How a Team of Marines Built the Corps’ FPV Drone Training Program from a Cold Start
Last fall, the U.S. Marine Corps had virtually no first-person view attack drones. That’s changed quickly. This episode is about how a team of marines at Weapons Training Battalion at Quantico went from a cold start to building a Marine Corps-wide first-person view drone training system. Ryan was pleased to welcome some great marines onto the show: Col. Scott Cuomo, CWO5 Steve Pearsoll, CWO3 (Gunner) Troy Hotaling, GySgt Jude Stewart, GySgt Justin Creasman, and Sgt Timothy Brockup.Since we recorded this episode, Cuomo has changed command and is off to his next assignment.This episode was broug
The rapid and successful establishment of a FPV drone training program by the Marine Corps demonstrates an urgent embrace of new military technologies in response to evolving geopolitical realities.
This initiative signals a fundamental shift in military doctrine and procurement, prioritizing agile, distributed, and software-defined capabilities derived from commercial technology.
The Marine Corps is rapidly integrating inexpensive, mass-producible FPV drones into standard operational training, fundamentally altering tactics, soldier skill sets, and the definition of a combat-ready force.
- · Defence Tech companies (drone manufacturers)
- · US Marine Corps
- · Military personnel with robotics/software skills
- · Legacy defence contractors (slow to adapt)
- · Traditional military procurement processes
The US Marine Corps rapidly expands FPV drone deployment across all units, leveraging the newly established training pipeline.
Other branches of the US military and allied nations begin to replicate or adapt the Marine Corps' cold-start FPV drone training model, accelerating global drone integration.
The proliferation of inexpensive, effective FPV drones fundamentally shifts the cost-benefit analysis of traditional large-scale military hardware, potentially leading to a re-evaluation of major defense programs.
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Read at War on the Rocks