The US wants to create a body to control all unmanned systems

A proposal by a House committee to create a drone corps in the army may conflict with the desire to expand the availability of unmanned aerial systems in some operational units.

Here's What We Know

The draft law on defence policy for fiscal year 2025 contains a provision that would create a drone corps in the army - essentially a branch to oversee all UAV programmes and counter-drone operations. The branch will be responsible for integrating these systems throughout the army.

According to the regulation, the drone corps will join 17 specialised divisions of the army that focus on areas such as aviation, cyber, infantry and munitions.

Gabe Camarillo, deputy secretary of the Army, said he understood lawmakers' interest in focusing the services on unmanned systems due to their proliferation during the conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. However, he added, creating a special branch for this work is not the right approach - at least for now.

According to him, the creation of such a service would contradict the approach of the US Army, which is constantly experimenting with different units of different formations to understand how best to use them.

The army also intends to purchase small commercial drones that weigh less than 25 kg. The FY25 budget request includes $25 million for units to purchase off-the-shelf systems validated by the Blue UAS programme.

Blue UAS is a defence innovation unit designed to vet commercial drones ordered for military use to ensure they are cyber-secure and do not contain technology from Chinese suppliers.

Source: Defence News