The Marine Corps has begun a series of drone task force summits aimed at speeding the service’s ability to operate small unmanned aerial systems at scale, service officials said in a posting on Sept. 8.
The initiative draws on recent experimentation across units including Marine Corps Special Operations Command, the Infantry Battalion Experiment, and the Marine Corps Attack Drone Team (MCADT).
The task force’s stated purpose is to organise, train and equip Marine Air-Ground Task Force elements to employ both lethal and nonlethal unmanned systems across distributed operations.
Officials say the effort builds on years of development and fielding of organic precision fires capabilities for infantry formations and is designed to give small units concentrated effects at operationally relevant distances.
The Secretary of Defense’s “Unleashing U.S. Military Drone Dominance” memo is expected to accelerate procurement pathways that the summits aim to take advantage of.
MCADT, established in January 2025 by Training Command and the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory, has driven much of the Corps’ recent progress on armed FPV drones. Based at Weapons Training Battalion, Quantico, the team has worked to translate lessons from modern drone warfare into doctrine training and fleet integration.
In April, the MCADT carried out the service’s first kinetic live-fire FPV strike at Quantico. The writeup notes that a single FPV strike can cost under $5,000 compared with more than $80,000 for current infantry battalion organic missiles. It also says these drones can reach up to 20 kilometres, substantially extending squad and platoon reach beyond the 1–2 kilometre envelope of existing small-unit systems.
The task force is turning operational learning into formal guidance and training. Initiatives under way include a UAS/C-UAS integration handbook, expanded operator training pipelines, updated procurement “Blue List” systems, signature management training, and creation of communities of interest across the Corps.
The service is also integrating small UAS into marksmanship competitions and working with the Defense Innovation Unit to procure and distribute FPV and one-way attack drones.
To establish a training baseline, MCADT and the Marine Corps Tactics and Operations Group have drafted the Corps’ first Armed Drone Employment Tactics Techniques and Procedures pamphlet.
Squad certification against that pamphlet begins this fall, and the service will host the first Armed FPV Drone Employment Competition in October 2025 at MCB Quantico, followed by events in INDOPACOM at Camp Hansen, Okinawa in December and MCB Hawaii in January 2026.
Service officials say the task force will continuously feed experimental results into the broader effort to field lethal unmanned systems at scale so that units are organised, trained and equipped for the modern battlefield.
CONTENIDO RELACIONADO: Un comandante estadounidense pide un interceptor de drones ligero para proteger a los marines
Post Image Credit: Marines de EE.UU.
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