As experimental drone battalion ends, Army aims to push drones to every squad

The U.S. Army is closing its temporary 600-person Unmanned Assault Battalion after Saber Junction while distributing drone capability across formations down to squad level. Officials said the service has fielded 10,000 drones and is adding 30,000 more, but training enough qualified operators remains the main obstacle to placing one-way attack systems in every squad by the fiscal-year end. The experiment consumed 2,000 drones, half of them expendable, reinforcing the view that unmanned aircraft must be treated both as common equipment and as munitions requiring mass supply.