Poland unveils a new jet-powered strike drone

Polish defense manufacturer WB Group has unveiled Gladius 2, a new loitering munition built for a reduced radar and heat signature and powered by a turbojet engine for a fast run into the target area.

The company also refers to the weapon as Warmate 30, tying it to WB Group’s existing Warmate family of strike drones.

The munition carries an interchangeable 30 kg (66 lb) warhead and can be fired from a shipping container or from a dedicated launcher vehicle. WB Group designed Gladius 2 to work with its broader Gladius reconnaissance-strike system, which pairs the FT-5 Łoś reconnaissance drone with strike effectors under a battle-management system called Topaz, letting an operator spot a target with one aircraft and destroy it with another.

Gladius 2 builds on the original Gladius system, which WB Group has offered with a range of more than 100 km (62 miles) using earlier, electrically powered Warmate variants. Development work on the newer version began in September 2022 and has drawn on lessons from the war in Ukraine, according to the company. WB Group first showed early visuals of the Gladius 2 effector at industry events earlier in 2026 and has said it plans to give the system its first full public unveiling at MSPO, Poland’s main defense trade show in Kielce.

WB Group names its Warmate variants for their warhead weight. The company has previously said it was developing Warmate 5, Warmate 20 and Warmate 50 models alongside the lighter Warmate 3, which carries a smaller warhead out to 70 km (43 miles). Warmate 30 places the new design between those weight classes, with a 30 kg warhead matching the payload of what WB Group has also called Warmate 2 in past product literature.

The Polish military has already committed billions of złoty to expanding its Gladius and Warmate inventories. In May 2026, Poland’s Armaments Agency signed contracts with WB Group for more than 400 Warmate loitering munition systems, nearly 200 FlyEye reconnaissance drones and 12 battery-level fire modules for the Gladius system, financed in part through the European Union’s SAFE defense-loan program. WB Group has not said whether Gladius 2 or Warmate 30 is included in that order or represents a separate future offering.

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