on the innovation side is giving a platoon leader in a line infantry battalion the authority and budget to let his boys go tinker with building FPVs just won't happen across the formation. It's been happening in Ukraine for years already.

Yes, I think we can scale (maybe not match PRC tomorrow, but could ramp significantly/quickly) and we certainly have the ability to match/exceed the lethality piece. It's just that price per unit is a problem, as you pointed out, we have created due to policy driven by risk aversion.

Companies like Anduril and SpaceX are pushing hard against these norms. And they're making (some) headway. Congress is still swampy, however.

Ulysses90 said:

---

Not all units in the Army are using the same technology. For example, 173rd Abn is rolling their own and not relying on what gets fielded to them by PEO Soldier.

https://www.dvidshub.net/video/969323/173rd-airborne-brigade-tests-fpv-lethality-during-swift-response-2025-lithuania

---

That's nice, but a single IBCT does not have purchasing power or authority to do much more than what is mentioned in that article, which is to play with a few toys.

That's the point of the SecDef breaking down some of the acquisition corps monopoly that USD A&S has on providing "material solutions" for drones. His directive classifies Group 1 & 2 drones as consumable items maintained at a level of availability rather than serialized inventory on the unit property account. He has turned small drones into an ammunition allocation. This isn't going to change culture or the programming of funds in the POM immediately but it is definitely a move in the right direction.

The President's EO on Modernizing Defense Acquisitions and Spurring Innovation also undercuts the assumption that a the solution to a materiel capability gap begins with an R&D budget and a mulit year technology maturation process. The EO says that origram managers and contracting officers must first do the market research to find or rule out commercial solutions before R&D funding is authorized. This is important because it takes advantage of a lot of good commercial products that may need only minor modification to meet mission requirements for performance, interoperability, and security.

The amount of time and money that is wasted by the DoD in crafting requirements in such a way as to exclude commercial solutions is staggering. PMs and their engineers will add language for a minor attribute of a system that excludes affordable commercial solutions in order to justify an government spec design that will necessarily go to a Big 5 contractor or a second tier large business. Drone technology is a great example of this where they have used the boogeyman of software backdoors and exploitation of cyber vulnerabilities to exclude affordable technology in the $500 range for Group 1 drones in preference to a $10,000 system that is verified to have no Chinese made components. This can be done by a statement that specifies a FIPS 140-3 compliant hardware encryption solution for the RF link. By little maneuvers like that, the acquisition corps (that will eventually move from uniformed or GS jobs into better paying positions at GD, NG, RTX, LMCO, BA, etc.) constrain the DoD to eliminate from consideration almost every drone being flown successfully by the Ukrainians.

The EO a pretty good start at putting teeth into enforcing the intent of the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act of 1994 which has been almost completely ignore by the acquisition and contracting workforce. FASA 1994 (U.S.C.) was the reason that FAR Part 12 (C.F.R.) was drafted to implement it but very few program managers and contracting officers followed to policy. It wasn't til 2017 when Palantir had generated enough revenue to hire the lawyers to sue the Army for violating FASA 1994 that anyone on the government side got held to account. The Palantir decision is great but only companies that have achieved the nearly impossible can do it i.e. by having the revenue from government contracts to pay for lawyers to sue the government for not following the law and regulations. Palantir was an anomaly because they had profitable contracts awarded director from the operating forces which gave them the resources to sue for the right to compete for the Army's DCGS-2 program from which they had been excluded.

If a small amount of optimism is justified it is because the EO directed that the performance evaluation of the DoD acquisition workforce will be based on a 'demonstration of first preference for commercial solutions." They won't change until their career path is interrupted. I am hopeful that Hegseth is successful in interrupting a lot of career paths of the workforce under USD A&S and USD R&E. If he doesn't, we will continue to buy overpriced and overly complex systems from the five families that rule to world of defense contracting.

AgEngr12 said:

---

They are definitely aware and working on it

🔴 BREAKING: The U.S. Army now has a weapon that can instantly fry entire drone swarms.
It's not a laser.
It's not a missile.
It’s Leonidas — a microwave cannon that sends out a pulse and melts electronics mid-air ⚡

No ammo. No reload. Just pure energy.

One blast = 50+ drones… pic.twitter.com/8vDtRVjjMa

— Defence Index (@Defence_Index) July 14, 2025

---

That's pretty awesome!

redsquirrelAG said:

---

And we are still funding the Taliban who is preparing the largest Terrorist attack in the history of the world....paid for by US taxpayers.

---

How in the hell is this happening? ****ing insanity!

Ulysses90 said:

---

That's the point of the SecDef breaking down some of the acquisition corps monopoly that USD A&S has on providing "material solutions" for drones. His directive classifies Group 1 & 2 drones as consumable items maintained at a level of availability rather than serialized inventory on the unit property account. He has turned small drones into an ammunition allocation. This isn't going to change culture or the programming of funds in the POM immediately but it is definitely a move in the right direction.

The President's EO on Modernizing Defense Acquisitions and Spurring Innovation also undercuts the assumption that a the solution to a materiel capability gap begins with an R&D budget and a mulit year technology maturation process. The EO says that origram managers and contracting officers must first do the market research to find or rule out commercial solutions before R&D funding is authorized. This is important because it takes advantage of a lot of good commercial products that may need only minor modification to meet mission requirements for performance, interoperability, and security.

The amount of time and money that is wasted by the DoD in crafting requirements in such a way as to exclude commercial solutions is staggering. PMs and their engineers will add language for a minor attribute of a system that excludes affordable commercial solutions in order to justify an government spec design that will necessarily go to a Big 5 contractor or a second tier large business. Drone technology is a great example of this where they have used the boogeyman of software backdoors and exploitation of cyber vulnerabilities to exclude affordable technology in the $500 range for Group 1 drones in preference to a $10,000 system that is verified to have no Chinese made components. This can be done by a statement that specifies a FIPS 140-3 compliant hardware encryption solution for the RF link. By little maneuvers like that, the acquisition corps (that will eventually move from uniformed or GS jobs into better paying positions at GD, NG, RTX, LMCO, BA, etc.) constrain the DoD to eliminate from consideration almost every drone being flown successfully by the Ukrainians.

The EO a pretty good start at putting teeth into enforcing the intent of the Federal Acquisition Streamlining Act of 1994 which has been almost completely ignore by the acquisition and contracting workforce. FASA 1994 (U.S.C.) was the reason that FAR Part 12 (C.F.R.) was drafted to implement it but very few program managers and contracting officers followed to policy. It wasn't til 2017 when Palantir had generated enough revenue to hire the lawyers to sue the Army for violating FASA 1994 that anyone on the government side got held to account. The Palantir decision is great but only companies that have achieved the nearly impossible can do it i.e. by having the revenue from government contracts to pay for lawyers to sue the government for not following the law and regulations. Palantir was an anomaly because they had profitable contracts awarded director from the operating forces which gave them the resources to sue for the right to compete for the Army's DCGS-2 program from which they had been excluded.

If a small amount of optimism is justified it is because the EO directed that the performance evaluation of the DoD acquisition workforce will be based on a 'demonstration of first preference for commercial solutions." They won't change until their career path is interrupted. I am hopeful that Hegseth is successful in interrupting a lot of career paths of the workforce under USD A&S and USD R&E. If he doesn't, we will continue to buy overpriced and overly complex systems from the five families that rule to world of defense contracting.

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Good stuff. You're clearly knowledgeable on this subject. However, I'm more skeptical than you are wrt to optimism being justified by the EO.

Recent NDAA additions included the mandate to rewrite the DoD 5000, expand use of Middle Tier ACQ (MTA), and emphasis on use of Other Transactional Authorities (OTA) to address contracting delays. Many of the recommendations in the EO are already addressed in the past NDAAs. I am not sure the EO will have a large impact, and it certainly has not had an immediate impact. Best case, it is memorialized in legislation (NDAAs) and not at risk for termination in the next administration.

Same can be said with the Army Transformation Initiative (ATI). I'm glad to see movement toward killing massively large programs that are delivering (sometimes delivering) unneeded capabilities, and in more cases, tools that don't provide the capability desired in the first place. But the big primes haven't received any stop orders, and congress is doing it's damnedest to keep the flow of cash to certain sectors of the defense industrial base, regardless of what SECDEF puts out there.

I came from the world of defense acquisitions. I retired from active duty seven years ago and spent the last eight years in uniform as an acquisition PM. I was so disillusioned with the inefficiency, complacent attitudes, careerism, and putting process ahead of purpose in acquisition programs that I wanted no part of it on the government side nor did I want to work for a big defense contractor. I didn't send out a single resume and decided to try consulting for small businesses with unique and important technology.

Small businesses with innovative ideas really have a difficult time because their technology isn't described in a government requirement document or solicitation. If it was, the major contractors would already be marketing a solution. Eliciting new requirements from the bottom up is in some cases tye best way to get a small first contract.