Centcom Benefits From Project Agincourt, Drone Dominance Efforts

So far this year, frontline troops in the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility have received more than 25,000 unmanned aerial systems and counter-UAS  to help them better execute their mission.  

The Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager for Unmanned Systems, responsible for delivering those one-way attack vehicles — air, surface and subsurface waterborne vessels — was created in response to President Donald J. Trump’s and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s focus on drone dominance.   

The DRPM-UxS stood up in July, bringing together the existing Joint Interagency Task Force 401, the War Department Innovation Unit and the Defense Autonomous Warfare Group. Its ongoing goal is to rapidly accelerate the development, procurement and fielding at scale of autonomous capabilities essential to maintaining a decisive military advantage.

“Under Secretary Hegseth’s direction, we are moving at the speed of modern combat to equip our forces with decisive, affordable mass,” said Owen West, DRPM-UxS director. “DRPM-UxS was established to cut through red tape and put lethal technology directly into the hands of our frontline troops. The thousands of systems operating across Centcom this year are just the beginning. We will out-innovate, outbuild and out-adapt any adversary on the battlefield. The goal is to scale these capabilities across the joint force.” 

This year, with an investment of approximately $782 million, DRPM-UxS has fielded over 1,300 one-way attack UAVs and more than 100 unmanned surface and underwater vessels to Centcom. 

Additionally, through its Joint Interagency Task Force 401, DRPM-UxS has fielded more than 24,000 counter-UAS to establish a multilayered defensive shield that protects deployed forces against adversary drone attacks. 

Just four months in, DRPM-UxS has demonstrated its success by providing Centcom with inexpensive, attritable unmanned systems it can use to fight and win on the battlefield.  

But in September, Hegseth broadened DRPM-UxS’ mission with an additional task: Project Agincourt, an initiative to stand up the Autonomous Warfare Command. Led by West and Navy SEAL Senior Chief Max Strasiser, DRPM-UxS chief operating officer, the project creates a pathway to establishing a new four-star functional combatant command that will lead the joint force in unmanned autonomous warfare. 

Last month, West and Strasiser sent an open letter to industry partners laying out the vision for Autowarcom, expected to stand up by Oct. 1, 2027. 

“We are on the clock,” the letter said. “In service of Autowarcom, Agincourt must quickly remove the barriers that constrain the initiative of our service members by fusing operations and development. … If we get this right, we will do more than establish a new command. Autowarcom will institutionalize a mission-based system whose main product is adaptation, building a next-generation development model for sustained American military advantage.” 

Over the past year, the department has invested more than $6 billion in unmanned systems to accelerate capabilities across air, land and maritime domains. 

The department also embarked on an effort to entice industry partners to manufacture about 300,000 low-cost drones through a series of four “gauntlets.” In the first of four gauntlets, which ended in July, 12 vendors were asked to collectively produce 30,000 drones at $5,000 per unit, totaling $150 million.  

The department is currently executing the second gauntlet, which is scheduled to end in January. Ten vendors are participating, and the government will purchase about 60,000 units at $5,000 each. By the end of the fourth gauntlet, which ends in January 2028, the number of drones ordered will increase from 30,000 to 150,000, and the price per drone will drop from $5,000 to $2,300. 

By establishing a stable demand signal for unmanned systems, the War Department hopes to entice American manufacturers to invest in and increase their unmanned systems manufacturing capacity.