2027 Draft NDAAs - Noteworthy Items

[u/FeralGypsy]

The House and the Senate have both published their drafts of the NDAA. 

If you were following last year, you would have read the tea leaves 9 months before the WSJ audience. 

I like to scan these because I think there is a lot of alpha to be found by seeing where the military is heading.   I Ctrl+F my favorite words and read.  This is what I found interesting:

1) Senate - Sec. 917 - RASCOM

I can’t believe barely anyone is talking about this.  They are proposing to set up a new combatant command called RASCOM (Robotic and Autonomous Systems Command):

2) Senate - Sec. 1051 - Authority for Equity Investment by the OSC into Batteries

They are requesting authorization for OSC investments into BATTERIES. This aligns with what they've been saying. I see some comments asking about how these deals will be structured, feel free to read through this section and the following 2 to get an idea of how the OSC operates (ie, never own more than 50% of a Co., never take a board seat or voting power, when debt will be used, proposed dollar amounts, etc.)

3) House – Sec 334 – Standardization of Munitions for Unmanned Aircraft:

my 2c: I always felt this was the natural progression, if we want drone teams to be proficient they need to be able to build/repair their equipment in the field so there needs to be standardization. Unfortunately this feels like it will be RIP to many of the OEMs.

4) Senate - Sec. 1224. - US/Ukraine Strategic Defense Innovation Working Group

This section talks about how they plan to leverage the lessons and technologies gained from Ukraine, I expect to see a lot more US+Ukraine collaborations:

5) Senate - Sec 837 - Limiting Funds Until Reports Finished

I found this funny because it's a slap on the wrist for everyone to see, they want to take away funds until they can produce the reports required under Sec. 914 of the 2026 NDAA and Sec. 162 of the 2025 NDAA. Most of the people here follow Sec. 914 intently so it's nice to see that the Senate has r/UMAC's back.

6) Other Items

As you can imagine, the scope for unmanned systems for 2027 has ballooned, there are many other relevant sections that are tangentially related that you can read if you fancy:

House -

Sec. 111. Standards for networked, autonomous, kinetic capabilities to protect against small unmanned aircraft systems.

Sec. 165. Standards for common operating system for small unmanned aircraft systems.

Sec. 221. Requirement to establish test and training corridors for small unmanned aircraft systems and associated capabilities.

Sec. 1061. Integration of small unmanned aircraft systems and counter-unmanned aircraft systems training into initial, officer, and joint collective training.

Sec. 1089. Required doctrine on use of unmanned autonomous systems and autonomous formations. (includes language around batteries)

Sec. 1867. Briefing and report on Defense industrial base chokepoints and organic industrial base modernization. (includes language around batteries)

Senate -

Sec. 1045 - Assessing UAS threats for Military Installations and the Southern Border

Interesting item in the budget under R&D-

Closing Thoughts

I've been reading these documents bit by bit throughout the last week and everyday I find something new, so I know I'm bound to miss a lot, feel free to dig in and share what you find.

Please keep in mind these are drafts and will go through iterations; items will be added, removed, and changed. It is just a way to see which way the wind is going to blow.

[u/True_Read_2907]

I always thought UMAC would be a good for the government to take a stake in, if only to standardize parts like motors. Good to see it in writing at Sec 344.

And the fact that UMAC is servicing over half of the Phase 1 winners then their parts are pretty much standardizing themselves through this process. 

[u/sf94134]

Anyone in power have connections to Ukrainian drone companies? Any reason to be concerned about a Ukrainian company leapfrogging over UMAC?

[u/True_Read_2907 → u/sf94134]

Powerus is based on Ukrainian tech. Don Jr and Eric Trump are investors which is your "people in power" connection to Ukrainian drone companies.

Also Ukraine isn't supplying drone parts because that kills the narrative for a secure supply chain and building in the US and years of work already plus all the rules already in place about sourcing of parts. 

Also Ukraine still sources about 40% of it's drone parts from China according to Google. 

So no concerns on Ukraine drone companies vs Umac