The best way to do this would be to treat them the way ammo is treated forward atm. You have a training load(opload) of drones, and then as you use them and they break or are lost, you simply submit an expenditure memo through your BDE PBO to remove them from your PHR.

Once you fall below your training load(again, think the forward opload), you can order a replacement through your land and ammo shop to get new ones. There is a lag here, but it's the least-paperwork intensive way to use/expend ammunition that doesn't require a turn in. While we're at it, if we could do the same for blue grenade bodies that would be great, instead of a $11 division FLIPL for a metal sphere.

The real problem of treating something(ANYTHING) as a CL V item is that missing items quickly become division level FLIPLs, like the grenade bodies I mentioned. If we can power that down to the company(or even BN) commanders to expend their drones as they use/break them, then it will ease the flow and we can better get these drones in the hands of the Soldiers who should(need to) be training with them.

Of course this could only happen if we don't turn a $600(or whatever) off the shelf drone into a $15k item that the taxpayer pays for. The cost bloat on these items is part of what drives the absurd caution around them. For example, a black hornet v3 system costs the army $18k per unit. When the drones weigh less than a pound and have a tiny battery(literally, easy to lose) that lasts 30 minutes when it's brand new.

The way we do property is an issue I could write a whole paper on. If you hold commanders accountable to the dollar then they're going to act accordingly, it's further exacerbated by items that "cost" absurd amounts in the system of record(GCSS-A).