This Army division will change how armor brigades and divisions fight
Soldiers with the division will help the Army determine how to reorganize an Armored Brigade Combat Team to fight with new equipment, farther-reaching sensors and increased firepower — with the division at its back.
Maj. Gen. Thomas Feltey spoke with Army Times recently about his division's work under the Army's 'Transformation in Contact' initiative. The move seeks to modernize and evolve formations as they prepare for real-world deployments.
The effort was announced in 2023 and began with three infantry brigades: the 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division; 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division; and the 2nd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division.
Over the course of the next year, the three brigades added sensors, drones and a host of other enabling technologies, while also reconfiguring the makeup of various brigade elements to streamline communications and ramp up the infantry brigades' capabilities.
The Army has since entered the TIC 2.0 phase, which will focus on heavy units such as the 1st Cavalry and its ABCTs.
Feltey told Army Times that the division oversaw training for the 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain, while the infantry unit was in Germany. That helped give them a start on what was required for such transformative work.
'No one's ever starting from zero, we're continuing to move forward and not standing in place,' Feltey said.
This exercise is shaping the long-term future of Army infantry brigades
Through the course of the transition, the infantry units built new versions of units, dubbing them Light Infantry Brigade and Mobile Infantry Brigades, respectively. Those concepts had been developed in certain Army planning circles and were adjusted through the training and experimentation by the infantry units.
But the armor units are drawing up their own plans for what a new type of armor brigade might look like.
'An ABCT has a lot of different moving pieces,' Feltey said. 'Our battlespace is much larger and things move faster.'
While ubiquitous drone coverage helped infantry units, various kinds of drones will be needed for the longer-reaching, longer-ranging armored units, for example.
The division's artillery, air cavalry squadron and electronic warfare units have all been designated as part of the transformation.
Feltey is convening a host of senior armor leaders to assist in feedback on how to reconfigure the units and their assets to take advantage of new tech and novel approaches to fighting fast with armor. These sessions are called 'Iron Horse sprints,' he said.
The timelines are a little longer for the 1st Cavalry Division. The culminating event for their TIC work will happen at a National Training Center rotation in Fort Irwin, California, in 2027.
That's in part because the division is also modernizing its main equipment, with the A4 variant of the Bradley and the A7 variant of the Paladin artillery system. It's also on track as the next unit to receive the new Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle, Feltey said.
The two-star expects to see communications upgrades, much like the infantry units did with systems such as the Integrated Tactical Network, Star Shield satellite communications and the Mobile User Objective System, an improved UHF satellite communications system.
While the armored units will receive more drones for better reconnaissance, they will need more striking capabilities from those drones, he said.
'We don't have the ability to suppress everything while we're moving now, so that's one of the problems we're trying to solve,' Feltey said.
A key part of the process will be hooking the division assets into what the brigade needs when it needs it.
The division expects to have units training at the company level with new assets and formations by early 2026 and battalion-level training to commence in the summer of 2026, ahead of the 2027 event.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
13 hours ago
- Yahoo
'We're behind': US soldier leading a new 'catch-up' crash course says that the Army has to aggressively close the drone gap
The US Army's got a new three-week crash course on flying drones. It's an aggressive attempt to catch up on drone warfare, the director said. The Army has made drones a top capability in the coming years and is testing them heavily in the field. 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. Read the original article on Business Insider Solve the daily Crossword
Business Insider
16 hours ago
- Business Insider
'We're behind': US soldier leading catch-up crash course says the Army has to aggressively close the drone gap
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.
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Swiss knife maker considers production shift to ease U.S. tariffs
BERLIN (Reuters) -Victorinox, maker of Swiss army knives, is considering moving part of its production to the United States to lessen the impact of import tariffs on its business, the company's CEO told the Wirtschaftswoche business magazine. "We are looking into carrying out directly on site individual processing steps at the end of the value chain, such as the final cleaning and packaging of commercial knives," Carl Elsener said in an interview published on Tuesday. "That would reduce the value of the goods on which we have to pay customs duty by 10% to 15%," he added. Switzerland has been particularly hard hit by Washington's trade policy under President Donald Trump, who earlier this month ratcheted up U.S. tariffs on Swiss imports to 39%. The U.S. is an important market for Swiss machinery, watches and chocolate. Victorinox, which makes commercial knives as well as its well-known pocket knives, generates some 13% of its revenue in the country. Elsener told WirtschaftsWoche the customs duties were coming at an already difficult time. "The strong Swiss franc has put our competitiveness and our margins under considerable pressure," he told the magazine. However, he added that high inventories in the U.S. ensured that the tariffs would not affect Victorinox until the beginning of next year. (Writing by Rachel MoreEditing by Madeline Chambers) Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
