The US Department of Defense is undertaking a major strategic shift, planning to replace some of the heavy and extremely expensive MQ-9A Reaper unmanned aerial vehicles with a new generation of cheap and easily replaceable combat drones. The decision comes after the serious losses that the US Air Force suffered during the conflict with Iran as part of Operation “Epic Fury“, where nearly 30 Reaper machines worth a total of about one billion dollars were shot down.
The Pentagon's Military Innovation Unit (DIU) has launched the Massed Modular Aircraft (MMA) initiative. According to publications in the specialized publication Defense News, the goal is to create drones with a long range, which, however, have a low production cost and can be quickly re-equipped with various reconnaissance or combat equipment. The cost of one MQ-9A reaches 30-50 million dollars, which makes losing them in areas with modern air defense systems economically unprofitable. As Breaking Defense notes, the new cheap devices should reach initial operational readiness by 2031, allowing the US Army to apply the tactics of "drone swarms".