According to the characteristics of systematic, intelligent, low-cost and networked operations of UAV swarm operations, the self-networking and mutual coordination of UAVs to complete combat tasks are analyzed. The necessity of UAV swarm combat is analyzed from the background of the development of UAV swarm combat in the United States and the advancement of the concept. Several important swarm projects of the United States Army are analyzed in depth, and the current development status of UAV swarm combat is expounded. Combined with the key technologies to be broken through, the development trend of UAV swarm combat is put forward. The results show that the analysis can provide support for the use of unmanned platform, load matching and operational planning.