The Pentagon is moving from concept to combat power with a new competition that will pit 25 companies against one another to supply small, one-way attack drones at scale. The first phase, branded the Gauntlet, is designed to turn a $150 m down payment into a mass production pipeline for cheap loitering munitions that can saturate future battlefields. The effort signals a decisive shift in U.S. defense planning toward quantity, speed, and expendability in the drone age.
Rather than rely on a single prime contractor, the Drone Dominance Program spreads opportunity across a wide industrial base and asks warfighters themselves to judge which systems are ready. The Pentagon expects the four-phase effort to reach into the billions of dollars and to deliver hundreds of thousands of small unmanned aircraft within just a few years, reshaping how the United States fights and deters adversaries armed with their own swarms.
The Gauntlet: 25 vendors, $150 m, and a compressed timeline
The Pentagon has invited 25 vendors to Fort Benning for the first Gauntlet, a fly-off that will determine which designs advance in the Drone Dominance Program. According to Gauntlet planning documents, the initial phase carries about $150 m in potential delivery orders, with the Pentagon signaling a total program value of about $1.1 billion over four phases. A separate notice from the Department stresses that the timeline to build combat power is compressed and that the competition begins now, underscoring the urgency behind the effort.
Military drone operators will fly and evaluate the competing systems at Fort Benning into early March, then the Defense Department will begin placing orders with the top performers. Officials have emphasized that Military personnel, not contractors, will be the ones putting the aircraft through their paces, including tests of how well they integrate with aviation units. A short announcement on Gauntlet selections reinforces that Pentagon leaders see this first phase as a proving ground for both technology and a new way of buying weapons.
From $150 m pilot to $1.1 billion Drone Dominance
The Gauntlet is only the opening act of a much larger plan. Earlier guidance on Drone Dominance outlined a two-year push for the Pentagon to buy hundreds of thousands of small commercial-style drones, with the first phase focused on rapid experimentation and low-cost production. A contracting overview for the Drone Dominance Program explains that competitive demonstrations will be used to select multiple companies that can produce tens of thousands of one-way attack drones, with room for up to 12 firms to win production slots in later phases.
Financially, the Pentagon expects to spend $1.1 billion on the program over its four phases, according to the Pentagon, with the number of units in each phase increasing while the price per unit decreases in phases three and four. A separate acquisition summary notes that Phase two is scheduled from Aug 26 and is structured to drive down costs as production ramps up, a deliberate attempt to build an industrial base for low-cost small UAS at scale.
Mass, cost, and combat lessons from Ukraine
The strategic logic behind Drone Dominance is rooted in the brutal arithmetic of modern war. A planning document cited by Pentagon officials states that the department seeks to acquire and rapidly field over 300,000 small drones, a figure repeated in a separate notice of 300,000. The War Department has told industry that, through the new initiative, it intends to deliver tens of thousands of small drones to U.S. forces in 2026 and hundreds of thousands over the course of two years, according to a statement through the program.
Cost targets are equally aggressive. In an early December release, the department said it planned to have 12 vendors produce a total of 30,000 drones at $5,000 per unit, with the price expected to drop to $2,300 in later phases, according to a contracting summary linked to 30,000. A related industrial base push described as a $1B effort to build 300,000 cheap attack drones specifies that each of these kamikaze drones will carry a minimum of 4.4 pounds of explosives, according to a program overview. That same document notes that removing regulations and getting the industry on contract quickly is central to turning a total of $150 million in early funding into a sustainable production line.
Industry, doctrine, and the race to field “America’s Arsenal of Free”
The Gauntlet is also a test of how fast the U.S. industrial base can adapt. The list of 25 vendors includes established unmanned systems makers such as AeroVironment alongside newer entrants, reflecting a deliberate choice to widen the supplier pool. Program materials on The Pentagon selection process describe the Drone Dominance Program as a signal of about $1.1 billion in potential business for industry, with four phases of Gauntlet-style competitions planned. A related contracting synopsis on 25 vendors notes that the first Gauntlet will narrow the field but keep multiple suppliers in play to avoid single points of failure.
Strategically, officials have framed the initiative as part of what they call America’s Arsenal of Free, a phrase highlighted in coverage of America and its push to rapidly field low-cost one-way attack drones. A related analysis of the $150M Drone Competition notes that the program emphasizes rapid fielding as part of America’s Arsenal of Free and that the competition begins now, according to Arsenal of Free advocates. Broader context from Billion Dollar Plans for a Middle East drone task force, described by Hegseth as unfolding over four phases or gauntlets, shows that the same competitive model is being exported to regional commands that want the tools they need to prevail.