^{A BQM-34S target drone, widely used to test various military systems. Credit: U.S. National Archives.}

The United States has looked to unmanned vehicles to offset adversary advantages in mass, but operating drones is still a manpower-intensive way of war. Changes in how forces are organized, trained, and equipped are required to unlock the full advantages of these platforms.

Integrating unmanned vehicles (UxVs) into the U.S. Armed Forces is not only an operational shift, but a profound transformation in the American way of war. So far, comparatively little has been written about the challenges of integrating UxVs across an existing fabric of hardware, software, and most importantly, human operators. These challenges are deeply consequential. They are also entirely surmountable, but only if the defense enterprise recognizes that mass in unmanned systems is a necessary but insufficient prerequisite. Operating drones is, at the moment, still a manpower-intensive way of war. Getting the organizational structure right can quicken the advantages of software and offset the mass of America’s adversaries.

In War, A Return To Mass

Historically, warfare has centered on the mass mobilization of human beings. This paradigm shifted in the mid-20th century when, as Chris Brose articulated in The Kill Chain, the focus transitioned to large platforms capable of carrying multiple payloads. America excelled at this type of war and retained a position of military dominance through the end of the century. However, countries unable to afford America’s exquisite-centric business model have more recently turned to large quantities of inexpensive, single-payload systems like missiles and drones as a meaningful counter, thereby shifting the focus back to mass, albeit the mass of attritable systems.¹

In response, the U.S. has begun adjusting acquisition requirements to develop and deploy fleets of its own small, attributable systems in kind. Efforts such as Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks’ Replicator Initiative aim to rapidly field these drones at scale to enhance operational flexibility and tactical effectiveness. However, as these drones arrive at tactical units, warfighters are grappling with the practical challenges of fielding and integrating these systems into existing operations.²

The transition from conceptual development to practical application in the field is fraught with difficulties. Simply having a defense industrial base that can build these systems quickly is no longer enough to maintain America’s advantage. To effectively employ UxVs at scale, the most significant changes should come in the organization of the human component.

Manning Drone Fleets

Deputy Secretary Hicks gave 2025 as the target by which U.S. Forces will have drones in “multiple thousands, in multiple domains.”³ However, the services are not manned or trained to pilot, maintain, and sustain these robots.

From forward bases to the Pentagon, military services are straining to re-allocate man-train-sustain resources to operate the UxVs arriving in the field. When one of the authors spent a day with Replicator robot sustainers, the unit had far more UxVs than humans. Most UxVs sat covered and unused until more trained humans arrived at the unit. At another more operational unit, they’re working to understand man-machine ratios. They’re experimenting to learn whether a human operator at a console can oversee five, ten, or even fifteen UxVs.

In the Pentagon, feedback about our technology was not about technology, but about people. “Close the gap… so the people can keep up,” the requirements officer across the table said. The gap he referred to exists because drone technology is changing faster than soldiers and sailors can learn to use it, and far faster than the Pentagon can adapt its org charts.

More Lessons from Ukraine

Ukraine’s experience here is instructive. Our analysis of drone-wielding Ukrainian units shows that a brigade of 4,000 soldiers needs about 420 individuals operating, maintaining, and arming their drones. Many of these soldiers work in groups of four to six to pilot, operate, arm, and maintain a single type of drone and its spares.⁴ Essentially, operating drones is a manpower-intensive way of war.

But the solution cannot be “more people” – this would be a return to the old paradigm of human mass, a field of competition in which the West is not favored relative to its likeliest adversaries. Consider: U.S. Army light infantry platoons are often staffed at about 75 percent of their doctrinal size (Modified Table of Organization and Equipment or MTOE). This under-staffing exacerbates the difficulty of integrating new technologies, like UxVs, which often need dedicated support teams, sometimes squads of anywhere from four to a dozen soldiers for each battalion.

For U.S. services, unit- and force-level personnel changes are overdue. There are several ongoing force transformation efforts and related gaps that still need to be filled.

At the force-level, Congressional leaders are debating establishing a Drone Corps in H.R. 8070 as a basic branch of the U.S. Army.⁵ Simultaneously, the Army is reorganizing around Multi-Domain Task Forces. The Navy has stood up units to operate drones in almost every fleet and launched a new Robotic Warfare Specialist rating for drone-focused sailors.⁶ Due to the effectiveness of drones on the battlefield and shortages of heavy weapon systems like artillery and jets, Ukraine established its own internal drone force in February 2024.⁷ (To avoid disrupting current operations, units already utilizing drones will not fall subordinate to this new Drone Corps.)

At the unit level, a light infantry platoon is centered around individual soldiers and small crews operating a variety of weapons systems. Typically, a light infantry platoon includes weapons such as the M240 machine gun, the M320 grenade launcher, and AT4 anti-tank weapons. Specialized teams operate additional weapons and vehicles.⁸ Drones – from expendable first-person-view UAVs to the Army’s more expensive FTUAS – must be given the same resources and respect as any conventional weapon and perhaps more.

If the Army does establish a Drone Corps, each battalion must have four to eight soldiers who hail from it. They would have their own training pipeline, knowledge management, schoolhouse, and senior enlisted experts to enable them. Within the battalion, the supply officer must know where to get spare drone parts. The fire support officer must train with the drone squad to effectively call in air support based on their reconnaissance. And the young platoon commanders must know how to make decisions quickly with all their weapons and sensors.

Division-level tech manning is becoming especially important – and is experiencing greater stressors. Traditional divisions support their units with artillery systems like the M109 Paladin and rotary-wing aircraft such as the Apache helicopter. In the drone era, even more hardware will need to lie with the division, especially in Western armies whose industrial bases build small numbers of more expensive drones, compared to Ukraine, Russia, or China. Division-level personnel will need specialization and training to man and maintain these weapon systems, employ fire assets, and deconflict airspace.

The Org Chart Is Over-Matrixed

Today, many tech-focused soldiers (who often take commands directly from the unit commander) are not native to the units and are temporarily attached from mission to mission or deployment to deployment. They often skip pre-deployment training with the units they support, so the units only learn to work with them as they start learning what contact with the enemy really looks like. Specialized teams attaching for missions and deployments will always be a part of military force structures, but the Army must think carefully about how much matrixing of their org chart is too much, degrading unit cohesion, coordination, and training. At least some drone operators must become part of units full-time.

The Army’s most recent ambitious restructuring effort so far lies in the Multi-Domain Task Forces (MDTFs). The MDTF effort demonstrates how force design can be adapted to prioritize modern warfare capabilities, without over-matrixing.

Unlike traditional Brigade Combat Teams, which are centered around maneuver elements, MDTFs create tactical overmatch to defeat peer adversaries in the close fight by converging aviation, fires, electromagnetic warfare, and protection assets, to allow the advance of tactical units to the direct fire fight.⁹ While MDTFs are not explicitly designed as the ultimate solution for UxV integration, they showcase the potential benefits of reimagining force structures to accommodate new technologies and new operational demands.

By focusing on critical enablers rather than traditional maneuver-centric models, MDTFs illustrate the potential to adapt military units to better incorporate UxVs. Over the past two decades, our adversaries have built layered anti-access and area-denial capabilities. Integrating long-range precision fires with advances in Electronic Warfare and Artificial Intelligence allows for Joint Force Commanders to synchronize these assets immediately during campaigns and accelerate a continuous cycle of penetration, dis-integration, and exploitation. This loop enables freedom of maneuver for the broader force.

Expanding upon the current MDTF structure to include a UxV battalion that can be flexed to theater commands will bring another critical effect into sync with long-range fires and theater-level OODA loops.

This centralization approach offers several additional advantages. By housing all UxV operations under a dedicated battalion, maintenance and acquisitions can be streamlined and localized geographically. This org chart choice ensures assets are consistently updated and mission-ready. Furthermore, it allows for standardized training and operational procedures, enabling operators and support personnel to specialize in uncrewed systems.

Strategic force structure changes such as MDTFs suggest the U.S. military is taking technology integration challenges seriously enough. Since this approach does not require more soldiers, it can be integrated swiftly.

Case Study: The Navy

Instead of increasing its budget for UUVs and USVs, the Navy has focused on getting its manning, training, and org chart right. Task Force 59 famously catalyzed experimentation with USVs, bringing cheaper maritime domain awareness to forces in the Middle East. In 2024, the Navy steamed ahead, standing up two new drone-focused units: Task Force 66 and USV Squadron Three. Now, every fleet has a unit dedicated to operating and sustaining UxVs. A new Navy-wide rating for Robotics Warfare Specialists will let sailors build careers operating and maintaining UxVs and will create dedicated training funds and pipelines.¹⁰

USV Division One, which operates large ocean-going vessels, conducted a full INDOPACOM deployment last year.¹¹ They experimented to learn about manning needs, from maintenance to command and control. For example, the Navy is learning when to control a USV from a nearby destroyer, from the bigger command center on an aircraft carrier, or from the yet-bigger watchfloor at the Maritime Operations Center ashore. This experimentation fits in with Admiral Franchetti’s Navy-wide drive to “fight from the MOC.”¹²

Although the Navy is learning a lot from its drone-focused units, the traditional Navy org chart needs help too. Most of the funds and sailors that can operate, maintain, and sustain UxVs are locked in conducting traditional missions. Evolving a full DOTMLPF framework (Doctrine, Organization, Training, Manning, etc.) to support UxV capability will take time. For example, funding to man and sustain small USV operations seems tied up under the littoral combat ship program.

The services should embrace DOTMLPF experimentation as the Navy has, to learn how many crew, of what specialty, under what C2 framework, can best operate a given UxS capability. Additionally, requirements officers in the Pentagon should seek to evolve processes in parallel, as Replicator has demonstrated, rather than sequentially, which can take decades.

Bottom Line: Get the Org Chart Right

The integration of unmanned vehicles into DoD represents not just an operational shift but a profound transformation in how the U.S. military engages in warfare. Through strategic restructuring and thoughtful experimentation, DoD can position itself to more effectively harness the potential of these systems.

This will require not just technological innovation, but also a commitment to rethinking how forces are organized, trained, and equipped to meet the demands of future conflicts. The successful integration of UxVs will ensure that the U.S. maintains its strategic and technological superiority on the battlefield, adapting to an era where the mass and precision of unmanned systems play a central role in warfare.

References

¹ David Alman and Heather Venable, “Bending the Principle of Mass: Why That Approach No Longer Works for Airpower,” War on the Rocks, September 15, 2020.

² “Scaling AI-Enabled Capabilities for DOD: Government and Industry Perspectives,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, March 28, 2024.

³ Jim Garamone, “Hicks Discusses Replicator Initiative,” DOD News, September 7, 2023.

⁴ Austin Gray, “The $50 Billion Question,” Substack, August 2, 2024.

⁵ Daniel M. Gettinger and Andrew Feickert, “Proposal to Create a U.S. Army Drone Force,” Congressional Research Service, June 18, 2024.

⁶ Karli Yeager, “SURFOR Establishes Unmanned Surface Vessel Squadron (USVRON) Three,” Naval Surface Force, U.S. Pacific Fleet, May 20, 2024; “Establishment of Robotics Warfare Specialist Rating Fact Sheet,” MyNavyHR, March 2024.

⁷ Volodymyr Zelenskyy, “Address by the President of Ukraine on the Establishment of Unmanned Systems Forces,” February 6, 2024, Kyiv, Ukraine.

⁸ Randy A. George, ATP 3-21.8 Infantry Rifle Platoon and Squad (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Army, 2024).

⁹ Army Futures Command, “Army Futures Command Concept for Maneuver in Multi-Domain Operations, 2028,” U.S. Army Futures Command, July 7, 2020.

¹⁰ “Establishment of Robotic Warfare Specialist Rating,” 2024.

¹¹ “Unmanned Surface Vessel Division Arrives in Sydney,” U.S. 7th Fleet Public Affairs, October 25, 2023.

¹² Lisa M. Franchetti, Chief of Naval Operations Navigation Plan 2024: Warfighting and Readiness Priorities (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Navy Office of the Chief of Naval Operations, 2024).