'We're behind': US soldier leading catch-up crash course says the Army has to aggressively close the drone gap

Business Insider

6 hours ago

The US Army has a new crash course on drones. Right now, it's basic, fast, and aimed primarily at catching soldiers up on what they've been missing.
It's an example of how the US military is embracing drones, navigating growing opportunities and threats.
The inaugural Unmanned Advanced Lethality Course, launched by the Army Aviation Center of Excellence at Fort Rucker in Alabama, is a three-week class focused on building drone flight skills. Students use commercial off-the-shelf drones and simulation software to develop skills flying first-person view drones, according to a release.
The course's director, Capt. Rachel Martin, built the program in just 90 days. "This course is a catch-up," she said. "We're behind globally, and this is our aggressive attempt to close that gap."
There are currently 28 students, including infantry soldiers, cavalry scouts, and aviation personnel. As a pilot course, soldiers are primarily learning lessons from what Army units are currently struggling with in adopting drones.
Flying FPV, or first-person view, drones is a major topic, as is manufacturing and repairing drones with 3D printing pieces. One of the course's objectives is to build a repository of printable parts that soldiers can take back to their units for further use.
The learning curve, Martin said, has been substantial. "Most of my peers, including myself until 90 days ago, didn't know how to do this," she said. "Now we know what it takes, how many people, how much equipment, how much money, and we are sharing this information already with our partners out in the force."
The class's future will expand into other topics, including one-way attacks using FPV drones, an area soldiers in Ukraine have been implementing for years. By February, the Army said, Martin expects students to be using low-cost drones for precision strikes.
Drones have become increasingly prolific in Ukraine, with many quadcopters, octocopters, and more conducting surveillance flights and also bombing and strike missions. Millions of drones are supplementing more traditional weapons. Some experts caution against an overreliance on drones, but there is still a wide recognition that proficiency is important and that trained operators are force multipliers.
Drone operators are high-value targets, and in Ukraine, research indicates, operator casualties are on the rise. There are lessons in that for the US Army.
"We're creating operators who are not only lethal but also survivable," Martin said, explaining that "sUAS [small Uncrewed Aerial Systems] operators are the most sought-after high pay-off target on the battlefield right now."
"I am very aware that my team has been entrusted with developing solutions for a critical need in emerging Army tactics," she said.
The Army, much like the other US military service branches, has been openly grappling with the challenges of drone warfare and what it means for the force, which is still building experience in this space, with a lot of lessons still to be learned.
Flooding units with drones and counter-drone systems is a top priority for US military leadership, and uncrewed systems have been deemed a necessary and vital capability to prepare for potential future conflict.
There are growing investments in American drone tech, emerging drone and counter-drone schools, and field testing.
In the Indo-Pacific, soldiers have been exploring how drones adapt to flying in hot, rainy climates. Training exercises, like a special operations forces drill simulating a conflict involving Taiwan, have evaluated scenarios where enemy drone swarms attack soldiers. Another exercise in Europe saw soldiers carry drones into simulated conflict and adapt when their system broke or encountered technical difficulties, like cut connections.
Developing doctrine, tactics, and techniques is a work in progress, but a necessity for the Army considering the lessons from the Ukraine war, where both sides are continually advancing their drone capabilities in a real, fast-paced conflict.
In Ukraine, drone operators have to contend daily with the headaches of electronic warfare and signal jamming. These have led to unjammable fiber-optic drones with hard connections between operators and their drones and AI-enabled systems, resulting in new challenges for defenders. The technological arms race is moving fast, and there's a lot Western militaries watching the conflict need to learn to ready for a future drone war.