Sean Carberry
While the war in Ukraine is validating large-scale Army modernization efforts like integrated air and missile defense and long-range fires, the proliferation of small drones and commercial technology on the battlefield has prompted the service to forward deploy personnel to innovate in theater, senior service leaders said.
The Army has begun an initiative called “transforming in contact” to experiment with technologies like 3D printing to develop counter-UAS technology, Gen. Randy George, chief of staff of the Army, told reporters at a Feb. 27 Defense Writers Group discussion.
“We are transforming in contact when it comes to counter-UAS in the Middle East, which means we are getting all of our capabilities forward with users, developers and testers, and we are transforming as we go because the battlefield is changing,” he said.
“We have also selected three brigades and they are going to prototype new formations and we're going to give them new equipment — counter-UAS, Next Generation Squad Weapon and infuse them with the kind of new tech that they need on the battlefield,” he said.
“We are trying to build a culture of continuous transformation where everybody realizes — and our challenge to everybody is — that our formations have to look better,” he said. “This isn't like two or three [Program Objective Memorandum] cycles, we have to look better this next year. We have to look better in a couple of months.”
George said advances in commercial technology are outpacing military development, and the service will phase out its Raven and Shadow drones because they were good systems but for a different battlefield.
“We are looking at how we are going to test and operate drones in contested environments, that's something that we have to do,” he said. “Every drone that we're going to have [has] to be open architecture so we can adjust it with software, we can make adjustments on the road.”
That also requires improvement in how the Army buys things and works with industry, he added.
“We are looking at how we would fund things,” he said. “And we obviously have to work with the appropriators on this to explain how we can do this with the proper oversight. But for unmanned systems, for countering unmanned systems and [electronic warfare], things are moving so fast that … you can't wait and say, ‘OK, we'll get that in the next [Program Objective Memorandum], and then they'll be there two years from now.’”
However, funding continues to be an obstacle as the Army has had relatively flat budgets, and continuing resolutions are delaying new investment, said Secretary of the Army Christine Wormuth.
“Without the ability to do new starts, without the ability to do reprogramming things, we can't invest in development of UAS and counter-UAS systems. We can't train with those systems. We can't produce those systems as rapidly as we want to,” she said.
Investments in munitions production or the Army’s Mid-Range Capability, which is now a program of record, are at risk if there is no budget passed or a supplemental appropriation, she said.
“We have a $500 million investment that we want to make in that program going forward that we won't be able to pursue under a [continuing resolution], she said.
“There is, I think, $560 million in the supplemental just for counter-UAS. Now, that's for all services, not all of that is Army, but we could use that, we could do a lot with that,” she added.
Counter-UAS also involves making combat vehicles more survivable, Wormuth said.
“Drones are really essentially — when it comes to our combat vehicles — flying IEDs. And I think we've got to think about protection for our tanks, Bradleys, Strykers and so on,” she said.
“One of the things that we've been pursuing in that way is directed energy, high-powered microwave,” she continued. “We've got some of our directed energy prototypes out now in the field being tested, having some successful engagements. … One challenge there is how do we make those systems affordable?”
Another area of focus for the service is reducing its footprint and logistics tail in the field by reducing the size of command posts and limiting electronic emissions, Wormuth said, noting progress she saw during a recent visit to a training exercise in Germany.
“I saw a tactical command post that used to be three Stryker vehicles with full crews in each of the vehicles and a pretty significant radar that would be placed outside, they have skinnied all of that down now to basically two vehicles, no radar,” she said. “All of the major sort of comms and network systems are in one of the Strykers.”
George said the war in Ukraine has shown the need to reduce the logistics footprint. “One of the things that I'm a huge fan of is hybridization of our vehicles just because I think whatever we can do to reduce our logistics footprint is going to help,” he said.
“We're learning in Ukraine as far as what we can do, what we can fix forward and what we don't have to drag back,” he said.
In a recent exercise, the Army deployed a division into the field, and it was able to reduce its footprint by 75 percent by eliminating vehicles and radars, he said. It also deployed netting to reduce its electronic signature by 85 percent, he said.
“It's one thing to hide in plain sight in an urban environment, it's much harder to do out in the desert, and so that's what they were doing,” he said. “And they have to still figure out how to command and control a very big, large, complex organization, they had to worry about UAS that are trying to find them and to kill them out there.”
“We're doing this to all of our formations out there,” he continued. “We have an active live [opposition force] for which they are 3D printing drones and going after our troops.” The opposition forces have a sensor that can pick up signals from troops’ watches and phones.
“So, we're looking constantly ... at everybody's digital footprint that is out there,” he said. “If you can be seen on the battlefield, you can be killed. And I think that's what we want to make sure that everybody is training differently.”
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