Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division have been testing two small drone platforms selected under the Pentagon’s Replicator initiative, flying them during live-fire conditions at two separate installations in recent weeks. The exercises paired the Anduril Industries Ghost-X with the Performance Drone Works C-100 to observe artillery strikes and provide aerial reconnaissance for ground troops. Together, the drills mark the most visible field integration yet of drones the Defense Department chose specifically because they are cheap enough to lose in combat.
What is verified so far
The 101st Airborne Division held a live-fire event at Fort Campbell on March 12, 2026, where soldiers explored how small unmanned aircraft systems could support ground forces in contested environments. According to an official Army report on the Fort Campbell exercise, the 1st and 2nd Mobile Brigade Combat Teams and the 101st Combat Aviation Brigade all participated. Rather than treating drones as a niche capability, planners folded them into combined-arms operations that included maneuver, aviation, and fires, signaling that the division is experimenting with how these systems might function as routine tools for line units.
Less than a month later, a separate event at the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Johnson, Louisiana, put the same drone types through a more narrowly defined mission. Soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division’s Multi-Functional Reconnaissance Company, assigned to the 3rd Mobile Brigade, prepared, launched, and flew both the Ghost-X and C-100 while artillery units fired live rounds. Defense Department video from JRTC shows troops using the drones to support gunnery, with the Ghost-X providing broader overwatch while the C-100 focused on impact areas; the footage of these artillery observations confirms that the platforms were operated in close coordination with indirect fire assets on April 6, 2026.
The division of labor between the two systems appears deliberate. In the JRTC material, the Ghost-X is positioned to offer layered aerial coverage over a wider sector, while the C-100 tracks individual rounds as they land. A still photograph released through DVIDS captures a soldier manipulating a controller as the C-100 flies over a dusty training area; the image of the C-100 in flight underscores that the drone was used at low altitude and within direct line of sight of artillery impact zones. That pairing (one aircraft scanning the broader battlespace and another concentrating on precision feedback) matches how many militaries now use small drones to tighten the loop between fires and reconnaissance.
Both platforms carry explicit Pentagon backing. Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks identified the Ghost-X and C-100 as the Army’s selections for its company-level small unmanned aircraft systems portfolio under what the department calls Replicator 1.2. In a February 2024 release describing these additional Replicator allocations, Hicks framed the effort as part of a broader push to field attritable autonomous systems at scale. The term “attritable” is central: these drones are meant to be affordable enough that units can accept losing them to enemy fire, electronic attack, or simple mishap without suffering a crippling loss of capability.
Hicks had previously laid out the overarching logic of Replicator in an earlier announcement, which emphasized all-domain attritable autonomous systems as a way to counter large, sophisticated adversaries with swarms of cheaper platforms. That initial statement on the first tranche of Replicator work established the program’s framework and timeline before specific Army platform choices, such as the Ghost-X and C-100, were made public. The live-fire trials with the 101st Airborne Division represent an early attempt to translate that strategic concept into concrete tactics for brigade and company commanders.
The decision to run these drones through live artillery environments, rather than benign test ranges, is significant. In both Kentucky and Louisiana, soldiers had to contend with shock waves from nearby detonations, the electromagnetic clutter that accompanies large exercises, and the practical challenges of flying small aircraft while coordinating with gun crews and ground maneuver elements. These conditions are closer to what units might face in combat than a scripted demonstration. If the drones can maintain data links, deliver clear video, and avoid catastrophic failures amid repeated blasts and dust clouds, that will be a strong indicator that they are ready for more widespread fielding.
What remains uncertain
Despite the visibility of these events, crucial performance data remains out of public view. The Army has not released after-action reports, quantitative measures of mission success, or statistics on launch reliability and flight endurance for the Ghost-X and C-100 during these drills. There is no official tally of how many sorties were flown, how many experienced technical issues, or whether any aircraft were lost. Without those metrics, outside observers cannot assess whether the systems are approaching operational reliability or are still in an experimental phase that requires substantial refinement.
Equally notable is the absence of detailed commentary from commanders and soldiers who participated. The verified record consists of institutional write-ups, brief captions, and visual documentation, but there are no on-the-record interviews with brigade or company leaders describing how the drones affected training outcomes. That silence leaves open important questions: Did the drones meaningfully improve the speed or accuracy of artillery adjustments? Were operators able to set up and fly the systems quickly under time pressure? How did the drones perform in the face of simulated electronic warfare, if such threats were included in the scenarios?
The relationship between the March 12 Fort Campbell exercise and the April 6 JRTC event is also unclear. Both involved the 101st Airborne Division and the same two drone platforms, but official materials do not explain whether they were planned as sequential phases of a single evaluation campaign or arose from separate training requirements that happened to use identical equipment. If the events are linked as part of a structured, multi-site test plan, that would suggest a more deliberate Army-wide push to integrate these systems. If they are independent experiments, the activity may reflect localized enthusiasm within the division rather than a coordinated service-level rollout.
There is, moreover, no publicly available comparison between the Ghost-X and C-100 and the legacy small unmanned systems they are intended to supplement or replace. Official releases do not provide side-by-side data on endurance, payload capacity, range, or resistance to jamming relative to earlier Army drones. Cost-per-unit figures are similarly absent, beyond the general framing of these platforms as “affordable” and “attritable.” Until more detailed testing reports or budget documents emerge, claims about superior performance or cost-effectiveness should be treated as aspirational rather than proven.
The broader integration pathway for these drones within the Army’s force structure is another open question. Replicator 1.2 designates them as company-level assets, but the exact manning, training, and maintenance concepts have not been spelled out in public sources. It is not yet clear whether specialized drone teams will be embedded in every rifle company, whether existing reconnaissance elements will absorb the mission, or whether dedicated small-UAS platoons will support multiple units. Those organizational choices will shape how often soldiers train with the systems and how deeply they are woven into standard tactics.
How to read the evidence
The most solid evidence in this case comes from two categories: formal Defense Department announcements and official military imagery. The DoD releases that define Replicator’s scope and list the Ghost-X and C-100 as selected platforms are primary policy records. They reliably establish that senior leaders have committed to fielding attritable drones at the company level and have chosen these specific systems for the Army. What they do not provide is any independent verification that the platforms meet their advertised performance goals under realistic conditions.
Army reporting on the Fort Campbell event and the DVIDS materials from JRTC serve a different evidentiary function. They confirm that named units from the 101st Airborne Division physically trained with these drones on specific dates, in the presence of live artillery fire. The video and still images show soldiers assembling launch equipment, manipulating controllers, and observing flight operations. Such visual records are difficult to dispute as to time, place, and basic activity. However, they are inherently selective: they depict successful launches and controlled conditions, not mishaps, malfunctions, or moments when the technology failed to deliver useful information.
For readers and analysts, the safest interpretation is to treat these sources as proof of early operational experimentation, not of fully validated combat readiness. The exercises demonstrate that the Ghost-X and C-100 have progressed beyond laboratory prototypes and isolated test flights to the point where line units can employ them in complex training environments. At the same time, the lack of transparent performance data, user feedback, and comparative benchmarks means that many of the most important questions about their battlefield value remain unanswered.
As Replicator moves forward, the key indicators to watch will be whether more units beyond the 101st begin integrating these drones into routine training, whether the Army releases formal evaluations or doctrine updates that reference their use, and whether budget documents show sustained procurement at scale. Until then, the Fort Campbell and JRTC drills should be seen as early, carefully staged glimpses of a program that still has substantial distance to travel between high-level ambition and proven combat capability.
More from Morning Overview
*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
