MAILLY-LE-CAMP, France — France drone-combat units are moving from experiment to scale, with tank and reconnaissance crews retraining as first-person view pilots and the Army preparing to field roughly 15 such formations by summer 2027, according to senior officers.
Corporal Igor, 21, exemplifies the shift. After serving as a gunner on the AMX 10 RC reconnaissance vehicle’s 105 mm cannon, he now flies FPV strike drones using goggles and a handheld controller. During a June exercise east of Paris with the 1st Marine Infantry Regiment, or 1er RIMa, he guided an FPV drone along a forest path while concealed in tall grass.
“We’re switching specialties, we’re keeping up with the times,” the corporal said of the transition from armored gunnery to drones.
Prompted by battlefield lessons from Ukraine, the 1er RIMa turned one of its three light cavalry squadrons into an all-drone unit. Results have been strong enough that the Army is accelerating the creation of additional formations. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Jacques de Montgros told lawmakers on Oct. 14 that France recently deployed a drone-combat unit to Romania under Mission Aigle to reinforce NATO’s eastern flank, with a second unit due in Poland for an exercise next month. “We are really at a point of scaling up our efforts in these areas,” he said.
The experimental squadron has become a template for new tactical drone elements and has highlighted how NATO-style combined-arms units can be exposed to drone threats. In recent exercises, 1er RIMa pilots hunted armored vehicles and command posts, interrupting enemy maneuver and force buildup. The squadron blends surveillance platforms, one-way FPV attack drones and loitering munitions, and it partners with French companies on swarming, autonomous terminal guidance and launch canisters.
The concept emerged in late 2023 from the regiment’s training and operations office, building on a proposal by Capt. Guillaume, an open-source intelligence specialist who had analyzed the war in Ukraine. When a prototype unit was tested, drones caused “a crazy amount of disruption,” said Col. Aymeric Caussin, now 1er RIMa commander. “So we said, right, let’s go for it.”
France drone-combat units and cavalry heritage
Cavalry heritage
Shaped by the regiment’s light cavalry roots, the squadron was designed as a mobile force with drones as its primary weapons system, said Lt. Col. Remi, who helped implement the idea. The unit applies classic principles of reconnaissance, fixing and outflanking, with emphasis on mobility, dispersion and stealth. “We needed a squadron that evoked the light cavalry: ‘drone’ because that’s its primary weapon system, and ‘hunter’ because that’s what we actually do in the field,” he said.
The regiment trialed the approach at Exercise Hedgehog in Estonia in May 2025, sending about 10 pilots within a French combined-arms tactical group. The U.S. 5th Squadron, 7th Cavalry Regiment acted as the opposing force with dismounted troops and M2A4 Bradley Fighting Vehicles. French pilots, roughly 5% of the group’s active strength, accounted for about 20% of the daily attrition inflicted on the American opposing force with Bradleys, said Maj. Sylvain, head of operations at 1er RIMa.
The outcome convinced Army leaders to formalize the unit. Within two months the drone squadron became official, and in early April 2026 it was declared fully operational. “It was the proof of concept,” said Maj. Sylvain.
The squadron brought several startups to Hedgehog 25, including Alta Ares and Icarus Swarms, while Naval Group joined at its own expense. The regiment works with Alta Ares on AI-enabled detection and reconnaissance, with Icarus Swarms on autonomous navigation and computer-assisted piloting, and with Naval Group on launch canisters. During the large-scale French exercise Orion 2026, the unit claimed multiple regimental command posts, logistics convoys and counter-drone or air-defense assets, according to Caussin.
‘Quite a bit of damage’
Responsiveness stood out. FPV drones rapidly plugged gaps and struck along the enemy’s main axis of effort, and pilots targeted command posts to disrupt decision-making, Caussin said. Staff Sgt. Tristan, a platoon leader for FPV pilots who previously spent about 12 years on the AMX 10 RC, said ISR drones located command posts several kilometers behind the line, enabling artillery or FPV strikes. The regiment inflicted “quite a bit of damage,” he said, while cautioning that a capable adversary with similar assets could have done the same to their armored cars.
In March at Mailly-le-Camp, the regiment served as the opposing force for another light cavalry regiment, virtually destroying enemy armor and paralyzing movement by striking vehicles, command posts and troop concentrations. The outcome was “severe,” said Igor. The Army decided to equip five more regiments with all-drone squadrons for 2027. With the drone effort accelerating, six combat-drone units will be operational by year-end, said Gen. Bruno Baratz, who leads Future Combat Command, at an innovation day hosted by the 6th Armored Brigade in September.
Brigade commander Gen. Maxime do Tran said his formation was assigned to stand up two of the five squadrons but decided to create a third with internal resources. One of the brigade’s infantry regiments is already deployed to Romania with a drone-combat unit. “The trial conducted by the 1st Marine Infantry Regiment demonstrated the value of this capability,” he said. “We did not wait.”
Because the 1er RIMa unit is closer to cavalry reconnaissance, the brigade adopted a different model for its infantry regiments. Drone pilots previously trained on Akeron antitank missiles or 81 mm mortars retain those skills through dual training. The brigade learned that when weather grounded drones, those capabilities preserved lethality. It also found a mass problem. Even with initial drone saturation, a numerically stronger enemy could still break through if ground forces were insufficient. “We quickly get overwhelmed if we do not also have men behind them with rifles or other weapons,” said Do Tran. Combat-drone units will be tailored to their host regiments, he added. In light cavalry, drones emphasize reconnaissance and intelligence. In infantry units, the focus is lethal fires. For Leclerc tank regiments, the primary role is screening and protecting the armored column.
“It is an entirely new set of rules to learn,” Baratz said. “The Army’s task today is to reinvent itself to be effective in this modern combat.”
Drone vulnerabilities
Officers cautioned that drones do not render traditional systems obsolete. Weather, electronic jamming and other countermeasures can degrade UAVs. Older systems remain needed for deep strike, close contact and direct engagement, they said. The March results must also be viewed in context. According to Maj. Sylvain, the opposing unit had limited anti-drone capabilities and few drones of its own. Caussin added that the open terrain during Orion limited realistic jamming by the opposing force.
To raise the bar, the 1er RIMa asked the Centac combined-arms training center at Mailly-le-Camp to create a more contested electronic warfare environment for its June rotation. The center added 12-gauge shotguns to infantry kits and stressed camouflage. Troops used camouflaged umbrellas from a sporting goods retailer while moving to obscure their visual signature, which slowed operators and forced more careful target identification amid abundant wildlife, said Lt. Col. Guillaume, head of training at the 1st Light Infantry Battalion that staffs the center. The opposing force dispersed more, avoided grouped movements and kept vehicles farther to the rear, advancing only when conditions permitted. The transparency provided by drones changed how the fight unfolded, he said.
While the drone edge was less pronounced in June than in March, the 1er RIMa squadron posted the top score among roughly 30 Army units that trained at Mailly-le-Camp over 12 months, according to Guillaume. Caussin said the tougher event better reflected how the squadron fares against a more capable adversary. The regiment also explored how restored maneuver might play out if the kind of deadlock seen in Ukraine were broken. The drone squadron’s mobility would let it shift rapidly around the battlespace to assess and plug gaps. Still, situational awareness alone is insufficient. Turning intelligence into action quickly matters as much as the number of drones airborne, and infantry elements remain necessary for direct kinetic effects, Guillaume said.
Jam detection
Electronic warfare at times reduced drone effectiveness, allowing the opposing force to introduce armor to secure temporary advantages, Guillaume said. Because jamming is energy-intensive, it is not always continuous. The regiment learned it must better distinguish between genuine enemy jamming and failure due to its own execution, Caussin noted. For him, the drills confirmed that the drone squadron complements rather than replaces armor, adding a layer to combined-arms operations. As opponents adapted, the squadron prioritized targets instead of observing and striking at will. In a drone-saturated environment, advantage comes from controlling tempo, combining drones and mobile forces to observe, adapt and act faster than the adversary, he said. The unit’s standout feature is its ability to “manipulate the enemy’s decision-making time” and seize initiative, Caussin added. The regiment has begun testing drone-on-drone engagements in small-scale exercises at the regimental level. “It is always difficult to talk about game-changers,” he said. “This is the reality of the battlefield and it enables tactical effects with decisive impact.”
At 1er RIMa, FPV pilots operate in teams with a driver, a vehicle commander and sometimes a fourth operator using a Parrot-made drone or other ISR platform to designate targets. Igor said he often works with one teammate as a spotter. Teams retain Heckler & Koch rifles, a heavy machine gun for close defense and an AT4 shoulder-fired antitank weapon.
Farther reach
Compared with firing the AMX 10 RC’s gun, the drone teams can hide vehicles and launch unseen. “We hole up in a corner with our vehicle and launch our drones from hiding,” said Tristan. The drone squadron mirrors an armored reconnaissance structure, with a command and logistics platoon and four combat platoons: one ISR, two FPV and one operating longer-range loitering munitions. With about 100 pilots among 120 personnel, the unit can collect intelligence and strike across areas typically covered by much larger formations, with reach approaching that of a full combined-arms tactical group, said Remi.
The influx of pilots changes logistics. Supply trucks carry drones instead of large quantities of ammunition, and the unit needs battlefield power generation to keep batteries charged. Igor said he might expend 10 to 20 drones during a single training day of simulated strikes.
Leaders stress drones will not decide battles alone. The squadron is designed to integrate with conventional units and allied forces from the outset, said Sylvain. The regiment is also working with industry on concepts to improve effectiveness. One approach, described by officers as “queen and workers,” envisions an operator controlling a mother drone that autonomously directs multiple “worker” drones launched from a canister “hive.” The intent is fire-and-forget autonomy. The operator assigns a mission, the queen identifies the designated target, then dispatches workers to destroy it without further input, said Sylvain. Because the squadron is designed to stay mobile rather than dig in, the idea is to mount four hives at the rear of a vehicle with a ready stock of drones. “Just open the hives, send out four drones on autopilot, and let them carry out their mission,” said Tristan. While “not everything works perfect,” Sylvain said the team and partners have solved queen-worker communications and terminal guidance.
Hit probability varies. Novice FPV pilots may achieve 5% to 10% rates, compared with about 30% for experienced operators and more than 90% for the AMX 10 RC cannon, Tristan said. Autonomous terminal guidance is expected to raise drone hit rates to around 80% to 90%. Doctrinal goals include FPV strikes at 10 kilometers, with communications range the main hurdle, Sylvain said. The ISR platoon flies several Parrot models and is beginning to approach the 20-kilometer ranges called for in doctrine.
‘We’re not naive’
Officers declined direct comparisons with Ukrainian units, which Sylvain described as battle-hardened. “We’re fully aware of our current level of capability, and we know we still have a lot of work to do to be ready to deploy the drone-combat squadron in a high-intensity conflict,” he said. The June rotation also focused on counter-UAV techniques: camouflage, cover and constant listening for drones to either engage them with specific weapons or hide. “In the heat of battle, chasing down a vehicle, also staying alert for anti-drone is difficult,” Tristan said.
The persistent drone threat has altered daily routines. Rather than fixed mealtimes, soldiers snack throughout the day, and sleep is fragmented as surveillance continues at night. The regiment has adapted its command structure as well, splitting command posts and deploying them in the same armored vehicles as combat units to avoid detection.
“We wonder how we can protect ourselves from this too,” Igor said. “If we are capable of doing it, we are not the only ones who know how. So we will try to find ways to protect ourselves from drones, because they are really effective.”
Some of the lessons being drawn from the war in Ukraine are also shaping wider NATO thinking about autonomous warfare and force design.