News, deep dives, and analysis — every Department of Defense story, newest first.
Department of Defense drone coverage tracks Pentagon procurement, the office structures deciding where military drone money goes, and the hardware being cleared for military purchase.
Command structure changed meaningfully this year: a Pentagon drone czar memo hands the Defense Innovation Unit the front door to a $75 billion unmanned systems portfolio, centralizing authority that used to be split across service branches. The dollar figures moving through that structure are large: the Pentagon committed $1.3 billion to drones in two days, split between shoot-down systems and domestic parts manufacturing.
The Blue UAS list is where a lot of that procurement authority becomes concrete: Mountain Horse’s Talon DT-300 putting 100 pounds of payload capacity on the Blue UAS list is a direct expansion of what buyers can acquire without a separate security review. Domestic shipbuilding is following the same defense-dollar logic: Saronic is planning a $3 billion Texas shipyard for drone ships.
The broader US Government desk and FAA desk cover the civilian regulatory side of the same policy landscape. Every Department of Defense drone story is in the feed below.
Last updated November 12, 2026 — the feed below updates with every new story.
An Army official told Breaking Defense small attack drones get replaced, not repaired. DroneXL checks the plan against delivery and budget records.
The Pentagon says it defeated 300 drones on the US-Mexico border in 2026. The only two targets ever made public were party balloons and a CBP drone.
Neros says the Pentagon gets a small stake with no vote for its $450M loan, its first motors are built, and its growth chief asks who buys the drones.
A federal judge found the US Navy treated Saildrone unfairly in its $2.1 billion drone boat competition and froze $600 million until a new review.
KEF Robotics joined SOCOM's free SOF RACER consortium. SOCOM plans for jammed GPS, but neither first call asks for navigation.
OSC offered Neros up to $450 million to build drones and parts in Torrance. Neros says taxpayers get an ownership stake. OSC's release doesn't mention one.
The Pentagon wants 250,000 cheap drones by end of 2027. Russia builds 7.3 million a year. Bloomberg's tour of Utah's drone plants shows why the gap stays.
The Pentagon is buying 60,000 attack drones, but one 84-year-old Army plant makes all U.S. HMX and RDX. Odin Energetics says it can make a tenth of that.
A Pentagon drone czar memo hands the Defense Innovation Unit the front door to a $75 billion unmanned systems portfolio, centralizing decision-making authority over a huge share of military drone spending that was previously spread across separate service branches.
Large and frequent. The Pentagon committed $1.3 billion to drones in two days, split between counter-drone systems and domestic component manufacturing, on top of continuing investment in new airframes and the Blue UAS approved-hardware list.
Blue UAS is the Defense Innovation Unit's list of drones cleared for military and government purchase without a case-by-case security review. Mountain Horse's Talon DT-300 putting 100 pounds of payload capacity on the Blue UAS list expands what buyers can procure off that list without added review.
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