The Army currently has 22 service branches (think: Infantry, Armor, Intelligence) and may be about to add a new one if language present in this year's National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) passes.
The proposed Army Corps of Drones would oversee the entire service's use of small and medium-sized drones, providing a coordination center that would work as a force provider in training the troops needed to operate these systems as well as conduct research and development.
Not everyone is pleased with the proposal however.
“Having a branch, or a [Center of Excellence], or anything like that — it’s not going to help us buy anything faster or get us more resources against this problem set,” explained Army Undersecretary Gabe Camarillo at an event in Washington D.C., as reported by Federal News Network.
Camarillo said that creating a new drone corps would undermine some of the current progress that the Army has made with drones, and integrating them into various levels of Army units. Although he explained that the language in the NDAA exists because Congress is recognizing the very real threat that drones pose in future conflicts, he still thinks that moving forward with the proposal would be a mistake.
Taking lessons learned from the war in Ukraine, the Army is currently seeking out ways to integrate small drones into squad and platoon-level formations, as well as fielding them with anti-drone technology to defeat enemy systems deployed against them.
One of the drone defense technologies, known as a M-LIDS, has been operationally deployed to protect the recently installed pier in Gaza that the Department of Defense intends to use to bring in humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people.