WB Group used this year's MSPO exhibition in Kielce, Poland (September 8–11, 2026), to unveil the Warmate 30, a jet-powered loitering strike drone the company is developing under its Gladius 2 initiative. The reveal, reported this week by Janes, Breaking Defense and Army Recognition, marks a significant departure from the rotary- and piston-engine Warmate munitions that have defined WB's product line for a decade — and it comes with a headline figure that puts it in a different weight class entirely: a claimed strike range of approximately 250 kilometers, which Army Recognition describes as actually exceeding that mark, reaching targets at "several hundred kilometers."
That number alone separates the Warmate 30 from the loitering munitions most NATO militaries and Ukraine's armed forces have used to date, which typically operate in the tens-of-kilometers band. Jet propulsion is the mechanism behind the jump, trading the endurance-oriented piston and electric motors of earlier Warmate variants for speed and reach suited to hitting targets deep behind the line of contact. Breaking Defense reports the drone is powered by a Polish-made turbojet engine augmented by a rocket booster, with a top speed of roughly 450 km/h (280 mph), a cruising speed above 150 km/h, and endurance of more than an hour. Janes similarly confirms the Polish-made turbojet engine and notes the airframe uses a low-profile flying-wing configuration designed to reduce its radar and thermal signature.
What WB Group Has Said About the System
According to Breaking Defense's coverage of the unveiling, the Warmate 30 is designed to "detect and engage high-value, time-sensitive targets at long range." That framing places the drone in the deep-strike category rather than the close-support loitering-munition role that made the original Warmate a familiar name on the battlefield in Ukraine. Army Recognition's report on the Gladius 2 program frames the Warmate 30 as a "jet-powered strike drone for 250 km deep strikes in GPS-denied warfare," underscoring both the range figure and the navigation capability as the two features WB Group is leading with. Breaking Defense adds that the munition carries a 30kg warhead and operates with waypoint navigation and loitering capability, integrated with WB Group's Gladius reconnaissance-strike system and Topaz command-and-control system.
GPS-denied operation is the second pillar of the pitch. Electronic warfare has become a defining feature of the Russia-Ukraine front, where GPS jamming and spoofing routinely degrade or defeat satellite-guided munitions and drones on both sides. A strike drone advertised as capable of navigating and engaging targets without relying on GPS signals is explicitly aimed at that contested environment. Army Recognition specifies the mechanism: the Warmate 30 uses onboard artificial intelligence that lets it continue its mission when GNSS signals are jammed or unavailable. Neither Janes nor Breaking Defense elaborates further on the navigation system, but the AI-based approach Army Recognition describes is consistent with WB Group building the system around the assumption that satellite navigation will be contested or unavailable in its intended operating theater.
From Gladius to Gladius 2
The Warmate 30 is being developed under WB Group's Gladius 2 initiative, per Janes' report from the MSPO 2026 show floor — Army Recognition uses "Gladius 2" and "Warmate 30" as effectively interchangeable designations for the same program. Janes reports the system is intended as an addition to the existing Gladius inventory rather than a replacement, exceeding the original Gladius UAVs in both range and payload. Launch is handled via a rocket booster-assisted containerized launcher compatible with the launching ramps already used by Gladius 1 platforms (designated BSP-U and FT-5), with Janes reporting combat readiness achievable within roughly five minutes; Breaking Defense adds that versions have been tested both with and without the booster, launching from a fixed pad or from ground vehicles.
On program status: Army Recognition reports the Polish Armed Forces have already ordered the system and that low-rate production is underway. Breaking Defense reports first prototypes have existed since 2025 and that the system is entering series production. The two accounts differ slightly on emphasis but agree the program has moved past the concept stage into fielding.
WB Group's original Warmate family established the company as one of Europe's most prominent loitering-munition manufacturers, with earlier variants — including the Warmate 5 and Warmate TL-R, per Breaking Defense — built around rotary and piston propulsion for tactical, shorter-range strike missions. The Warmate 30 does not replace those systems so much as extend the family upward — into a role closer to a long-range precision-strike missile than a tactical loitering munition.
Why It Matters
The Warmate 30's unveiling lands at a moment when European defense industry is racing to field longer-range, jam-resistant strike capabilities that don't depend on the kind of expensive, scarce cruise-missile stockpiles Western militaries have struggled to replenish. A 250km-class jet-powered drone from a Polish manufacturer — built by a NATO member state directly bordering the conflict in Ukraine — signals where Central European drone development is heading: away from small tactical loitering munitions and toward systems that blur the line between attritable UAS and cruise missile. Army Recognition frames it in similar terms, describing the Warmate 30 as positioned between mass-produced attack drones and expensive cruise missiles.
The GPS-denied claim matters just as much as the range figure. Electronic warfare has proven to be one of the most effective and cheapest countermeasures against precision-guided weapons in the Ukraine war, and any strike system that can credibly operate through jamming addresses one of the most significant operational vulnerabilities facing drones and guided munitions on that battlefield today. If the Warmate 30 delivers on both claims, it would give Poland — and potentially export customers — a strike option that closes a capability gap between short-range loitering munitions and full-scale cruise missiles, at a cost point presumably far below the latter.
It's also a data point in WB Group's own expansion plans. Army Recognition's coverage notes that Poland is expanding investment across the wider Gladius, FlyEye and Warmate families as part of a broader effort to increase domestic unmanned reconnaissance and strike capacity, with three Gladius 2 drones displayed during WB Group's premiere-day presentation at MSPO 2026. That points to one manufacturer scaling up its own product lines in parallel rather than a confirmed wave of announcements from multiple Polish companies — but it's consistent with a defense sector responding directly to lessons from the war next door.
What's Still Unknown
The three reports reviewed for this article establish more than a bare headline spec sheet: jet propulsion via a Polish-made turbojet engine, the Gladius 2 program affiliation, a range in the 250km-plus class, a 30kg warhead, AI-based GPS-denied navigation, a rocket booster-assisted containerized launch method, and a program status that has already reached Polish Armed Forces orders and low-rate production. What the sources do not provide is a unit cost, a single precise range figure (estimates range from "approximately 250km" to "exceeds 250km" to "several hundred kilometers" depending on the outlet), details of the terminal guidance or seeker used against moving or hardened targets, or a firm timeline for full-rate production, delivery quantities, or any export sales. Those details typically emerge in follow-up reporting after a formal unveiling; readers should treat the Warmate 30 as a newly disclosed, already-ordered program rather than a system with a fully confirmed operational timeline.
