'Top Gun' for drones: Pentagon plans August exercise with FPV drone units - Breaking Defense

Pentagon Launches 'Top Gun' for Drones as Ukraine Conflict Accelerates FPV Technology Race

US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announces sweeping reforms to drone procurement and training as Pentagon scrambles to keep pace with China's massive production advantage

July 22, 2025

The Pentagon is launching its first-ever "Top Gun" school for first-person view (FPV) drone operators this August, marking a dramatic shift in American military strategy as the Ukraine conflict continues to revolutionize modern warfare with cheap, disposable drones that are reshaping the battlefield.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced sweeping reforms to Pentagon drone procurement on July 16, declaring that "drones are the biggest battlefield innovation in a generation, accounting for most of this year's casualties in Ukraine." The announcement came during a "Drone Day" exhibition at the Pentagon, where Hegseth signed a memorandum titled "Unleashing U.S. Military Drone Dominance" while Metallica's "Enter Sandman" played and a drone delivered the signed directive.

Ukraine's Drone Revolution Drives Global Innovation

The urgency behind the Pentagon's drone push reflects lessons learned from Ukraine, where FPV drones have become the dominant weapon system. Ukraine has increased monthly FPV drone production capacity from 20,000 in 2024 to 200,000 in 2025, with President Zelensky stating in February 2025 that Ukraine is capable of producing 4 million drones annually.

According to the Ukrainian general staff, over half of frontline destruction stems from these agile, explosive-laden units costing roughly $400 per drone that can destroy multimillion-dollar assets. The effectiveness has been so pronounced that in the battle for Chasiv Yar, as many as 90 percent of wounded Ukrainian soldiers who made it to a stabilization point were hit by an FPV drone or explosives dropped by a drone.

Ukraine's rapid innovation has included developing fiber optic cable-guided drones that trail cables for jam-resistant control and video feeds, countering electronic warfare tactics like radio jamming. In December 2024, Ukrainian forces carried out the first fully unmanned operation near Lyptsi, involving dozens of uncrewed ground vehicles and FPV drones with no infantry participation.

China's Manufacturing Dominance Poses Strategic Challenge

The Pentagon's drone reforms come as China has established overwhelming dominance in global drone production. China's drone fleet is now estimated to be ten times larger than those of the U.S. and Taiwan combined. Russian intelligence estimates that Russia plans to produce 2 million FPV drones and 30,000 long-range drones in 2025, heavily dependent on Chinese components despite sanctions.

While adversaries like China are producing an estimated 500,000 first-person view (FPV) drones each month, the United States manufactures just a few thousand. This production gap reflects deeper supply chain vulnerabilities, as most FPV components come from a small number of manufacturers, mainly in China, making supply chains sensitive to geopolitical tensions.

Ukraine is currently producing thousands of FPV drones per day and expects to produce over 10,000, although either the base drone or parts typically come from China. This dependency has prompted both Ukraine and the US to prioritize domestic production capabilities.

Pentagon's 'Top Gun' Training Initiative

The centerpiece of the Pentagon's new approach is the Technology Readiness Experimentation (T-REX) exercise scheduled for August 2025 at Camp Atterbury, Indiana. "At this next T-REX, we'll be starting to host TOPGUN school," said Alex Lovett, referring to the famous Navy training program for promising fighter pilots. "We're going to start playing Red versus Blue, their best coming after our best defenses. … This August will be the first time."

The exercise will feature intensive air combat training for FPV operators against cutting-edge anti-drone defenses, with members of the Ukrainian military on hand to observe the experimentation and provide feedback. The training represents a recognition that FPV drones are notoriously tricky to control and require operators with reflexes and training to handle them effectively.

Sweeping Procurement Reforms

Hegseth's directive mandates dramatic changes to Pentagon drone acquisition:

• Timeline Goals: Establish "small UAS domain dominance by the end of 2027" and equip every Army squad with expendable drones by 2026
• Procurement Reform: Enable troops to modify drones as necessary in the field and lower decision-making authority from top Pentagon leaders to field commanders
• Training Integration: Mandate drone operations in all major training events by 2027, with force-on-force "drone wars" beginning in 2026
• Industrial Base: Provide financing options including direct loans and advance purchase agreements to strengthen domestic drone manufacturers

The Pentagon is also on track to field thousands of low-cost, throwaway drones by August 2025 through the Replicator program, reflecting a shift toward mass production of expendable systems rather than expensive, high-tech platforms.

Electronic Warfare Challenges

Despite their effectiveness, FPV drones face significant vulnerabilities that highlight the technological arms race. Electronic warfare jamming downed 31 percent of Ukrainian FPV drone sorties, with additional failures from friendly interference (3 percent) and communication issues. This has driven innovation in counter-jamming technologies, including fiber-optic guidance systems and AI-enabled autonomous operation.

Ukrainian drone pilot accuracy rates vary dramatically from 80 percent for experienced operators to as low as 10 percent for less experienced pilots, with AI integration projected to boost accuracy to around 80 percent.

Strategic Implications

The drone revolution represents what military analysts call a fundamental shift in warfare. Ukraine's former commander-in-chief Valeriy Zaluzhniy predicted that "the wars of the future would be won by countries that focus their resources on the development of drones, electronic warfare, and artificial intelligence."

FPV drones may continue to shift the balance in asymmetrical warfare, giving smaller, less-funded militaries a cost-effective tool against larger forces. The technology has proven so disruptive that the Pentagon's $1 billion Replicator Initiative aims to field thousands of air, sea, and land drones by August 2025, embracing a "hellscape" strategy of saturating contested areas with unmanned systems to counter China's numerical advantage.

The Pentagon's new approach reflects recognition that traditional defense systems struggle against swarms of small, agile drones. One U.S. ally shot down a $200 drone with a Patriot missile that costs just over $3 million, highlighting the cost-effectiveness challenge posed by cheap drone swarms.

As the August T-REX exercise approaches, the Pentagon's "Top Gun" for drones represents more than just a training program—it signals America's acknowledgment that the future of warfare will be fought by algorithms and operators controlling swarms of expendable machines, with the side that can produce, train, and deploy them fastest holding a decisive advantage.

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'Top Gun' for drones: Pentagon plans August exercise with FPV drone units - Breaking Defense