The US Army plans to buy at least 1 million drones in the next two to three years and may acquire from half a million to a million drones a year in the coming years, said the Secretary of the Army Daniel Driscoll, quoted by Reuters, writes BTA.
In an interview with Reuters, Driscoll described in detail the significant increase in the army's drone acquisition plan, acknowledging the challenges, given that the largest branch of the US military acquires only about 50,000 drones a year at the moment.
"This is a big challenge. But it's a challenge we're fully capable of meeting," Driscoll said.
He spoke by phone during a visit to the Picatinny Rail Armory, a U.S. military research and production facility, where he described how he learned about the "network cartridge" experiments – defenses that trap drones in nets, as well as new explosives and electromagnetic tools synchronized with weapons systems.
Driscoll and the commanding officer of the Picatinny Range, Maj. Gen. John Ream, spoke to Reuters about how the United States is learning from Russia's war in Ukraine, which has seen the use of drones on an unprecedented scale.
Small, cheap drones have proven to be one of the most potent weapons in the war between Russia and Ukraine, where conventional warplanes are used relatively rarely due to the dense concentration of air defense systems near the front lines.
Ukraine and Russia each produce about 4 million drones a year, but China is likely capable of producing more than twice that, Driscoll said.
The secretary said his priority was to put the United States in a position to produce enough drones for any future war by incentivizing local production of everything from brushless motors and sensors to batteries and circuit boards.
Today, much of that production is controlled by China.
"We expect to buy at least a million drones in the next two to three years," the minister said.
"And we expect that in a year or two from now we will know that in a moment of conflict we will be able to activate a supply chain that is stable and deep enough to be able to activate the production of as many drones as we need."
Driscoll said that he fundamentally wants to change the way the military perceives drones - more as disposable munitions than as "fine" equipment.