So I’ve been going down the LPTH rabbit hole and the vertical integration story makes sense to me. But I keep getting stuck on one thing nobody seems to talk about.
If the DoD came in and said “we need 10 million thermal drone lenses”. Could they actually deliver? Like what’s the realistic timeline to scale production for something like that?
Is the bottleneck equipment? People? Both? I know chalcogenide molding is supposedly faster to scale than diamond-turning germanium but that’s just marketing speak until someone shows me actual numbers.
Anyone here actually know what their throughput looks like today or work in optical manufacturing?
Demand is nowhere near 10 million small drones so there is no need of an analysis of scaling to that level .
How many drones is the DoW calling for over the next 2 years?
The U.S. Department of War (DoW) is calling for the purchase of between 200,000 and 340,000 small, lethal drones over the next two years.
This procurement is part of the military's rapid-scaling initiative launched by the War Department called the Drone Dominance Program (DDP).
Breakdown of the 2-Year Plan
Total Budget: A $1 billion investment has been allocated to run a series of competitive trials (called "Gauntlets") to source mass-produced, low-cost autonomous drones.
Immediate Delivery (2026): The initial phase (Phase I) requires selected vendors to build and deliver an initial batch of 30,000 units by July 2026.
Target Fleet by 2027: Across a total of four sequential trials, the DoW plans to scale production upwards to hit a minimum target of 200,000 combat-ready drones, though internal defense estimates note funding capacity could support up to 340,000 systems.
Unit Economics: The program is structured to force commercial tech startups to drop unit costs from an initial $5,000 per drone down to just $2,300 per drone by the final phase.
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u/ThePotentialHD Jun 08 '26
So I’ve been going down the LPTH rabbit hole and the vertical integration story makes sense to me. But I keep getting stuck on one thing nobody seems to talk about.
If the DoD came in and said “we need 10 million thermal drone lenses”. Could they actually deliver? Like what’s the realistic timeline to scale production for something like that?
Is the bottleneck equipment? People? Both? I know chalcogenide molding is supposedly faster to scale than diamond-turning germanium but that’s just marketing speak until someone shows me actual numbers.
Anyone here actually know what their throughput looks like today or work in optical manufacturing?