AUTOWAR25 Afternoon Edition
1. DIU's Drone Dominance program lines up orders for 60,000 small attack drones from nine companies after Gauntlet II, with Neros the only firm to place in both categories
Defence Blog's "U.S. orders 60,000 attack drones from nine companies" (11:40 AM ET) breaks down DIU's published Gauntlet II leaderboard: 30,000 drones in Deep Strike and 30,000 in Close Quarters Battle, scaled by rank.
- Deep Strike: Perennial Autonomy 8,000 (80.1 points), Hyperscale 7,000, Neros 6,000, Skycutter 5,000, Swarm Defense Technologies 4,000.
- Close Quarters Battle: Neros 8,000 (88.1 points), ORQA US 7,000, XTEND 6,000, Vector 5,000, ModalAI 4,000. Final quantities are set at contract award.
- Neros says it is "delivering 14,000 drones and explosive payloads" and adds: "Onward to Gauntlet III."
- Deep Strike lanes required hits at 15 km, against 10 km in Gauntlet I; scores also counted operator evaluations, production scale and supply-chain security.
2. DIU and the Pentagon's unmanned-systems portfolio office want armed drone boats that can shoot down drones and helicopters with Hellfire, JAGM, APKWS or Stinger, fielded within 120 days
Naval News ("Pentagon Launches 120-Day 'Sprint' to Field Counter-UAS Armed USVs," 3:16 PM ET) details DIU's SWAP-USV Sprint 2 solicitation, run with the Direct Reporting Portfolio Manager for Unmanned Systems; DIU lists it as closing Nov. 30.
- DIU: "The cost-exchange ratio ... is heavily skewed in favor of the adversary." Targets include explosive USVs, Group 1–3 drones, attack helicopters and go-fast boats.
- Boats need at least 200 nautical miles of range, 10 knots cruise, autonomous navigation, station-keeping and collision avoidance, and 360-degree sensors; engagement range must exceed 3 nautical miles.
- Weapons use stays under human supervision, in GPS- and comms-degraded conditions; two-person field rearming is "highly desired."
- It's part of a three-phase, 12-month prize challenge worth up to $100 million, with up to $40 million for the counter-air phase.
3. The Army picks nine finalists for autonomous island resupply, and their robot vehicles and a heavy-lift drone go before soldiers in Hawaii Nov. 4–15
Defence Blog's "U.S. Army to test robot supply vehicles in Hawaii" (11:54 AM ET) reports on G-TEAD USARPAC ACE 27-01: Autonomous Sustainment, run by the Global Tactical Edge Acquisition Directorate with U.S. Army Pacific and Army xTech.
- The live soldier exercise is at the Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center in Hawaii.
- Ground finalists: Ark Robotics M4, BlueSky Innovations Jekyll US, Cyborg Autonomy, Dataspeed TWEEDLE, Hypercraft Razorback, Raptor Defense PIT VIPER, Stridar Siderunner Pro and Swarmbotics AI FIREANT.
- Phenix Solutions' Ultra 2XL heavy-lift drone is the only air finalist.
- The Army frames it around supply lines that are vulnerable across dispersed Pacific islands.
Sources: Defence Blog · @Defence_blog post4. The Army is putting cyber and jamming payloads on small drones for its 11th Cyber Battalion to deliver "tailored cyber effects"
In "Army unit experimenting with small drones for 'tailored cyber effects'" (Breaking Defense, 9:59 AM ET), Col. David Bergmann, the Army's project manager for cyber warfare, describes tests of the Radiofrequency Delivery Effects Platform (RDEP) on small drones.
- RDEP lets operators load exploits onto cards and deliver "digital bullets" to blind or gain access to adversary systems.
- The tests mix government-built and commercial payloads for real-time spectrum monitoring and non-kinetic effects at the tactical edge.
- The experiments will shape standard equipment for the 11th Cyber Battalion and a forthcoming 12th Cyber Battalion.
Sources: Breaking Defense5. JIATF-401's science and technology chief says its counter-drone marketplace will badge systems to show which are tested and which rest on vendor claims
Autonomy Global's "JIATF-401's Push to Build a Faster Counter-UAS Marketplace" (6:00 AM ET) covers Col. Scott Humr's keynote at the Counter-UAS Accelerator Working Group in Grand Forks, N.D.
- Humr: "We aim to have a number of badges next to systems to distinguish their capabilities."
- An approved marketplace listing doesn't necessarily mean a system passed rigorous government testing; buyers of less-tested systems are asked to send feedback.
- A repository called Tech Arsenal would consolidate test results and approvals so organizations don't repeat work.
- The keynote was Oct. 8; the write-up ran today.
Sources: Autonomy Global · @Autonmyglobal post6. Ukraine's General Staff says it hit a Russian electronic warfare station in Bryansk Oblast and a drone control point in Zaporizhzhia Oblast
The Kyiv Independent's "Ukraine strikes Russian electronic warfare station, General Staff says" (12:54 PM ET) covers strikes on Oct. 21 and overnight into Oct. 22.
- The EW station was near Gulevka; the General Staff says hitting Russian EW improves Ukraine's ability to use drones.
- It also reports hitting a drone control point near Lankove and a command and observation post near Vyshneve.
- These are Ukrainian military claims; the Kyiv Independent did not report independent confirmation.
Sources: Kyiv Independent7. Iran's army airs its first footage of an underground line building Arash one-way attack drones, and state TV says a new version carries a 100-kilogram warhead
Iranian army chief Maj. Gen. Amir Hatami toured the site, according to Iranian media relayed by Dunya News ("Iran unveils advanced indigenous drones as army chief declares readiness for war").
- Hatami: "We have reached a significant level of maturity in the field of drones and unmanned systems in general," and more drones will be unveiled.
- He says drones, unmanned surface vessels and micro-drones have a growing role.
- The army did not give the site's location or production capacity. The 100-kg warhead figure is a state-TV claim; X summaries citing AI-guided targeting were not confirmed.
Sources: Dunya News · NDTV8. AFRL: "There would be no CCA without the Air Force Research Laboratory," says Brig. Gen. Timothy Helfrich
@AFResearchLab quoted Helfrich at the Ohio Defense and Aerospace forum in Dayton and promoted its "Discovery to Delivery" video series on AFRL's role in Collaborative Combat Aircraft (8:00 AM ET).
- The post is AFRL's official account speaking about its own program.
Sources: @AFResearchLab post9. DIU's COO Matthew Shortal represents the U.S. at the NATO DIANA board meeting in Sofia
@DIU_x says its leadership was "front and center" at the board meeting of NATO's Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic, with Shortal as principal U.S. representative (8:53 AM ET).
- DIU says it backs the alliance and an "America First" arms transfer strategy.
Sources: @DIU_x post10. Kyiv Independent: Ukrainian researchers found a magnetometer in a Russian Geran that could keep the drone on course when satellite navigation is jammed
"Inside the institution where Ukraine races to counter Russia's evolving drones" (9:04 AM ET) is a rare look inside a Defense Ministry lab that dismantles Russian weapons.
- Researchers call the magnetometer "the most recent component we found, about a week or two ago," and are still checking whether Russia can deploy it at scale.
- They estimate a countermeasure takes four to six months to develop, while Russia can modify its drones every two or three.
- The institution and its staff are not named, a condition of access.
Sources: Kyiv Independent11. The Navy awards Applied Intuition $25 million to put AI sensor fusion on five destroyers, with data feeding models for crewed and uncrewed vessels
Breaking Defense's "Navy awards Applied Intuition $25M to deploy AI sensor fusion at sea" (11:43 AM ET) says the Intelligent Perception System starts on five Arleigh Burke-class destroyers and could expand "across the fleet."
- IPS fuses camera and infrared feeds into one picture and offers automated alerts, such as for a vessel on a collision course.
- It records sensor data and sends it ashore to train improved AI models for manned and unmanned vessels.
- Ships can take over-the-air updates at sea. The award was announced by the company.
Sources: Breaking Defense12. DroneXL: the FCC blocks a dash cam and a wireless video transmitter over Huawei HiSilicon chips, its first case under the parts rules that also hit DJI and Autel components in U.S. drones
"FCC Catches Huawei Surveillance Chips in Its First Parts Ban Case" (1:55 PM ET) says the Commission announced the action Oct. 22 as the first enforcement of its Covered List component rules, in effect since Oct. 13.
- The same rules stop a new U.S.-built drone from getting FCC authorization if it contains a covered DJI or Autel logic-bearing part.
- The FCC named no manufacturer, model or chip part number.
- HiSilicon isn't on the Covered List by name; Huawei is, and the list's footnote covers subsidiaries.
Sources: DroneXL13. Breaking Defense op-ed: "The Pentagon has gone too far in using the Other Transaction Authority. Congress should act."
Researcher Julia Gledhill argues OTAs, the fast-contracting tool behind much drone and autonomy buying, have become the Pentagon's predominant approach "at great risk to taxpayers" (12:58 PM ET).
- She says contractors under OTAs are exempt from FAR competition, cost-data and accounting rules.
- She wants Congress to limit OTs to research and development.
Sources: Breaking Defense14. DefenseScoop: SOCOM seeks an integrated contracting vehicle for a shared platform-as-a-service environment to test and field new tech near MacDill
"SOCOM seeks common PaaS environment to support testing and fielding of new tech" (2:28 PM ET) is based on a draft performance work statement posted Wednesday night.
- SOF AT&L wants a vehicle to "rapidly discover, assess, prototype, integrate, test, and field" software-heavy capabilities across several PEOs.
- It would support Joint Acquisition Task Force experimentation and the PEOs for SOF Digital Applications and Tactical Information Systems.
Sources: DefenseScoop15. Inside Defense: "Striveworks scales up Army work with $700 million agreement"
Inside Defense reports a $700 million Army agreement for Striveworks, a maker of AI model-operations software (10:00 AM ET).
- The article is behind a paywall; only the headline was confirmed.
Sources: Inside Defense16. Naval News: Elbit Systems' purchase of International Submarine Engineering expands its underwater and maritime autonomy business
"Elbit Systems Expands Underwater and Maritime Autonomy Capabilities with Acquisition of ISE" (9:20 AM ET) follows Wednesday's announcement.
- ISE is a Vancouver maker of autonomous and remotely operated undersea vehicles.
- The coverage is based on the company's announcement.
Sources: Naval News17. Breaking Defense (sponsored): how networks of uncrewed surface vessels can build persistent maritime awareness in the Indo-Pacific
"How uncrewed surface vessels performing ISR help build persistent maritime awareness" (8:23 AM ET) argues for treating sensing as a network rather than as individual USVs.
- Ben Pinx of Lyntris: "It's easy to see something's moving ... Now I need to shoot at those dots."
- The piece is industry-sponsored content.
Sources: Breaking Defense18. arXiv: a method that separates "reproducing" an autonomous system's failure from "avoiding" it, for black-box neural components
"Sufficient and Necessary Causal Explanations for the Analysis of Autonomous Systems" (arXiv:2610.29724) argues earlier causal explanations support reproducing failures but not preventing them.
- It's aimed at systems whose behavior depends on neural networks, a core test-and-evaluation problem for military autonomy.
Sources: arXiv:2610.2972419. arXiv: dynamic microsegmentation isolates a compromised node in a multi-robot network in real time while the rest keep working
"Implementation of Dynamic Microsegmentation for a Multi-Robot Network" (arXiv:2610.30102) is a lab demonstration using a commercial software-defined segmentation tool.
- Segments adapt to each asset's function and health tags, and policies are applied automatically.
Sources: arXiv:2610.3010220. arXiv: QSelect compresses onboard language models for space robots while keeping behavior close to the validated full-precision model
"Compressing Onboard Language Models for Space Robots under a Behavioral-Fidelity Requirement" (arXiv:2610.29302) treats compression as a ground-segment step under configuration control.
- It builds one static low-bit model from AWQ, GPTQ and AutoRound checkpoints to fit a fixed memory budget.
Sources: arXiv:2610.2930221. arXiv: feeding a distance field into a reinforcement-learning policy gives robots more reactive, robust collision avoidance from simulation to hardware
"Distance Field Driven Reinforcement Learning for Reactive and Robust Collision Avoidance" (arXiv:2610.29452) puts a Euclidean distance field directly in the agent's observations.
- The authors say this allows a simpler reward and better sim-to-real transfer on manipulators.
Sources: arXiv:2610.2945222. @prestonstew_ shares the Drone Dominance Gauntlet II results with his followers
Preston Stewart, who makes videos on war and national security, posted "Results from the most recent Drone Dominance competition" (7:19 AM ET).
- The post has ~3.1K views.
Sources: @prestonstew_ post23. @bsware on the planned Autonomous Warfare Command pushing buying money to frontline units: "That's the right test"
The former CISA cyber lead writes that judging success by speed to the battlefield works because "units that use the gear know fastest what works and what to buy more of" (11:49 AM ET).
- Opinion; personal X account.
Sources: @bsware post24. @SOFNewsUpdate: the Autonomous Warfare Command is a chance to reorganize forces for unmanned systems at every level, including staff functions
SOF News Update writes that the command should bring changes to traditional staff functions and refine tactics for unmanned systems at the tactical, operational and strategic levels (7:23 AM ET).
- Opinion.
Sources: @SOFNewsUpdate post25. @MartelDefense, a kinetic-interceptor maker: "JIATF 401 puts kinetic defeat last in its counter-drone sequence ... and we agree"
Martel Defense writes that "a kinetic layer earns its place when the other layers run out" (1:25 PM ET).
- Vendor commentary.
Sources: @MartelDefense post
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How AUTOWAR25 ranks
Every edition, we scan official channels, news, industry, research, and social posts for the 25 most important developments in autonomous warfare: drones, counter-drone systems, uncrewed vessels and vehicles, and military AI.
Stories rank by source first:
- Official means governments, militaries, and their leaders speaking on the record.
- Premium/Press means established news outlets.
- Industry/Research means companies, think tanks, and published research.
- Social means notable posts from analysts, reporters, and practitioners.
Within each group, newer stories rank higher and engagement breaks ties. A company press release stays out of the top 10 until someone else reports on it. Ongoing marks a developing story, and Carryover marks one from a previous edition that's still moving. Claims from warring parties are labeled as claims, and anything we couldn't independently confirm is marked unverified.
AUTOWAR25 comes out at 7 AM and 4 PM ET. Follow @autowar25.