12AUG

Gauntlet II confirmed for August 2026

1 min read

14:17UTC

The next competitive drone trial will test 50,000 to 60,000 drones against live electronic warfare. Vendors that fail the red team get eliminated.

← Back to Chinese cameras in the Navy's robot boats Jump to analysis ↓

TechnologyDeveloping

Key takeaway

Gauntlet II will eliminate drone vendors whose systems cannot survive electronic warfare.

The Pentagon confirmed Gauntlet II for August 2026 at an undisclosed location described as "brutally hot."⁠¹ The exercise will target procurement of 50,000 to 60,000 additional drones, with JIATF-401 running a live counter-UAS red team using GPS jamming, communications denial, and electronic warfare.

Phase I delivered 30,000 one-way attack drones from 11 vendors at roughly $5,000 per unit. Phase II raises the stakes: drones that cannot survive contested electromagnetic environments will be eliminated from the programme. The total target remains 300,000 or more drones by 2027 under a $1.1 billion budget. Two additional Gauntlets are planned beyond Phase II. Skycutter's 99.3/100 Gauntlet I score will mean nothing if its design cannot withstand active jamming.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

In August the Pentagon will hold a competition where it attacks participating drones with GPS jamming and communications disruption while trying to shoot them down with counter-drone systems. Drones that survive this electronic warfare gauntlet will be selected for bulk orders of 50,000 to 60,000 units. Drones that fail simply leave the programme. This is a significant escalation from Phase I, which tested basic performance. Phase II tests whether drones can actually operate in war conditions. Skycutter won Phase I with a near-perfect score, but that test did not include active electronic warfare.

What could happen next?

Consequence
Gauntlet II's EW survivability requirement will eliminate a significant proportion of Phase I qualifiers, concentrating procurement among a smaller number of technically advanced vendors.
Short term · High
Opportunity
Vendors that pass Gauntlet II gain preferred supplier status for up to 300,000 drones, representing a multi-year contract pipeline worth hundreds of millions.
Medium term · High
Precedent
The Gauntlet model, using live adversarial testing to down-select vendors, will become the standard for all US military drone procurement and will be adopted by allied nations.
Long term · Medium

Sources:Breaking Defense

Mentions:JIATF-401 →Pentagon →Drone Dominance →Gauntlet II →Gauntlet I →

First Reported In

Update #3 · Anduril wins $20 billion counter-drone deal

Breaking Defense· 30 Mar 2026

Read original →

Causes and effects

This Event

Gauntlet II confirmed for August 2026

Introduces survivability in contested electromagnetic environments as a hard filter for mass drone procurement.

Led to

LUCAS Enters Combat With Dozens in Stock

LUCAS's combat debut with 'dozens' against a 300,000-drone target set by Gauntlet accelerated urgency for mass production ahead of Gauntlet II.

Occurred 28 Feb 2026

Read story →

Lethality Prize feeds Gauntlet II cycle

Gauntlet II confirmation (ID:1745) with its 50,000-60,000 drone Phase II target created the Lethality Prize Challenge as the payload qualification mechanism.

Occurred 14 Apr 2026

Read story →

Pentagon DAWG line jumps to $54.6bn

The Gauntlet II 50,000-60,000 drone target established the procurement scale that DAWG's $54.6B request is now sized to fund.

Occurred 21 Apr 2026

Read story →

Mountain Horse wins first Lethality Prize

Gauntlet II's August 2026 timeline and 50,000-drone target created the Lethality Prize programme whose first winner Mountain Horse Solutions is.

Occurred 29 Apr 2026

Read story →

Different Perspectives

Conservative opposition

The Conservative opposition called on the Government on 9 August to 'urgently audit' equipment for hidden Chinese components, after the Telegraph's K3 SCOUT report. No named MP has been quoted on the record; the call came at party level, alongside the Ministry of Defence's own 10 August statement that no data had been compromised.

Kraken Technology Group

Kraken Technology Group is a UK maritime-defence company based in Portsmouth that builds the K3 SCOUT, and crossed a $1bn valuation in July on a single-sourced $175m raise. The camera components reached the fleet under a third party's written security assurance, which the Platform Authority, which does not yet exist, was never positioned to check.

Navy Commercial

Navy Commercial at Whale Island published two notices on 5 August: 074032-2026, asking industry how to build a Platform Authority to certify uncrewed vessels, and 074351-2026, a GBP10m multi-role USV testbed for the Defence Chief Technology Officer. Responses on the Platform Authority close 19 August, ten days after the cameras were found transmitting to China.

HUMAIN

HUMAIN and Applied Intuition stated a 2030 target for thousands of autonomous trucks on Saudi logistics corridors. The announcement disclosed no order, fleet baseline or contract value.

Saildrone

Saildrone and Lockheed Martin demonstrated two JAGM launches from a Surveyor-class vessel at RIMPAC. The accepted record identifies no requirement, customer or production configuration behind the demonstration.

Taiwan Legislative Yuan

Taiwan's Legislative Yuan passed the Act at third reading with a small suicide uncrewed boat on the named development list. The NT$240 billion ceiling covers all unmanned domains, and the Act was not promulgated by 4 September.