In a bold move aligned with President Trump’s focus on strengthening the United States defense, the Pentagon has issued an open call to industry to rapidly obtain and deploy more than 300,000 small drones.

The goal is to have them in the field with operators ready to use them within two hours of delivery.

The effort carries a price tag of about one billion dollars and aims to deliver the drones to service members by 2028. Military planners describe the push as a significant shift in how America prepares for modern warfare.

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The information request describes drones that can carry at least 4.4 pounds of explosives and strike across both open terrain and crowded urban environments.

The designers expect machines that can maneuver across roughly six miles of open land and strike within half a mile inside a city.

Officials emphasize that relying on expensive missiles to counter cheap drones makes little strategic sense. Quantities at scale provide a deterrent and a flexibility that higher cost interceptors cannot match.

“We cannot afford to shoot down cheap drones with 2 million dollar missiles and we ourselves must be able to field large quantities of capable attack drones,” Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said in a video announcement released on social media.

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His words underscore a mission to equip the force with affordable, scalable weapons rather than relying solely on costly interceptors.

“We will deliver tens of thousands of small drones to our force in 2026 and hundreds of thousands of them by 2027,” Hegseth said, adding that the new technology will see changes to combat doctrine across all U.S. military branches.

That forecast points to a sweeping overhaul of tactics that will touch every service, from the Army to the Navy and beyond.

Although the plan does not name a specific make or model, the description fits first person view drones and is consistent with quadcopter style platforms.

The emphasis remains on small, mobile, rapidly deployable units rather than bulky, high altitude assets.

The competitive process, described as gauntlets, will run in four phases from February to July next year and will require drone demonstrations.

The staged approach is meant to accelerate learning for troops and spur broad competition among suppliers.

In the opening phase, twelve firms would produce thirty thousand drones, with subsequent phases increasing quantities while driving down prices and narrowing the field of vendors.

Even firms that are not selected in the first phase are encouraged to compete later.

The RFI follows a sequence of actions that began after an executive order from President Donald Trump on June 6 urging expansion of the drone industrial base and broader adoption across federal agencies.

That order is meant to strengthen national security and industrial capacity.

A July memo from Hegseth outlined measures to swiftly purchase and integrate drones across all branches.

The War Department has moved to speed acquisition, repair, and deployment in recent months.

Recent steps include Central Command forming a task force to speed drone delivery and repair for battlefield units, as well as Northern Command creating a rapid response team to counter drone threats using a fly away kit from Anduril.

These moves underscore a broader strategy to put affordable air power in the hands of frontline units.

Special Operations Command has called for a ten day in depth training course to teach operators every aspect of building and using first person view drones. The aim is to ensure elite teams can rely on this new technology quickly and responsibly.

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