Latest news with #MarineCorpsAttackDroneTeam
Yahoo
29-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Marine Corps to establish attack drone competition
The Marine Corps is slated to hold a series of events as part of a new attack drone competition the service announced recently. The May 25 Marine Administrative Message, or MARADMIN, outlines that the service is seeking drone teams from across the Corps to participate in the competition. The first event will be held at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia in November, according to the MARADMIN. Before then, the Marine Corps Attack Drone Team will participate in the U.S. Military Drone Crucible Championships. That event is hosted by the U.S. National Drone Association from June 30 to July 3 in Florida. Marine Corps introduces attack drone team The team, established in January, focuses on integrating first-person view drones — aerial vehicles that transmit live bird's-eye view feeds to remote displays — across the Fleet Marine Force. 'Today's battlefield is changing rapidly, and we must adapt just as quickly,' said Maj. Alejandro Tavizon, the Weapons Training Battalion Headquarters Company commander and officer in charge of MCADT. 'The Marine Corps Attack Drone Team will ensure that our warfighters remain at the forefront of precision drone employment, providing a critical advantage in future conflicts.' The attack drone group, which is based out of the Weapons Training Battalion at Quantico, will work to 'develop and refine' armed first-person view drone training, speed up the timeline for the fielding the drones and provide instruction through live training events. The competition, meanwhile, will consist of tactical inserts and mission parameters designed to use the 'hunter-killer method' of employing small drones and FPV drones. Marines will then share lessons learned from the competition to inform updates that the Corps will use to rapidly field the most lethal capabilities across the service, according to the release. At the same time, the team will finalize plans to provide intermediate and advanced armed FPV drone skills to the Fleet Marine Force and Total Force via the Competition-in-Arms Program, or CIAP, similar to the work done by the Marine Corps Shooting Team. The drone outfit will then host regional competition events in Fiscal Year 2026 alongside the shooting team and the CIAP. The Corps wants to use these events to recruit the best drone operators to the team, which will represent the Marines at various events and directly influence the service's procurement and use of armed drones. Units across the Corps must designate drone teams by Sept. 30 to participate in the regional competitions. The final championship and selection event will be held at Quantico in April 2026, in conjunction with the Marine Corps Championships marksmanship event.
Yahoo
02-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Marine Corps Drone Team Competitions Are Coming to a Unit Near You Soon
The Marine Corps is expanding its unmanned aerial vehicle portfolio by fielding competitive drone teams across the fleet over the coming year, one of the service's top officers said Wednesday. The teams will mirror the newly unveiled Marine Corps Attack Drone Team, or MCADT, a specialized unit based out of Quantico, Virginia, that is serving as the ground-level epicenter of the service's urgent UAV needs. In early January, the Marine Corps stood up the all-volunteer MCADT as an answer to the world's rapid proliferation of drones, noting it would integrate lessons learned from the ongoing war in Ukraine, compete against other services, and serve as the technical and cultural model for units across the service that will soon see their own teams pitted against each other. Read Next: 'This Is Going to Be a Challenge': Service Officials Detail Fallout from Civilian Resignations Pushed by Trump Starting next fiscal year, which begins on Oct. 1, the Marine Corps is "going to be doing an attack drone competition where we'll field teams from across the Marine Corps to compete internal to the service," Lt. Gen. Benjamin Watson, the commanding general of Training and Education Command, said during a media roundtable at the Modern Day Marine expo in Washington, D.C., this week. While Watson did not say which units would participate in the competitions, the events serve as a way to help the service build its program more rapidly in the absence of actual combat, such as in Ukraine where an active adversary "forces them to evolve very quickly." "The closest thing we can do is put ourselves out there in competition, and so the attack drone team really is our mechanism for forcing that, putting the service's reputation on the line with not only the other services, but a bunch of 14-year-olds with skinny arms and long hair and glasses that are probably going to kick our ass the first time we get out there in the drone competition," Watson said. "But we think that puts us under a level of pressure that will help us to iterate faster, particularly in the first-person-view drone space, which is one of the places we've got the most room to grow," he added. Pentagon leaders and industry professionals are sprinting toward ways to make drones scalable, cheap and replicable. But the introduction of drones to the Marine Corps has not been without its challenges, officials said throughout the expo. previously reported that leaders felt they were behind the curve on building their drone repertoire and faced some challenges, including air space management and acquiring parts. "I think what we're desperate to do inside the Marine Corps at this point is adopt new technologies that we're seeing being used throughout the world, but hold on to what we value as Marines in the way that we fight," Col. Sean Hoewing, director of the Capabilities Development Directorate's Aviation Combat Element, said Thursday. "And so there are challenges when you introduce [a] large-scale number of aircraft that aren't traditionally controlled by folks that are familiar with operating inside of airspace." But junior members of the MCADT said they have been diligently working through those problems over the last four months, such as identifying which parts "break fastest" so they can quickly reproduce them, Cpl. Hunter Zenoni, a weapons repairer on the team said, or fine-tuning motor skills to manipulate the drone's thrust, turns and pitch. They said they share those lessons with other Marine units and services. "It's still a struggle," Cpl. Timothy Brockup, an infantryman assigned to the MCADT, said about adjusting task organizations and tactical use for drones. "But it's a struggle that we are overcoming with just more repetitions, practice and the more insight and research we put into this." The MCADT will take part in its first competition starting in early June against the Army's 75th Ranger Regiment, the event likely being a model for how these newly fielded drone teams across the fleet will compete with each other. "We're not too terribly worried," Brockup said, adding the MCADT has been consistently training and reviewing their tactics in preparation for facing the Rangers. Later, he added: "if you want to put it on the record, by the way -- yeah, we're gonna win." Related: Every Marine a Drone Operator? New Team Aims to Compete, Set Standards for Unmanned Aircraft Warfare.
Yahoo
07-04-2025
- Yahoo
Marine Corps introduces drone attack team
The U.S. Marine Corps is spearheading a new drone attack team in response to the proliferation of unmanned aerial combat internationally, according to the service. The commanding general of training command, Maj. Gen. Anthony M. Henderson, along with the commanding general of the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory, Brig. Gen. Simon M. Doran, established the Marine Corps Attack Drone Team, or MCADT, on Jan. 3. The team will focus on integrating first-person view drones — aerial vehicles that transmit a live feed of their bird's-eye view to remote displays — into the Fleet Marine Force. 'Today's battlefield is changing rapidly, and we must adapt just as quickly. The Marine Corps Attack Drone Team will ensure that our warfighters remain at the forefront of precision drone employment, providing a critical advantage in future conflicts,' said Maj. Alejandro Tavizon, the Weapons Training Battalion Headquarters Company commander and officer in charge of MCADT. The team, based at Weapons Training Battalion at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, is set to 'develop and refine' armed first-person view drone training, speed up the timeline for the technology's fielding and provide instruction through live training events. MCADT will soon make its competition debut at the U.S. National Drone Association's Military Drone Crucible Championship, which will take place from June 30 to July 3 in Florida. The team will compete against the 75th Ranger Regiment, among other units, by completing tactical missions that simulate combat. Ukraine claims to have fielded a drone-killing laser weapon The Marine Corps is particularly focused on the financial implications of drones. In a statement, the service noted the technology offered a range of up to 20 kilometers for under $5,000, a metric it says is more cost-effective than other costly weapons systems. 'Right now, our focus is on rapidly building proficiency by sending Marines to a variety of training courses and increasing hands-on familiarization,' Tavizon said. 'Our goal is to ensure they can not only operate these systems effectively but also integrate them seamlessly into a team. This means mastering primary platforms, having redundancy with backup systems, and getting the necessary repetitions to employ payloads with precision under real-world conditions.' Ukraine and Russia have employed the use of drones in their years-long war. Most recently, Russia launched 109 drones in a recent attack, according to The Kyiv Independent. Yemen Houthi rebels — a militant group the U.S. has ramped up attacks against recently — have also relied on drone warfare to wreak havoc against vessels in the Red Sea.
