CLAY COUNTY, Fla. — Camp Blanding will soon host the largest-scale counter-drone destruction event in US history.
The Military Drone Crucible Competition, organized by the National Drone Association, will include members from various military branches and use roughly 500 Chinese-made drones donated by the State of Florida for target practice and other possible battlefield scenarios.
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Nate Ecelbarger, President of the National Drone Association, argues counter-drone training exercises are imperative to ensure the US military is up to speed and proficient at not only defending against drones, but also using them offensively.
“Drones and their applications to modern warfare are incredibly complex. Each of the services is accelerating at different speeds,” said Ecelbarger. ”We set up these Drone Crucible Competitions, not just to be an inter-service competition. The primary purpose is to ensure that operational units have a venue to exchange lessons learned and collaborate on tactics and technologies that’ll ensure the nation’s competitive advantage.”
The 500 drones donated for the event once belonged to government entities throughout Florida, including law enforcement agencies.
They were confiscated as a result of a law passed in 2021 that prohibited government entities in Florida from using Chinese-made drones due to potential security concerns.
“The concern the Chinese had some software in these drones that would provide that back to China was the overriding concern and obviously a politically popular issue,” said former State Senator Jeff Brandes.
Brandes, who now serves as President of the Florida Policy Project, noted that the drone ban caused a lot of heartburn.
Some estimates putting the total value of the equipment lost around $200 million.
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Starting in 2023, those drones had to be replaced with authorized models.
It was a deadline that put law enforcement in a pinch, with several agencies expressing their concerns in a contentious Senate committee hearing in March of that year.
“I recommended that they ask the legislature for an extension. That did not happen, and they were forced to basically abandon these drones and to go out and purchase US-manufactured drones that are by every standard metric not as superior,” said Brandes.
In JSO’s case, 20 drones were given up, and the agency received a state grant for half a million dollars to purchase 19 replacement drones.
Now, those confiscated drones will be put to work training US soldiers and formally decommissioned with shotguns.
“The State of Florida had allocated these drones for destruction anyways, and so we’re just playing the commonsense approach here,” said Ecelbarger. ”We’d rather see them used for counter-drone operations than in an incinerator.”
As far as security concerns surrounding the use of Chinese-made drones in military training exercises go, Ecelbarger couldn’t get too specific, but assured that steps have been taken to ensure national security is protected.
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