U.S. Army troops faced off against Ukrainian drone operators at a military exercise in Germany earlier this year, and it did not go well for the Americans. During the exercise, known as Combined Resolve, Ukrainian drone units easily located and defeated U.S. troops and armored vehicles on rotation from Fort Hood, Texas, according to people familiar with the events, in a defeat that has renewed scrutiny of whether the Pentagon has absorbed the battlefield lessons of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The Exercise
Combined Resolve is a semiannual, large-scale exercise focused on ground combat operations, in which rotating U.S. forces employ armored divisions supported by ground troops, helicopters, drones and other assets. The April-to-May iteration brought together roughly 3,500 U.S. personnel, primarily from the 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, whose task was to attack a position defended by the training ground’s opposition force, or OPFOR. That OPFOR was reinforced by Ukrainian troops from the 412th Regiment of Unmanned Systems Forces, known as Nemesis, according to people familiar with the matter.
The rotating U.S. troops were equipped with standard electronic-warfare and counterdrone systems, an Army official said, while newer Mobile Brigade Combat Teams outfitted with the latest gear and tactics have performed far better in similar exercises.
A One-Sided Fight
The Ukrainian drone operators eliminated a U.S. armored brigade during the exercise, according to U.S. officials briefed on the drill and one participant. The U.S. troops sent heavy armored vehicles into the fight that kicked up dust and were easy for Ukrainian reconnaissance drones to spot, according to the participant. Those reconnaissance drones were followed by drones dropping explosives and first-person-view drones, which crash directly into targets in combat, the person said.
Live ammunition is rarely used in such exercises; instead, drones typically hover above a vehicle or approach closely enough for an observer to award a “kill.” Ukrainian drones were scoring kills against U.S. vehicles so quickly that destroyed units had to be sent back into the exercise as new units, or “re-spawned,” just to keep the drill going, according to a U.S. official briefed on the exercise.
Americans Improve, Then Switch Roles
The Army reran the training scenario repeatedly over the two-week engagement, and the rotating forces improved as they grew more adept at dispersing, concealing themselves and using electronic warfare, the Army official said. Midway through the exercise, the Ukrainian troops switched sides and helped the American units employ drone technology offensively — which they then did effectively, according to the official.
Ukrainian troops have developed deep expertise in drone warfare over nearly four and a half years of fighting Russia, with operators and their support personnel skilled at continually repairing and adapting drones under combat conditions. American drone operators, by contrast, lack experience fixing and arming drones while under fire, according to the person present at the exercise.
A Battlefield Reshaped by Drones
In Ukraine, so many tanks and other armored vehicles have been destroyed in battle that large stretches of the country’s front line are now nearly free of armor. Some U.S. military officers argue that drones have proven especially deadly in this specific war because it has settled into a stalemate with little movement, and that in a more mobile war, tanks and other armor would reassert their value.
But Ukrainian military thinkers, including former commander-in-chief Valeriy Zaluzhniy, have argued that drone technology has made traditional maneuver warfare unfeasible for now, which helps explain the largely static front line in eastern Ukraine. Both Moscow and Kyiv are searching for the next technological or tactical breakthrough that could restore movement to the battlefield. The Germany exercise suggested the U.S. may struggle to protect its own armor as it moves, should it face a similarly drone-saturated fight.
Not the First Time
This was not the first instance of Ukrainian drone proficiency catching U.S. and allied forces off guard. In 2023, a U.S. infantry officer helping train Ukrainian troops concluded that the U.S. needed to learn from them about drone warfare and designed a training program that other Army units later adopted, according to a U.S. official.
In May of last year, Ukrainian drone operators defeated British, Estonian and other NATO forces, including a U.S. contingent, in an exercise in the Baltic region, according to a person familiar with the matter. This spring, Swedish forces led a separate exercise with NATO allies in which Ukrainian drone teams again outperformed the assembled Western militaries, Swedish officials told local media.
Expert Assessment
Eliot Cohen, a scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the recent battlefield experience underscores how drones of all kinds have become essential to modern warfare. “It is vital that the U.S. military master that, and thus far, unfortunately, that does not seem to be the case,” Cohen said.
A Wider Pattern, Including in Iran
The Germany exercise result, paired with American casualties in the U.S.-Iran conflict, points to broader U.S. vulnerabilities to drones — years after the United States helped pioneer the use of long-range drones in warfare. In the Middle East this year, the U.S. has struggled to defend against Iran’s long-range drones, which have killed and injured American service members and destroyed aircraft, even as the Pentagon has spent billions of dollars acquiring new drone and counterdrone technology and stood up specialized units to operate it.
Washington’s Response
Despite a sometimes prickly relationship with Kyiv, the Trump administration has been reaching out to Ukraine on drone technology. The U.S. is currently testing Ukrainian-made drones for potential purchase and has used counterdrone systems tested in that war to help defend American forces in Iran. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told senators in May that he has increased the number of U.S. personnel sent to Ukraine to study drone warfare.
The Pentagon’s broader push extends into its budget requests. Officials have proposed more than $70 billion for military drones and counter-drone weapon systems in fiscal year 2027, including a proposed increase of more than 24,000% — from $225.9 million to roughly $54.6 billion — for the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group, the organization that absorbed the Biden-era Replicator initiative after it fell short of its goal of rapidly fielding thousands of low-cost attritable drones.
The Scale Gap
The disparity in drone production between the two countries has drawn attention from senior former military officials. Ukraine is producing roughly 3.5 million drones a year, compared with about 300,000 produced annually in the United States, a gap that retired Gen. David Petraeus has separately described as staggering when discussing the state of U.S. drone manufacturing relative to Ukraine’s wartime industrial base.
Background: How the Army Trains Against Drones
The Ukrainian reinforcement of Combined Resolve’s opposition force builds on a broader Army effort at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center in Hohenfels, Germany, to replicate the drone-saturated conditions seen in Ukraine. The center has also stood up its own dedicated drone effects company within the 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment, using systems such as first-person-view quadcopters to pressure-test rotating units, officials have said, as the Army works to push drone proficiency across the force regardless of a soldier’s specialty.
Outlook
The Combined Resolve results add to a growing body of evidence — from Germany, the Baltics and Sweden — that Western militaries, including the U.S. Army, continue to struggle against the kind of low-cost, front-line drone warfare that Ukrainian forces have spent nearly four and a half years mastering against Russia. With the Pentagon simultaneously confronting Iranian long-range drone threats in the Middle East and pouring tens of billions of dollars into new drone and counterdrone programs, the exercise is likely to intensify pressure on Army leaders to translate Ukraine’s hard-won lessons into readiness before U.S. forces face a comparable threat in actual combat.