A Marine Corps Systems Command industry brief in May 2025 asked suppliers to reduce operator workload and enable several loitering munitions to be controlled simultaneously from one ground station. That requirement captures the next scaling problem more precisely than another debate about autonomy levels. Air vehicles can be simplified, launchers multiplied and routine navigation automated. Human attention cannot be generated on the same curve.

The operational limit is not simply how many weapons a force can launch or connect to a console. It is how many target confirmations, abort decisions, handoffs, degraded feeds and other consequential events a crew can resolve when several weapons become tactically relevant together. The bottleneck moves from aircraft control into decision-making.