30MAR

Gauntlet II confirmed for August 2026

1 min read

20:09UTC

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.

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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:DefenseScoop·Breaking Defense·Fortune

Mentions:JIATF-401 →Drone Dominance →Pentagon →

First Reported In

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

DefenseScoop· 30 Mar 2026

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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

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Different Perspectives

Anduril

Anduril views consolidated procurement as enabling rapid scaling — the $20 billion enterprise contract replaces 120 separate Army contracts with a single vehicle. Arsenal-1's early opening positions it to argue manufacturing readiness that CCA competitors cannot yet demonstrate.

Ukrainian drone manufacturers

Ukrainian firms have battle-tested interceptors priced at $2,100–$2,500 per unit and demand from 11 nations, but the wartime export ban forces partnerships with Western firms rather than direct sales.

IISS

IISS characterises drone innovation in the Russo-Ukrainian war as adaptation within existing military paradigms rather than a transformation of warfare — a more cautious assessment than the Pentagon's procurement urgency suggests.

US Pentagon, Anduril and Shield AI

The Pentagon awarded Anduril a $20 billion enterprise vehicle and confirmed Gauntlet II's live EW red team, prioritising procurement speed over competition; Anduril began YFQ-44A production four months early. Shield AI countered by raising $2 billion and validating Hivemind on a European airframe, betting multi-platform interoperability hedges against Anduril's platform lock.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Ukraine

Zelenskyy publicly disclosed that 10 shadow drone factories have been built abroad to circumvent Ukraine's wartime export ban, signed 10-year defence deals with Saudi Arabia and Qatar, and deployed 228 specialists across five Gulf states. The disclosure is a calculated signal that the ban is fracturing and Kyiv is seeking revenue structures independent of Western aid.

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia signed a 10-year defence deal with Ukraine and accepted the deployment of Ukrainian counter-drone specialists the US declined to partner on in August 2025. The Gulf pivot reflects Riyadh's assessment that Ukrainian combat-proven doctrine at $2,500 per interceptor is more cost-effective than Patriot-dependent air defence.