摘要：俄乌战争彻底改变了现代战争形态，无人机正成为战场主宰——一架千元无人机可摧毁百万坦克，美军正全力追赶这一颠覆性变革。乌克兰军队在战争中不断改革无人机和每月生产400万架无人机的经验，让五角大楼着眼未来亚太对华竞争，加速将无人机列为士兵标配武器，并拟与乌合作加快
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俄乌战争彻底改变了现代战争形态，无人机正成为战场主宰——一架千元无人机可摧毁百万坦克，美军正全力追赶这一颠覆性变革。乌克兰军队在战争中不断改革无人机和每月生产400万架无人机的经验，让五角大楼着眼未来亚太对华竞争，加速将无人机列为士兵标配武器，并拟与乌合作加快无人机的研发与生产。
美军全面开展无人机知识教育与培训
一、俄乌战争使美军认识到无人军事装备的重要性
据美国有线电视新闻网（CNN）2025年9月15日报道，俄罗斯与乌克兰冲突凸显了无人机在现代和未来战争中的巨大作用和威胁，促使美国防部及美军认识到无人机在未来战争中的重大作用，在政策导向、军事训练和研发生产等方面学习借鉴乌克兰实战经验，并拟与乌克兰加强在无人机研发和制造方面的合作，以保持在亚太对中国的竞争优势。主要内容如下：
今年7月，国防部长皮特·赫格塞斯向美军高层领导下发备忘录，以加快美军的无人机应用。他写道：“杀伤力不应受自我设限的阻碍，尤其是在利用那些我们发明却迟迟未能大力发展的技术时。无人机技术发展如此迅速，我们面临的主要风险恰恰是回避风险。操作无人机的能力将融入美军所有的相关作战训练，包括部队间的无人机对抗训练。”
这份备忘录使美军指挥官获得了加快行动所需的“高层支持”。作为引入新武器与新技术更广泛现代化计划的一部分，美国陆军已在朝这一方向努力。
上个月，在得克萨斯州的一处军事基地，驻得克萨斯埃尔帕索布利斯堡的第6-1骑兵团多功能侦察连的美国士兵接受了小型四旋翼无人机操作训练。这类无人机目前在乌克兰战场上占据主导地位，正日益成为全球作战人员的首选武器。只需加装炸药，一架成本不到1000美元的无人机，就能摧毁一辆价值数百万美元的坦克。
美国军事分析师与军事指挥官表示，在广阔的印太地区发生冲突时，无人机作战的形态可能与俄乌冲突中相对静态的前线截然不同。但双方很可能会使用相同的技术，而中国每年已能生产数千万架小型无人机，这一情况令美国感到担忧。
美国海军分析中心的军事分析师兼顾问塞缪尔·本德特表示，“目前来看，这一技术变革已是不可逆转，我们必须了解这种情况意味着什么，必须为此做好准备。”
乌克兰国防部长丹尼斯・什米哈尔向乌军转交无人机
二、俄乌冲突加速无人军事装备变革
俄乌冲突推动了无人机在作战领域的快速变革，变革之大，以至于拥有全球最先进军事力量和国防工业体系的美国发现自己已经落后了。大多数美国士兵缺乏运用无人系统作战的专业知识；尽管美国擅长制造大型、昂贵战斗机、坦克、精确制导导弹等大型武器装备，但在快速量产小型、廉价的无人机系统方面，却准备不足。
乌克兰国防部长丹尼斯・什米哈尔6月表示，乌克兰企业已将今年的无人机产能提升至400万架。这其中包括部分打击范围超过约1600公里的远程攻击无人机。乌克兰还研发了一系列海军无人机，并已在黑海成功对抗俄罗斯规模更大的舰队。
为激励乌军部队和无人机部队，乌军建立了一套积分制度：每一次经视频记录的成功打击都可获得积分。营级或连级单位获得的积分越多，能获得的无人机数量就越多，从而继续执行对俄军的打击任务。
负责统筹协调数字经济、科技创新和战时信息化战略的俄罗斯第一副总统费多罗夫表示，这些视频如今已构成其他国家用于训练人工智能模型的无人机数据集。
乌克兰还对外国无人机制造商持开放态度。费多罗夫表示，乌克兰已将自身定位为“试验场”，供那些希望了解其产品在真实战争环境中表现的国防企业使用。乌克兰政府下属的国防技术孵化器“勇敢1号”最近启动了“在乌克兰测试”计划，美西方的国防企业可申请将其武器投入前线测试。
乌军事工业在战争中快速发展
三、认识到落后的美军积极学习借鉴乌克兰实战经验
随着俄乌双方无人机数量的持续增加，俄乌战场陷入了僵持状态。如今，前线约24公里范围内的区域均被视为“禁入区”。因为大多数无人机的作战半径都能覆盖这一范围，有些无人机甚至会瞄准发现的小规模步兵队伍。
今年7月，在德国威斯巴登的一处会议中心，面对北约军事官员与国防行业专家，乌克兰军方领导人直言不讳地指出，北约亟需在无人机领域加大投入。乌克兰无人系统部队指挥官罗伯特·“马迪亚尔”·布罗夫迪少校断言：“现在没有任何一辆坦克”能在第一视角无人机的攻击下幸存。他通过翻译表示：“你们也应该明白，我们的经验对在座各位都极具价值，因为目前没有任何一个国家拥有这样的实战经验。”
乌克兰总参谋部副参谋长沃洛德米尔·霍尔巴秋克少将也表示，尽管火炮与反坦克导弹至关重要，但基辅方面对俄军约80%的目标打击成功率来自无人机。他随后补充说：“这不是未来的战争形态，而是我们当下作战的日常现实。”
密切关注俄乌战场形势与武器装备使用情况的美军已充分认识到这一的结论。接受CNN采访的美军领导人多次提到，赫格塞斯7月的备忘录对加快向士兵交付无人机具有重要意义。
美国陆军第1装甲师师长柯特·泰勒少将表示：“这不是未来的问题，而是当下的问题。”他于7月在德国举行的一场陆军会议上说：“下一场战争的初战，涉及的无人机数量将远超我们以往所见。”
埃米尔·迈克尔曾是优步的高管，现任美国国防部研究与工程办公室负责人，其办公室负责监督五角大楼的技术创新工作，并就制造、工程与研究事务为国防部长提供建议。他说：“过去许多需要人员冒险完成的任务，现在都可以由机器来执行。这非常令人振奋，因为这能让我们的士兵获得前所未有的保护。”当前的紧急举措不仅关乎在实战中使用无人机，还涉及无人机将承担的支援任务，例如运送关键物资与医疗援助。
美军尼克·瑞安上校的办公室负责监督无人机在陆军中的整合工作，他对CNN表示，目前“已制定相关计划”，确保陆军所有部队在2026财年都能“配备无人航空器系统”，最终目标是让士兵将无人机视为“如同个人武器、对讲机、夜视镜或手榴弹一样的必需品，让他们对无人机无比熟悉、运用自如，使其成为随身携带的标准装备之一”。
为达此目的，美军部队和军校已全面展开对无人机知识的入门培训。布利斯堡为期两周的初始培训从课堂教学开始，士兵们首先学习如何组装无人机。这一技能至关重要，因为它能让士兵掌握在野外出现故障时的维修知识。
随后，他们开始在电脑模拟器上练习飞行，熟悉本质上与电子游戏手柄类似的操控器。掌握模拟器操作后，士兵们会将无人机带到类似“第一视角训练馆”场地，练习操控无人机穿过悬挂的轮胎、门口，甚至飞入一个按网上精确尺寸制作的敌方装甲车纸板模型中。
此类培训并非仅在美军驻得克萨斯州的基地开展。驻德国的美国陆军第7训练司令部司令特里·蒂利斯准将7月在威斯巴登对记者表示，在欧洲，所有轮驻该地区的美军部队离开时，都将完成“连级无人机培训”，包括使用无人机投放实弹。
在北卡罗来纳州布拉格堡美国陆军著名的第82空降师驻地，2023年新成立的一支连队正牵头推动包括无人机在内的多项创新工作。该连队名为盖尼连，连长CJ·德鲁上尉表示，连队还负责为第82空降师其他部队提供无人机培训。这些培训课程会根据美军士兵的反馈，以及军方对乌克兰无人机作战情况的观察结果不断调整。
第82空降师作为美国危机反应部队，肩负着特殊使命，其下属旅级部队可在接到通知后数小时内部署至全球各地。这一特性意味着，无人机创新与新技术能为身处险境的士兵提供关键优势。
第82空降师作战副指挥官安迪·凯泽准将表示，小型无人机可以“取代前沿观察员”：即负责为炮火或空中支援识别目标的士兵。无人机还能“强化”骑兵侦察兵的工作，后者主要负责执行侦察及其他收集敌军情报的任务。
凯泽强调：“无人机的作用在于，我们能提前识别简易爆炸装置，还能发现潜在的装甲伏击、小型伏击。在发起攻击前，我们可以通过无人机确认建筑物内是否存在真正的敌方威胁，因为无人机能飞进去，透过窗户观察里面是否有针对我方推进的攻击部署。”
近几个月来，美军士兵已开始自主组装和3D打印无人机，并在类似电子游戏的模拟器上进行训练，学习如何操控小型无人机穿过窗户、绕过拐角，或是飞入敌方坦克的舱口。
美国陆军也表示，位于佐治亚州本宁堡的美国陆军步兵学校计划于10月开设一门新课程，为所有参加“一站式部队训练”的新兵提供“无人机基础培训”，确保他们熟悉无人机操作。
美军全面开展无人机培训与训练工作
四、美无人机制造商学习借鉴乌实战经验改进无人的机动向值得警惕
虽然如今乌克兰士兵在前线使用的无人机绝大多数为本土制造。但在战争初期，美国对乌武器援助中曾包含100架美国产攻击型无人机“弹簧刀”巡飞弹。当时，这种轻型固定翼无人机专供乌克兰最精锐的特种部队使用。这一安排表明，基辅将其视为从盟友获得的首批现代化武器之一，对该技术极为珍视。但美国后来停止了向乌克兰提供“弹簧刀”无人机，部分原因是乌克兰士兵反馈在对抗俄罗斯电子战时，该无人机的效果还不如其他替代品。
实际上，乌俄双方正在根据实战效果不断改进包括无人机在内的军事技术和装备。这让乌克兰企业相较于外国竞争对手具备较大优势，因为后者缺乏与前线士兵的直接接触。
乌克兰副总理费多罗夫表示：“谁能最快更新技术，谁就能占据上风。乌克兰企业身处一线，能直接获取反馈，因此得以超越那些实际效果不佳的其他类型无人机。”
这促使美国一些领先的无人机制造商，如尼罗斯公司和安杜里尔工业公司，纷纷派遣团队前往基辅学习借鉴乌军的实战经验改进无人机研发与生产，并与乌克兰政府达成协议，让其无人机进入前线参加实战。
尼罗斯公司首席执行官兼联合创始人索伦·门罗-安德森表示：“我们认为，研发出第一视角无人机却不将其投入乌克兰战场，是没有意义的。”今年早些时候，尼罗斯公司赢得一份合同，将在六个月内向乌克兰交付6000架第一视角攻击型无人机。该公司成立仅两年，属于美国国防工业领域的新兴力量；而传统上，该领域由诺斯罗普·格鲁曼公司和洛克希德·马丁公司等巨头主导。尼罗斯作为一家科技初创企业，早期曾获得亿万富翁彼得·蒂尔的风险投资。
门罗-安德森说：“坦白地说，我们刚成立公司时，美国国防部对我们的业务并不感兴趣。当时只是有很多关于‘临界规模’和‘制造廉价无人机’的时髦词汇，但没人知道第一视角无人机是什么，也没人在乎小型四旋翼无人机。”
门罗-安德森表示，他第一次访问乌克兰时，带去了30架第一视角无人机原型机。在之后多次赴乌过程中，尼罗斯公司对其无人机进行了“无数次”迭代改进。他说：“我们始终根据从乌克兰获得的反馈进行研发，并在当地持续测试、不断往返乌克兰。最终，这些成果在国防部眼中变得极具价值。”
乌克兰第23机械化旅的一名士兵正在操控第一视角无人机
五、泽连斯基提议与美合作加快无人机研发与生产
美国战略与军事技术分析师与无人机研发和制造行业领袖表示，尽管美军各部队正努力提升能力，但要在无人机性能与产量上赶上中国等国家仍面临制造业方面的障碍。一个关键挑战在于：出于安全考虑，美国武器不能使用中国产零部件，而美国本土替代品的价格要昂贵得多。
门罗-安德森表示，尼罗斯公司发现，推动研发更小、更廉价的系统，美国国防工业需要革新传统的思维模式。乌克兰企业的无人机通常使用廉价的中国产零部件和芯片，而在美国本土生产一些零部件的成本比从中国购买“整整高出100倍”。虽然大规模生产能降低成本，但目前需求不足。
此外，由于大疆创新等中国企业已占据消费级无人机市场的主导地位，美国第一视角无人机制造商依赖于五角大楼的合同，但这些合同目前尚未涉及大规模采购。五角大楼2023年推出的“复制者计划”旨在推动为美军大规模生产廉价系统，但其最初计划仅是在两年内制造3000架无人机。
门罗-安德森说：“（美国）这个行业的现状相当糟糕。尼罗斯每月生产2000架无人机，就已是美国产量最高的无人机生产线了。这在我看来很荒谬，因为这个数字其实并不算大。”
在此情况下，乌克兰主要提出协助美国生产无人机的计划。乌正寻求与华盛顿建立更深厚关系，特别是寻求美国保障其未来安全。尽管美国向乌克兰提供了数百亿美元的武器援助，但基辅认为，自己现在可向美国“回馈”一些东西。
在上个月访问白宫时，乌克兰总统泽连斯基向美国总统特朗普提议，与美国签署一项价值500亿美元的协议，由乌方向美方供应无人机并开展联合生产。泽连斯基向记者表示，该计划尚未最终敲定，若实施，未来五年内每年将向美方交付1000架无人系统。
在俄乌冲突中负责牵头乌克兰无人机采购与量产工作的乌副总费多罗夫说：“尤其是在过去六个月里，人们对无人机的作用以及无人机产业发展的认知发生了根本性转变。”
费多罗夫表示，他注意到各国军方与国防企业对乌克兰无人机数据的需求激增。这些数据包括数万段无人机拍摄的视频，记录了对敌方装备、人员和建筑的成功打击，可用于训练人工智能系统。未来基辅愿意利用其在无人机领域的创新成果，换取更多资金或物资支持。
费多罗夫强调：“这是一张地缘政治牌，我们的总统将考虑如何运用。这对我们的盟友会有很大帮助，而且这正是我们与他们应有的关系：我们提供高质量的无人机、高质量的数据和专业知识，然后获得更多安全援助。”
Ukraine increases drone production tenfold
乌克兰的无人机生产量快速增加，拟与美军加强研发生产合作
US drone dilemma: Why the most advanced military in the world is playing catchup on the modern battlefield. By Haley Britzky, Isabelle Khurshudyan on CNN. September 15, 2025.
The future of warfare felt a lot like playing a video game. Soldiers fastened on virtual-reality glasses and then moved their fingers across the joystick in their palms. A small drone buzzed and lifted in response.
At a military base in Texas last month, American soldiers trained on how to operate small quadcopters, the kind that now dominate the battlefield in Ukraine and are increasingly the weapon of choice for combatants around the world.
With an explosive attached, a drone costing less than $1,000 can destroy a tank worth millions.
For troops at Fort Bliss in El Paso — members of the Multi-functional Reconnaissance Company, 6-1 Cavalry Regiment — the technology and tactics were still new. And for the US military, that’s a problem.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has spurred a flurry of evolution in drone warfare — so much so that the US, with one of the most advanced militaries and Defense industrial complexes in the world, found itself behind. Most American soldiers lack the know-how for fighting with unmanned systems, and while the US has excelled at building large, expensive weaponry — fighter jets, tanks, precision-guided missiles — it is in many ways unprepared to quickly produce large quantities of small, cheap systems, like drones.
Defense officials are now rushing to catch up.
In July, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth circulated a memo to senior leaders aimed at accelerating the US military’s adoption of drones. In recent months, US troops began building and 3-D printing drones and training on simulators reminiscent of video games to learn how to guide small systems through windows, around corners or into an enemy tank’s hatch.
“This is not tomorrow’s problem. This is today’s problem,” Maj. Gen. Curt Taylor, commander of the US Army’s 1st Armored Division, told CNN at an Army conference in Germany in July. “And the first fight of the next war is going to involve more drones than any of us have ever seen.”
Learning from Ukraine
While military units are working to get up to speed, the US still faces manufacturing hurdles to match the capabilities and production of countries like China, analysts and industry leaders said. A key challenge is that US weapons can’t contain Chinese parts for security reasons, but domestic alternatives are significantly more expensive.
Ukraine has offered to help on drone production, as officials in Kyiv have sought to cement deeper ties with Washington to ensure Ukraine’s future security. Though Washingtonhas sent billions in weapons to Ukraine, Kyiv now sees its opportunity to send something back to the US.
During a visit to the White House last month, Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky pitched President Donald Trump on a $50 billion deal to supply and co-produce drones with the US. Zelensky told journalists that the program, which hasn’t been finalized, would deliver 10 million unmanned systems annually over five years.
“In the past six months especially, there’s been some kind of radical change in the perception of how drones work and the development of the industry,” Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s vice prime minister who led the country’s wartime effort to buy and mass produce drones, told CNN.
Fedorov said he’s noticed a spike in demand for Ukraine’s drone data — tens of thousands of drone-camera videos depicting successful strikes on equipment, personnel and buildings that countries and defense companies could use to train artificial intelligence systems.
Fedorov said Kyiv could potentially leverage its drone innovation in exchange for more financial or materiel support in the future.
“This a geopolitical card that our president will consider how to use,” Fedorov said. “It would be a big help to our allies, and this is exactly the right relationship to have with them. We provide high-quality drones, high-quality data and our expertise, and then we get back more security assistance.”
A drone for every soldier
At a conference center in Wiesbaden, Germany, in July, Ukrainian military leaders presented a blunt assessment of NATO’s need to invest in drones to a packed room of NATO military officials and defense industry wonks.
Maj. Robert “Madyar” Brovdi, commander of the Unmanned Systems Forces of Ukraine, waged a bet that there is not “a single tank of the road” that could survive first-person view drones, known as FPV drones.
“You should also understand that our experience is super valuable for all of you here, as none of the countries have this kind of experience nowadays,” Brovdi said through his translator.
Maj. Gen. Volodymyr Horbatiuk, deputy chief of Ukraine’s General Staff, told the crowd that while artillery and anti-tank missiles are vital, roughly 80% of Kyiv’s success in hitting targets come from drones.
“It is not the future, it is the routine reality of how we wage our war,” Horbatiuk later added.
A Ukrainian serviceman controls a FPV drone during a training flight in an undisclosed location in eastern Ukraine on August 16. Genya Savilov/AFP/Getty Images
American officials have reached the same conclusion. Hegseth’s July memo was repeatedly pointed to by military leaders who spoke to CNN as significant for getting drones into troops’ hands faster. The memo emphasizes that commanders should embrace risk, not shy away from it — an approach that is, ironically, nearly antithetical to how the military does business.
“Lethality will not be hindered by self-imposed restrictions, especially when it comes to harnessing technologies we invented but were slow to pursue,” Hegseth wrote. “Drone technology is advancing so rapidly, our major risk is risk-avoidance.”
“Next year I expect to see this capability integrated into all relevant combat training, including force-on-force drone wars,” he added.
That memo alone gave many commanders the top-cover they felt they needed to move faster. But the Army had already been moving in that direction as part of a broader modernization initiative bringing in new weapons and technologies. The multi-functional reconnaissance company at Fort Bliss was a product of that effort launched last year.
Col. Nick Ryan, whose office oversees theintegrationofunmanned aircraft into the Army, told CNN there are “already has plans in place” to ensure every unit in the Army “receives unmanned aircraft systems” in fiscal year 2026.
The ultimate goal is for soldiers to treat drones “as if it was their personal weapon, their radio, their night-vision goggles or a grenade,” Ryan said. “That it’s just something they’re so used to and so familiar with, that it’s just part of their standard kit that they take with them everywhere they go.”
Welcome to Drones 101
The initial two-week training at Bliss starts in a classroom, where soldiers learn how to build their own drones, crucial for the knowledge of how to fix something in the field if something goes wrong. Then, they start practicing how to fly with a computer simulator that gets them used to what is essentially a video game controller.
When that’s mastered, soldiers take their drones to an “FPV gym” of sorts, where they can practice flying through hanging tires or doorways and even into a cardboard replica — with exact measurements, found online — of an adversary’s armored vehicle.
The training isn’t just happening in Texas. In Europe, every US Army unit rotating through the region will leave “with company-level training” on drones, including using them to drop live munitions, Brig. Gen. Terry Tillis, commander of the 7th Army Training Command in Germany, told reporters in Wiesbaden in July.
A new course at Fort Benning, Georgia, expected to start in October will provide “foundational training” for all new soldiers going through One Station Unit Training — which combines soldiers’ basic training and advanced training for their specific jobs — to ensure they’re familiar with drones, according to the Army.
And at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, home to the Army’s storied 82nd Airborne Division, a new company stood up in 2023 is spearheading innovation for a multitude of efforts, including drones. That company — Gainey Company — also works to train others in the division on drones, company commander Capt. CJ Drew told CNN. Those training courses are constantly adjusted using feedback from other US soldiers, as well as what the military is observing in Ukraine with drone warfare.
The 82nd Airborne’s unique mission as the nation’s crisis response force — a brigade of soldiers prepared to deploy around the globe with just hours’ notice — signals that drone innovation and new technology provides a critical edge to soldiers in harm’s way.
A small drone could “take the place of a forward observer” — a soldier who identifies targets for artillery fire or air support — Brig. Gen. Andy Kiser, deputy commanding general of operations for the 82nd Airborne, told CNN. They can also “enhance” the work of cavalry scouts, who are largely responsible for reconnaissance and other missions to gather information about enemy forces.
The training at Fort Bliss begins with soldiers learning how to build their own drones. CNN
“What that helps is we can identify IEDs ahead of time,” Kiser said. “We can identify potentially any armor ambushes, small ambushes. We can ensure we’ve got actual enemy threats in buildings before we strike because we can get in there and look at windows and see what’s postured to attack us moving forward.”
Emil Michael, a former Uber executive who now runs the Pentagon’s research and engineering office, told CNN the urgent efforts are about more than using drones in actual combat, but also the support roles they’ll fill, such as delivering critical supplies and medical assistance. Michael’s office oversees the Pentagon’s work on technology innovation and advises the defense secretary on manufacturing, engineering and research.
“You could do a lot of things where there was otherwise risk to humans, and do it now with machines,” Michael said. “And that’s pretty exciting in that you could really have your troops as well protected as they’ve ever been before.”
Cracking into the Ukrainian market
The overwhelming majority of the drones Ukrainian soldiers use on the front lines today are made in Ukraine. However, in the early months of the war, US-made attack drones — 100 Switchblade loitering munitions — were included in American weapons assistance packages.
The lightweight, fixed-wing drones were reserved for Ukraine’s top special forces units — a sign of how Kyiv prized the technology as one of the first modern weapons it received from allies. But the US eventually stopped providing Switchblade drones to Ukraine, in part because of feedback from Ukrainian soldiers that they weren’t as effective as alternatives against Russian electronic warfare.
Within the war, there is a technological arms race between Ukraine and Russia, each trying to improve on the other’s latest innovation. That’s given companies in Ukraine an edge over foreign competitors, which lacked the direct contact with soldiers in the field.
“The winner is who can update their technology the fastest,” said Fedorov, the Ukrainian minister. “Ukrainian companies were here on the ground and getting feedback, so they were able to overtake other types of drones that didn’t really work.”
That’s led some leading US drone producers, such as Neros and Anduril, to send teams to Kyiv and cut deals with the Ukrainian government to get their drones on the front lines.
“We didn’t see a point in building an FPV drone and not bringing it to Ukraine,” said Soren Monroe-Anderson, CEO and co-founder of Neros.
Neros earlier this year won a contract to deliver 6,000 FPV attack drones to Ukraine over six months. The company is just two years old and part of a new guard of US firms in the defense industry sphere, traditionally ruled by giants such as Northrop Grumman and Lockheed Martin. Neros is a tech startup, which got early venture capital funding from billionaire Peter Thiel.
“Frankly, when we started the company, the DoD was not very interested in what we were doing,” Monroe-Anderson told CNN. “It was just a lot of buzzwords about a critical mass and building cheap drones, but no one knew what an FPV drone was and no one cared about small quadcopters.”
Monroe-Anderson said he took 30 FPV drone prototypes on his first trip to Ukraine. Neros went through “so many” iterations of its drone over successive trips to Ukraine.
“We just kept on the path of developing stuff based on the feedback we got from Ukraine and continuously testing it there and going over to Ukraine,” he said. “And then eventually that became extremely valuable in the eyes of the DoD.”
‘Literally 100 times more expensive’
The push for smaller, cheaper systems is an overhaul in the traditional way of thinking for the defense industry. Companies can no longer afford to take years to develop or update something that could already be outdated by the time it’s put into the hands of a soldier on the front lines.
Chris Bose, president of Anduril Industries, says the problem is that the Pentagon historically has treated drones the same way it treats the acquisition of any kind of large defense item. “And you basically have to model the acquisition of these kind of lower-cost, autonomous, uncrewed systems as basically the inverse of our traditional military capabilities,” Bose said in an interview with CNN.
While Ukrainian companies typically use cheap Chinese parts and chips in their drones, those components are prohibited in US weapons. Monroe-Anderson said Neros quickly realized making those parts in America was in some cases “literally 100 times more expensive.” Producing high volumes would bring the cost down, but there isn’t enough demand.
And since Chinese companies like DJI already rule the consumer drone space, American FPV drone manufacturers are dependent on Pentagon contracts, which haven’t been for large volumes yet. The Pentagon’s Replicator initiative — announced in 2023 as a program intended to drive large-scale production of cheap systems for the US military — set out to build just 3,000 drones in two years.
“The state of the industry is pretty abysmal,” Monroe-Anderson said. “Neros produces 2,000 drones per month, and we have the highest-rate drone manufacturing line in America, which to me is crazy because that is not that big of a number.”
Ukrainian companies have increased their production capacity to produce 4 million drones this year, the country’s defense minister said in June. That includes Ukraine’s impressive arsenal of long-range attack drones, some of which are capable of striking targets more than 1,000 miles away. Ukraine has also developed a line of naval drones that have successfully combatted Russia’s larger fleet in the Black Sea.
To incentivize Ukrainian troops and drone units, Kyiv created a points system that rewards each successful strike recorded by video. The more points a battalion or company score, the more drones they receive to continue hitting targets. Those videos, Fedorov said, now comprise the drone data set other countries want for training artificial intelligence models.
But Ukraine remains open to foreign drone manufacturers, and Fedorov said the country has pitched itself as a testing ground for defense companies wanting to see how their product performs in real war conditions. Brave1, a defense technology incubator affiliated with the Ukrainian government, recently launched a “Test in Ukraine” initiative for defense companies to apply for their weapons to be used on the front line.
As the drone proliferation on both sides increased, the battlefield crawled to a freeze.Anywhere within 15 miles of the front line is now considered ano-go zone because that’s where most drones can reach, and some will target even small groups of infantry spotted walking. Vehicular movement in that area is especially dangerous, limiting the armies’ options to resupply or rotate forces.
Analysts and officials said drone warfare would likely look different in a conflict in the sprawling Indo-Pacific than it does on the often-static front lines of the Ukraine-Russia conflict. But the same technology will likely be used, and China already produces tens of millions of small drones every year, a concern to the US.
“We have to be ready for that,” said Samuel Bendett, a military analyst and adviser with the Center for Naval Analyses. “We have to understand what it’s like. This is a technological change that is irreversible at this point.”
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