Commentary: The U.S. Needs World War II Production Strategy For Drones

Ukrainian forces in their fight against Russia burned through 10,000 drones per month in 2023, casualties of communications jamming, gunfire and crashes, according to an estimate by think tank Royal United Services Institute. Most of those uncrewed air vehicles and their components came from China.

Those drone losses are a sobering reality check for the U.S. military-industrial complex, which every year produces only a fraction of what Ukraine uses up on the battlefield every 30 days. Facing those headwinds, the U.S. Defense Department needs to rethink the way it buys small reconnaissance uncrewed air vehicles (UAV) and loitering munitions. In a war with China or Russia—or both—the U.S. would likely need far higher numbers of drones.

The U.S. Army Air Forces production buildup in World War II offers valuable lessons for today’s predicament. Contrary to popular belief, despite its surprise at Japan’s Pearl Harbor attacks, the U.S. had long anticipated war and did not convert commercial automakers into mass aircraft manufacturers overnight. Washington had seen the gathering of storm clouds over Europe and Asia and had started planning for a production ramp-up in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

When war did come, the traditional defense primes—such as Boeing, North American Aviation and Consolidated Aircraft—led aircraft development and the initial production ramp-up, says Kevin Rusnak, chief historian at the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center. Commercial automakers, such as Ford Motor Co. and General Motors, were initially used to supply such components as aircraft piston engines, which shared some similarities with their car powertrain business.

Although Ford Motor’s famous Willow Run plant in Michigan, which produced nearly 9,000 Consolidated B-24 Liberator bombers, is held up as a great example of dual-use commercial production capacity, “their learning curve there was huge,” Rusnak says. “Something like three-quarters of those were built in the last 18 months of the war.”

There are parallels to be gleaned from the World War II experience. Before war breaks out, the U.S. Defense Department should look for commercial electronics manufacturers that can make cameras, electric motors and battery components for drones and loitering munitions that defense prime manufacturers could assemble. Such partnerships would boost production capacity and bring down costs.

At present, the U.S. defense sector’s scale is still small and thus costs are high. Take, for example, Anduril Industries’ latest Bolt reconnaissance quadcopter, which costs in the “low tens of thousands of dollars.” In September, China’s DJI released its new Neo quadcopter to consumer markets for $199. While the hobbyist drone lacks Anduril’s level of encrypted communications and autonomy, it boasts a high-resolution camera and the ability to follow users autonomously. It does not take much imagination to see how China could weaponize its vast consumer drone industry.

Competing against the scale of China’s electronics manufacturing is daunting, but one place Washington might look for advice is SpaceX. Last month, the company boasted that its Bastrop, Texas, factory produced more than 1 million Starlink standard flat-panel antenna kits since it opened about 10 months ago.

“Bastrop will be the largest printed circuit board manufacturing facility in the entire U.S.,” SpaceX President and Chief Operating Officer Gwynne Shotwell said during testimony before the Texas House of Representatives on Sept. 24. “I’m pretty sure we’ll be able to beat Southeast Asia in efficiency of producing those printed circuit boards.”

Speaking of Asia, the Pentagon has done surprisingly little to leverage the electronics manufacturing capacity within allied and partner countries, such as Japan, South Korea and Taiwan. It should work quickly to lower national security controls blocking international cooperation and establish joint drone development programs.

Although quadcopters, loitering munitions and other small drones are sometimes dismissed as a sideshow, their impact on the battlefield is likely to grow as they become more capable, with more autonomy and range. The battery-powered AeroVironment Switchblade 600, for instance, carries an anti-armor warhead that could be used against landing craft and has a range of more than 90 km (56 mi.)—about half the distance across the Taiwan Strait.

The reach of explosive and reconnaissance drones will grow as battery energy density improves. If it were not for price tags ranging in the tens of thousands of dollars and an anemic manufacturing capacity, the U.S. could have many more such weapons in its arsenal.