US Army disbands dedicated drone unit despite battlefield lessons from Iran

The US Army is disbanding its dedicated drone unit and returning it to a conventional airborne infantry role.

Acting Army Chief of Staff Gen. Christopher Lundy has ordered the unmanned attack battalion of the 173rd Airborne Brigade, stationed in Italy and Germany, to revert to its core airborne infantry mission, according to AP and CBS News on Friday.

The unit was stood up last November with about 600 soldiers — less than a year ago — and was designed as a dedicated force that could be deployed wherever drones were needed. Its goal was to absorb lessons from Ukraine's military, which pioneered drone tactics in the war against Russia, and spread them across the broader US Army.

The importance of drones on the modern battlefield has grown sharply. Iran used Shahed drones — costing tens of thousands of dollars each — to strike ships and bases, killing US soldiers and shooting down Army helicopters. To defend against them, US forces burned through interceptor missiles costing more than $1 million apiece.

The brigade had been working with drones even before the dedicated unit was formally created. In May last year, it opened a first-person-view (FPV) drone laboratory on base where soldiers designed and built their own attack drones. The unit also experimented with AI-enabled designs and drones hardened against electronic jamming.

The Army, however, said in a statement that it was not discarding the unit's achievements. "We will transfer the lessons learned from training and the results of the past year to the Army to inform force design and future experimentation," it said.

According to CBS News, a change in leadership lies behind the decision to end the drone mission.

Former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George, who had championed integrating unmanned systems into frontline units, was dismissed by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in April, with Deputy Chief of Staff Lundy stepping into the role. One official said that under George, the prevailing view had been that the unit would continue its drone mission.

A guidance document titled "The Army Azimuth," which Lundy released Wednesday, did not contain the word "drone" once. In it, Lundy wrote, "Yet there are timeless truths in war," adding, "This is the Army we must be."