The US Army has selected two manufacturers to provide the service with new uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs) that will support tactical-level ground troops in combat operations.
Anduril and Performance Drone Works were announced on 11 September as winners of the army’s Company Level Small Uncrewed Aircraft System requirement, which comes with a 10-year indefinite-quantity contract worth up to $14.7 million.
Anduril had bid its Ghost X type, a small helicopter-style main-and-tail rotor system, and Performance Drone Works’ had proposed its C-100, which has a quadcopter configuration common to other small commercial drones.
Launched in 2023, the Company Level Small UAS programme seeks to quickly deliver commercially available UAVs with “rapidly reconfigurable, attritable, modular payload capabilities to execute reconnaissance, surveillance and target acquisition missions”.
The army’s top officer, General Randy George, said on 11 September that the new UAS programme is meant to help the service “adapt its formations and get new technology in the hands of soldiers to experiment, innovate, learn and change”.
Battlefield observations from the ongoing Russia-Ukraine war have convinced Pentagon leaders that the proliferation of small, low-cost UAVs is reshaping the nature of modern warfare.
Commercial quadcopters have emerged as a symbol of the bloody conflict, filling numerous combat roles, including anti-personnel, anti-armour, artillery spotting and reconnaissance missions. They have also been used to destroy other drones.
The application of such weapons continues to evolve, with Ukrainian UAVs most recently filmed dropping a fiery thermite incendiary into forested areas to clear Russian positions beneath trees.
The effectiveness of small UAVs has contributed greatly to the Ukraine war’s often static nature – much as machine guns and artillery forced armies into trenches during World War One.
The US Army took note and developed the Company Level Small UAS initiative as a “priority requirement based on observations from the ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza”, according to General James Rainey, the head of US Army Futures Command.
“This requirement describes the importance of considering the UAS as a system, not just an air vehicle, and also highlights the importance of adaptability,” Rainey says.
The army says it chose the Anduril and Performance Drone designs after reviewing proposed bids and completing flight demonstrations. The process took less than five months from solicitation to selection decision, according to the service.
