The Department of Defense has been crowing about Replicator for nearly two years now: a promise to buy and field ‘‘small, smart, cheap and many’’ attritable autonomous systems at scale to blunt a numerically superior near-peer in the Indo-Pacific. That launch was not a whisper in a back room but a public commitment from senior leaders to push thousands of all-domain systems into the force within an 18-24 month window.

If you strip away the slogans, what the Defense Innovation Unit and partners have actually done to date is what you would expect from an aggressive prototyping campaign: multiple prototype contracts across air and maritime domains, software awards to stitch autonomy and command-and-control together, and a series of live demonstrations and experiments meant to validate integration concepts. Those are real accomplishments.

But there is a huge gap between ‘‘prototype and demonstration’’ and ‘‘transitioned into service operations at scale.’⒠Transition in the acquisition sense is not a press release. It is the moment a capability leaves the lab and becomes part of doctrine, training, maintenance, spares, budgets, and test-and-evaluation regimes. That requires DOTMLPF-P planning - doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership, personnel, facilities and policy - plus robust T&E and funded lines in service budgets. Several congressional oversight documents and committee reports have been explicit about those gaps and about the need to account for DOTMLPF-P and test plans before claiming operational transition.

The Government Accountability Office has reached a similar conclusion. Its review of the Defense Innovation Unit urged clearer metrics and better processes to assess progress and support transition. The bottom line in the GAO read is simple: DIU has made demonstrable technical progress, but DOD and DIU still need to show how prototypes will be reliably and affordably sustained and fielded in contested conditions.

A concrete example of why professing success is risky: several hardware and software pieces being folded into Replicator were winners in fast-track competitions and awards, but win-on-paper does not equal maturity in contested environments. Industry partners with visible prizes include well-known systems being pushed to scale quickly. That includes production awards for loitering munitions and a suite of commercial autonomy tools meant to tie sensors and effectors together. These are important building blocks, but they do not prove that thousands of interoperable systems can be sustained under electronic warfare, austere logistics, and real command-and-control constraints.

When leaders say ‘‘we are transitioning Replicator capabilities to the military services,’’ read that as the start of a process rather than the finish. Transition requires verified performance in realistic conditions, funded sustainment plans, trained operators, and integration into service acquisition lines. Those are neither sexy nor fast, but they are the work that determines whether attritable systems remain attritable or become expensive liabilities. The congressional language pushing for briefings and for DOTMLPF-P accounting reflects this sober reality.

I do not mean to suggest the effort should stop. Rapid prototyping and commercial engagement are the right moves to break acquisition logjams. My point is narrower and practical: the DOD should stop packaging ‘‘transition’’ as a public milestone until the supporting logistics, T&E, and funding threads are visibly in place. Otherwise the department risks the classic trap of fielding half-baked systems that work in calm test lanes and fail when the adversary jams comms, spoofs positioning, or targets supply chains.

If Replicator is to be more than a line in a strategic speech it must meet three realities: rigorous operational test outcomes that replicate degraded and contested conditions; explicit plans that fund sustainment and training at the service level; and clear metrics for industrial scale that account for component shortages and supply chain resilience. Until those boxes are ticked, ‘‘transitioned’’ is a political milestone, not an operational one.

Policy and acquisition leaders who want Replicator to succeed should do three things now. First, publish harmonized T&E plans and realistic timelines for achieving IOC-like thresholds. Second, ensure service budget submissions include the follow-on sustainment and repair lines that make mass attritable systems truly affordable. Third, open the oversight window so Congress and independent reviewers can validate whether deliveries are quantities of operational capability or quantities of prototypes. Without those steps Replicator will remain an ambitious bet, not a fielded hedge.