(Photo: Griffon Aerospace media)
By Troy Turner
The War Department on Tuesday announced the 25 vendors, including three with Alabama ties, invited to compete in Phase I of the Drone Dominance Program, an acquisition reform effort designed to rapidly field low-cost, unmanned one-way attack drones at scale.
The Department plans to be fielding “hundreds of thousands” weaponized, one-way attack drones ready for combat by 2027.
“Drone Dominance is a process race as much as a technological race,” Secretary of War Pete Hegseth wrote in his July 2025 memorandum, Unleashing U.S. Military Drone Dominance. “We are buying what works — fast, at scale, and without bureaucratic delay. Lethality will not be hindered by self-imposed restrictions.”
The Phase I evaluation—the Gauntlet—will begin Feb. 18 at Fort Benning, Ga., where military operators will fly and evaluate vendor systems.
(Photo: Performance Drone Works media)
The Gauntlet will conclude in early March, when approximately $150 million in prototype delivery orders will be placed, with deliveries beginning shortly thereafter and continuing over the following five months.
The Alabama companies involved in Phase I include:
GRIFFON AEROSPACE, INC. (Headquartered in Madison)
PERFORMANCE DRONE WORKS LLC (PDW) (Headquartered in Huntsville)
KRATOS SRE, INC.: A Birmingham-based subsidiary of parent company, Kratos Defense & Security Solutions.
Drone Dominance will spend $1.1 billion over four phases, placing warfighters at the center of evaluation and driving competitive, iterative cycles measured in months, not years, according to the War Department, which expects across the program’s four phases that unit prices will decrease, as production volumes increase and operational capability rises.
The Drone Dominance Program is sponsored by the Office of the Secretary of War and executed by the Defense Innovation Unit, the Test Resource Management Center, and Naval Surface Warfare Center, Crane Division.
Troy Turner is the editor and senior consultant for AlaDefense.com. He can be reached at [email protected]. His bio can be found here.
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