The $50 Billion Question:
Unveiling the Scale of the Uncrewed Systems Market? What a new platform-payload framework, Ukrainian front-line units, and a quantitative approach reveal
As fast as kevlar-clad soldiers can launch drones into the no man's land in Donbas, western investors in air-conditioned offices are forwarding decks and retweeting content. They’re hyping the market for autonomous defense hardware - and helping it grow.
And the investors aren’t alone – admirals and generals agree.
But scrutiny of a broader bubble in defense investing is also growing.
In this essay, I’ll size the market for the hottest segment of defense tech: uncrewed systems. I’ll introduce a new framework: one that shows the drone market in the US may be as large as $50 Billion.
And yes, that’s about one-third of DoD procurement. But only procurement.
If $50B seems far too high, I’ll follow that analysis with more conservative bottoms-up math.
This second section will assess what US ground forces would look like were they fully equipped like Ukrainian brigades. The third section will focus on US Naval force structure. It will size the market for uncrewed ships and submarines. Last, I’ll touch on the Air Force and Navy’s more mature programs for long range and strategic aviation. Adding up these domain-centric analyses, we’ll be able to assess when the $50B top line of the platform-payload framework could become baked into budgets, who is best positioned to capture it - or if it’s valid at all.
Frameworks for Assessing the TAM (Total Addressable Market)
Platform-Payload Math Across the Joint Force: $50B
Ukraine’s Example – Tactical UAS, UGVs, and Unit-Level Math: ___
Naval Vessels and the Hybrid Fleet Architecture: ___
Major Aviation Programs - Seemingly Mature but Room to Grow: ___
#1 Platform-Payload Framework
Let’s enter an oversimplified world where everything on the battlefield is a platform or a payload. A tank is a platform, carrying payloads like weapons and sensors. A drone is a much cheaper platform carrying payloads like cameras or grenades. Even a soldier could be considered a platform for the rifle or other equipment he carries.
Platforms exist to carry payloads. But most of the payloads that platforms carry are much smaller and cheaper than the platform. Many platforms are designed around an expensive primary payload. The rest of the payloads exist to complement the primary payload, to accomplish secondary missions, or to defend the platform that is by now very expensive.
Exquisite, manned platforms will always be needed. Some payloads are too complex for drones. Others perform human-centric work. For example, Navy officers are saying they don’t need uncrewed vessels to perform three cognitively complex tasks unsupervised: navigate hectic harbors, refuel underway, and fire weapons. For Coast Guard officers, some missions require a human touch: law enforcement, search and rescue, and humanitarian assistance. As onboard compute increases, onboard algorithms grow smarter, and communications pipelines support more human-machine data flow, uncrewed systems will handle more missions reliably.
Most payloads deployed by soldiers and sailors today can be carried by smaller, cheaper uncrewed platforms. Advanced connectivity technologies, such as Starlink, have ushered in the era of ubiquitous battlefield networks. This makes sensors most effective when they are distributed. Additionally, electronic warfare packages, short-range kinetic weapons, and many sensors are most effective when brought close to the fight. Only an inexpensive, uncrewed platform can get them close at acceptable risk.
Many payloads, especially lower-cost ones, have a short range or require a line of sight to their target. They can only be used if the platform carrying them exposes itself to the target. For example, a grenade or an iPhone camera is useless 99% of the time when sitting on a ship or tank. These payloads can only be employed if a target comes within a few dozen meters. Moreover, they might have negative warfighting utility since they occupy valuable space, weight, and power on the platform. On a soldier, these payloads have some use. The soldier may throw the grenade or film with the iPhone if they get close enough to the enemy. However, this action risks the soldier's life. Historically, infantry have been the cheapest, lowest-risk method for militaries to deliver simple payload effects to the adversary.
A $1,000 drone, which is even cheaper than a soldier, can carry both a grenade and an iPhone sensor directly to the fight. The drone can deliver the grenade against the adversary, likely at a lower risk than a soldier or tank could. If the adversary has an RPG and other weapons, and there is even a 1% chance of destroying the tank or killing the soldier to deliver the payload, the 1% risk is already far greater than the value of the $1,000 drone. The drone carrying an iPhone camera can fly overhead or around corners, locating and identifying the adversary far better than a sensor on a soldier or tank. This information can then cue the tank or other weapons to fire, eliminating the adversary with only the risk of losing a $1,000 drone.
This simple logic drives two major takeaways. First, the market for cheap uncrewed platforms to carry secondary payloads is probably 19-30% of the entire $167B DoD acquisitions budget: $30-50B.
Second, it’s probably much higher.
High platform-payload cost ratios show that militaries pay a lot, and risk expensive crewed platforms they can’t make more of to deploy relatively simple payloads. The platform-payload cost ratio for a destroyer is about 1-1 according to the latest contract data. An Apache, from adding up the payload costs above, is probably 2-1 or higher. Airframes likely have high platform-payload cost ratios due to the sophisticated defensive & other systems that keep pilots in the air.
On a tank, with a main cannon likely costing $1-2M, with another $1-2M spent on targeting systems. The remaining $9M of platform cost is pure risk. Defensive and survivability-focused payloads surely contribute to the $9M cost, but these payloads are effectively baked into platform costs since their function is to get other payloads into the fight, rather than have an effect on the battlefield. And that $9M of risk doesn’t count the lives of the soldiers operating the tank or the cost of training them.
Disaggregating the tank’s payloads with a longer range strike capability further in the rear – a howitzer has 30km range and costs about $3M – and several drones carrying more sensors closer to the enemy to provide targeting: this explains today’s battlefield dynamic in Europe. Without discussing defense applications, MIT’s leading AI professor explains that robots can disaggregate human senses, from sight and smell to touch and hearing.
$30-50B assumes we spend only 1-1 on uncrewed platforms to carry $30-50B in payloads, a conservative number since today’s budgets – they’re filled with very expensive manned platforms – show the Pentagon is willing to spend 2-3x the value of the payload, just to carry that payload to the fight.
SpaceX introduced small, distributed platforms to orbit by lowering the cost of launching a single satellite platform, or “bus” in space parlance. For space, launch cost bakes into platform cost because it delivers the same value: it puts payloads where they can have effects. The space economy has doubled in size since. It continues to grow rapidly. More, cheaper satellite buses are making distributed payloads even more effective.
As happened in orbit when SpaceX lowered the platform cost, Ukraine’s battlefield today has many more sensors than any in history. $30-50B assumes we don’t spend more on sensors, jammers, and guns once they’re more useful. On attritable drones, close to the fight, they will be.
Since some may question whether $50B is really a conservative number for the uncrewed systems TAM, we can check it against bottoms-up analysis of DoD force structure. First, let’s look at how Ukrainian units are using uncrewed systems and apply these numbers to US ground force composition.
#2 Unit by Unit Bottom Up Math
The fully-equipped drone-era military unit has arrived. In War on the Rocks, Michael Kofman & Rob Lee discern a rough portrait of a Ukrainian brigade and its drones, although composition varies widely unit to unit.
This portrait of a brigade shows that about 10% of the personnel are operating and maintaining drones. FPV teams along the front lines consist of a pilot, a co-pilot, a technician, and a munitions specialist. Special teams must operate attack drones, heavy lift drones, and comms relay drones to enable longer distance flights over territory where communications are jammed.
420 of 4000 may seem like a lot. But all these personnel don’t even count the traditional intelligence, communications, artillery, and electronic warfare soldiers who support UAS ug(uncrewed aerial systems) teams and their operations. Additionally, Lee and Kofman observe that under-resourced Ukrainian units still don’t have enough drone units to support their infantry and fully execute advanced combined arms maneuver.
US Army doctrine developing around the FTUAS anchors on 6 drones per team: enough for backup, maintenance, and 24/7 coverage. Using number of personnel as a proxy (a standard CBO practice) for the amount of equipment arrives at similar math, and suggests that a brigade may need around 420 drones, most of them small and specialized.
If a single brigade can be equipped with $142M spent on 420 uncrewed systems, the US Army and US Marine Corps’ roughly 40 brigades could cost about $5.7B to equip with drones. And $5.7B is only brigade-level and lower uncrewed systems.
Today’s procurement of tactical UAS comes in two flavors. On the cheaper end, the Army and Marine Corps are buying short and medium range drones that cost between $79k and $319k. Although a price point for Replicator drones has not been offered, spending $500M on “thousands” almost certainly brings their price to $250k or lower. On the more capable end, the services are buying longer range drones like the FTUAS that cost $2.8M to $3.5M.
The Army, Marine Corps, and DoD are spending $836M in 2025 to send 2,778 drones to units, enough to equip about 6 brigades fully, or 15% of the force. However, about 2 in 3 dollars of this 2025 spending comes from Replicator, some of which will go to the Navy for swarm-style speedboats. The Army and Marine Corps budget only buys 777 drones with $336M, barely enough to equip 2 of 40 brigades.
Ukrainian experience shows that US services will need to boost their tactical and operational UAS procurement to nearly $1B per year in order to buy enough drones to equip all 40 brigades and refresh hardware every 5-6 years.
The Army is also developing several lines of uncrewed ground vehicles (UGVs). Several companies are demonstrating Robotic Combat Vehicle capabilities as the Army refines its force structure ahead of a 2027 production decision. Little information is available about the cost, number of systems, or program size for the Robotic Combat Vehicle, but major vehicle procurement programs often spend around $500M per year. The Army has already spent nearly $1B procuring over 700 small UGVs (known as SMETs) to transport equipment for squads. Ukrainian squads use similar UGVs daily for casualty evacuation, ammo re-supply and more.
With programs evolving as the Pentagon learns, leading companies like Milrem and Anduril are placing bets, hoping the Army could spend $2B+ in future years on UGVs. Ground forces could thus spend $1.5 - $3B per year on uncrewed aerial and ground vehicles.
Navy and Air Force UAS force structure will surely look different. However, were the Navy to equip each of its 300 ships with 5 of the Marines $3.5M long range reconnaissance drones, it would spend $5.3B over several years to do so, or close to $1B per year. The recent US Coast Guard $198M contract for Shield AI drones suggests bigger spending from the Navy for uncrewed ISR will come.
Air Force spending on smaller UAS would likely be lower still, but overall spending on tactical and operational UAS will likely sit in the $2-3B per year range. Although Ukrainian and Middle Eastern battlefronts have seen naval and aerial combat, none yet offers a clear portrait of a fully equipped Navy or Air Force operating with a developed crewed-uncrewed force architecture.
Frameworks for Assessing the TAM
Platform-Payload Math Across the Joint Force: $50B
Tactical UAS, UGVs, and Unit-Level Math - Ukraine’s Example: $2.5-5B
Naval Vessels and the Hybrid Fleet Architecture: ___
Major Aviation Programs - Seemingly Mature but Room to Grow: ___
#3 Naval Forces & the Hybrid Fleet Architecture
In their shipbuilding plans, at their Capitol Hill testimony, and during their prepared remarks to industry, senior admirals have signaled that about a third of their future fleet will be uncrewed. Sometimes up to 40%. With a $32B shipbuilding budget, the Navy could spend $5-8B per year on uncrewed ships and submarines, which are smaller and cheaper than exquisite, crewed ones.
Today, the Navy’s uncrewed vessel spend is growing 30-40% year-on-year, but the flagship programs Large Uncrewed Surface Vessel ($300M+ per LUSV), Medium USV ($32M+ per MUSV), and Extra Large Uncrewed Undersea Vessel ($80M+ per XLUUV) have each been limping through the testing and acquisition milestones, delaying procurement spending. Each of these programs could reach levels around $1B per year of procurement, as LUSV is scheduled to.
Frigates and Littoral Combat Ships, two troubled shipbuilding programs, were both meant to bring lower cost, more distributed capability to the fleet. The intent of these two programs in addition the Navy’s three main UxV programs suggests there could be room in Navy budgets for up to 5 programs. If two programs spend only $1B and three others spend $1-2B, spending could be in the $5-8B range. One of these programs could also support Marine Corps and Army ambitions for lower-cost logistics vessels that can cover long Pacific distances.
Frameworks for Assessing the TAM
Platform-Payload Math Across the Joint Force: $50B
Tactical UAS, UGVs, & Unit-Level Math - Ukraine’s Example: $2.5-5B
Naval Vessels and the Hybrid Fleet Architecture $5-8B
Major Aviation Programs - Seemingly Mature but Room to Grow: ___
#4 Long Range Aviation Programs
The Air Force’s thinking about its flagship uncrewed program offers insight into future drone procurement budgets. The CCA (Collaborative Combat Aircraft), which should arrive in combat around 2028, will cost $30 million each. And the service will procure around 1,000 of them, according to Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall. CCA procurement price tag: $30 billion
Although CCA has earned recent news coverage for down-selecting non-traditional defense contractors, it is overshadowed in the budget by NGAD. The Next Generation Air Dominance platform, a manned platform which will replace the F-22 raptor, will cost hundreds of millions each. A fleet of 250 NGADs, at around $300M each would create a $75B program.
With the flagship combat aircraft programs spending procurement dollars at a $75B-to-$30B crewed-to-uncrewed ratio, these programs suggest 29% of air force procurement could go toward uncrewed aviation. With the Air Force and Navy together procuring $36B of aircraft annually, 29% would bring $10.5B of uncrewed aviation purchasing per year.
Although ISR and logistics spending might not look like combatants, the services have operated large reconnaissance drone programs for decades. The Navy’s MQ-25 Stingray carrier based refueler, nearing readiness for the fleet, is already a billion dollar logistics aviation program. 29% is a conservative number because uncrewed aircraft have yet to prove themselves in complex aerial combat, but have shown repeated effectiveness and maturity accomplishing simpler reconnaissance and logistics missions.
Frameworks for Assessing the TAM
Platform-Payload Math Across the Joint Force: $30-50B
Tactical UAS, UGVs, & Unit-Level Math - Ukraine’s Example: $2.5-5B
Naval Vessels and the Hybrid Fleet Architecture $5-8B
Major Aviation Programs - Seemingly Mature but Room to Grow: $10.5B
Together the ground-level UAS and UGVs, the Navy’s uncrewed fleet, and the multi-billion-dollar drone programs maturing under the Air Force and Navy – these segments could make up a market of $18-$23.5 Billion. This number may be well-below the $30-50B suggested by the platform-payload framework, but doesn’t necessarily refute it.
The bottoms-up analysis warfare-domain by warfare-domain fails to account for many systems. Most notably uncrewed space systems and expendable payload delivery systems from missiles to torpedoes to speedboats - all of these make up growing portions of the budget.
All platforms operated by the US Space Force are uncrewed.
Missiles too, are simple uncrewed platforms for delivering warhead payloads. On the sea, uncrewed speedboats loaded with explosives race along the surface, drawing fire from ship defenders, just as missiles arrive from another angle to slam into the vulnerable target. Over cities, suicide drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles bear down on civilians. Together, they create dilemmas for defenders. The mission of these platforms: deliver kinetic payloads.
Additional Uncrewed Systems Spending:
- Space Force procurement: $4B
- Army missile procurement: $6B
- Navy missile & torpedo procurement: $6.5B
- Air Force missile procurement: $4.5B
Together, these budgets add $21B more to the uncrewed systems total. Even at a conservative 50% spend on autonomy, that’s $10.5-$21B more. Adding these numbers in, the original bottoms-up numbers now reach $28.5-$44.5B, not far from $30-50B and still not counting some granular but important tech vertices.
But the numbers don’t matter.
Whether the DoD will buy $18B, $25B, or $70B of drones in future decades doesn’t make a difference for decision-makers today. Capital allocators are operating fund-to-fund. Even acquisitions experts in Congress, with a long strategic view, are making decisions about spending on five year budget cycles.
Looking Past the Numbers - Takeaways
Investments in enabling technology – imagine autonomy software that could help uncrewed ground vehicles reliably navigate a burnt battlefield or communicate through contested spectrum – will help unlock whole verticals. As tech matures, more advanced use cases will enable DoD to spend confidently on additional programs.
Reliable uncrewed platforms that can carry many types of payloads will become the backbone of the autonomous fleet, as the Humvee has on the ground and several airframes have in the skies. These platforms will not need to replace humans, but they will need to operate reliably alongside them.
For investors and builders, the questions that matters most are when and who. The acquisition and tech maturity - i.e. whether a given autonomous system is 5 years or 8 years from major spending - will make or break whole companies. Bet on and build a new drone too early: the investment is wasted and the company could run out of money. Bet on and build too late: you won’t even be eligible to compete for the big contract.
The question of who matters because technology is changing. The Air Force asked Anduril and General Atomics to build a major aircraft platform because these relatively new entrants are better equipped to build software-centric uncrewed systems than are the legacy defense industrial companies. New entrants seem better at building drones. Incumbents seem better (although not that good) at building massive ships. Fierce competition will likely ensue over big program dollars for sophisticated uncrewed systems.
What this exercise has made most vivid to me: we have only reached the shallow waters of the vast market for uncrewed vessels, vehicles, and systems. Our ground forces only have the budget now to equip 2 of 40 brigades. There is hype around small uncrewed naval vessels brought by Ukraine’s Black Sea accomplishments, Task Force 59, and Houthi Red Sea USV attacks. But this hype belies the budget. Speedboats don’t even show up in the procurement budget, although the Navy is building serious, large uncrewed programs. Looking at US DoD procurement, peacetime budgets will demand tens of billions in hardware and software per year.
In The Origins of Victory: How Disruptive Military Innovation Determines the Fate of Great Powers, Andrew Krepinevich explains the phase most militaries now occupy. Militaries who successfully harness innovation “devoted considerable resources to creating options that enabled them to move with relative speed to exploit a discontinuous shift in the character of warfare (414).”
In Europe and the Middle East, militaries with a fraction the financial or technology resources of the US are harnessing this discontinuous shift in the character of warfare. Warfare will continue to change.
In Washington and New York, scrupulous bureaucrats and Patagonia-clad investors are helping. They are placing bets and creating options to secure our future. The Ukrainians, Russians, and Houthis do not have that luxury