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DoD says first drones for Replicator swarm program delivered

The US Department of Defense (DoD) has indicated considerable progress has been made accelerating large-scale drone production necessary for its Replicator program, which seeks to overpower the brute strength of adversaries’ military systems with huge numbers of UAV impossible to fend off. Officials said deliveries of the first of those craft have been made.

Revealed last August, the DoD described its Replicator initiative as creating the means of producing vast quantities of small, consumer-sized drones at extremely rapid rates, and deploying them to overwhelm the massive military systems that adversaries like China and Russia rely on. So, too, does the US – and that isn’t going to change. But the new air, land, and sea swarm approach is design to supplement that sledgehammer might with countless UAVs that giant swatting defenses won’t be able to completely eliminate.

Creation and adoption of that strategy was clearly a result of lessons learned from the huge effects that small drone deployment have had in the war between Ukraine and Russia.

While being very guarded with Replicator details, DoD officials have made it clear the US will seek to add those smaller craft to its arsenal, and produce and deploy them in such large number that they can swamp enemy systems. 

In a statement released Thursday, DoD Secretary Kathleen Hicks said that just nine months since its launch, the Replicator program was already “producing real results” with delivery of the first drones to US armed forces abroad. 

“The delivery of Replicator systems to the warfighter began earlier this month,” Hicks said.

Though details remain rare, press reports say those initial Replicator drones went to forces in the INDOPAC operational zone. Initial deployments had been expected in the Pacific area as a hedge on any aggression from China – including moves against Taiwan.

Yet while the speed with which those first Replicator deliveries were made was impressive, other details reported suggest the accomplishment was more of increasing production of existing craft, rather than creating new ones.

As DefenseOne noted, DoD officials confided earlier in May that among the first drones designated for the program were AeroVironment Switchblade loitering munitions, which are already in operation in Ukraine, and were previously on-hand among INDOPAC forces.

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Author

Avatar for Bruce Crumley Bruce Crumley

Bruce Crumley is journalist and writer who has worked for Fortune, Sports Illustrated, the New York Times, The Guardian, AFP, and was Paris correspondent and bureau chief for Time magazine specializing in political and terrorism reporting. He splits his time between Paris and Biarritz, and is the author of novel Maika‘i Stink Eye.

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