The new MOS 40D will comprise hundreds of non-commissioned officers that will be trained and deployed by Army Space and Missile Defense Command, SMDC Commander Lt. Gen. Sean Gainey told reporters Friday during a media roundtable. By establishing the career field, the service will no longer have to borrow soldiers from other military occupational specialties and can focus on fostering space-specific careers within the Army.

“Here’s an opportunity to now take these soldiers and build that expertise, build a professional non-commissioned officer corps,” Gainey said. “So as we continue to move forward and we continue to develop next-level space capabilities, you will have the expertise within these soldiers and non-commissioned officers to continue to build that capability forward.”

Following the establishment of the Space Force in 2019, the Army transferred a number of its personnel and space-based missions — such as satellite communications operations and the Joint Tactical Ground Station (JTAGS) — to the new service. Since then, the Army has looked to adapt how it conducts operations in the space domain by developing service-specific capabilities and growing its cadre of space soldiers.

The Army published a space vision in 2024 outlining how SMDC would integrate space into daily operations, as well as plans to counter an adversary’s ability to employ space-based systems on U.S. troops. The document also emphasized the importance of having dedicated space personnel able to provide those capabilities to Army formations on the ground.

To that end, officers under the 40D will be trained to provide close support with space capabilities to conventional and special operations forces in the Army, protecting them from space-enabled attacks, Gainey said.

“Where the differentiation occurs is, the Space Force is going to focus on the on-orbit fight and some of the other areas — missile warning and other things,” he said. “We are focused on the tactical maneuver fight with our forces on the ground, pushing that capability forward so our forces have that capability at echelon, at formation, to be able to leverage the effects of a space-based system directly benefiting the operator on the ground.”

The 40D military occupational speciality is set to officially stand up Oct. 1, 2026, but the Army is already looking to recruit soldiers with applicable skillsets from across its formations, Gainey said. After soldiers attend initial qualification training, the specialists will go to SMDC’s Space and Missile Defense School in Colorado Springs, Colo., to learn how to operate electronic warfare and other space-based systems, Gainey said.

Then, space soldiers could be assigned to the multidomain task forces (MDTFs), theater strike effects groups (TSEGs), 1st Space Brigade, 100th Missile Defense Brigade or a space support element.

Over the past three years, SMDC has borrowed enlisted soldiers from other career fields — including air defense, signal corps and intelligence — to support operations. The new MOS will allow those soldiers to transition back to their original units, Gainey said.

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The Army published its new space vision in January, doubling down on the importance of the service’s ability to conduct its own space ops and the need to grow its formations. The document emphasized the need for land-centric, expeditionary equipment designed for large-scale multidimensional operations for space missions.

But with an eye on executing the vision by 2030, the organization is working through challenges in meeting demands for new capabilities and more space soldiers.

“As I look at the priorities within the command as we move forward, probably our top priority is how do we deliver that capability responsive to the warfighter?” SMDC commander Lt. Gen. Sean Gainey said this week during a panel at the annual AUSA conference. “How do we continue to get after more tactical solutions that allow our soldiers to maneuver around on the battlefield at different areas, different times [with] smaller weight platforms? … How do we build the expertise within our soldiers so that we’re not borrowing manpower?”

Developing space soldiers

Over the last 25 years, the Army has maintained a functional area of 40 space operations officers, while also borrowing enlisted troops from other military occupational specialties. Given new demands to add and maintain experienced space soldiers, the service is reconsidering that resourcing model, Col. Donald Brooks, commandant of SMDC’s Space and Missile Defense Center of Excellence, said.

“Given the increasing dependency on space capabilities of the Army of the future, we realize that this is not enough and it’s insufficient,” Brooks said. “So, this ‘temporary space soldier’ … has proven not able or capable to meet current and future operational demands, and negatively impacts our ability to sufficiently answer the call in today’s operational environment.”

As part of the Army’s larger ongoing force structure transformation, the service plans to grow its space warfighting formations to include nine companies and 27 platoons. Those units will be the 1st Space Brigade, additional multidomain task forces (MDTFs) and new theater-level formations called theater strike effects groups (TSEGs).

Soldiers in the new formations will focus on providing space capabilities — such as satellite communications, missile warning, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance — in support of ground forces operating at the tactical edge, according to Col. Peter Atkinson, principal space advisor at SMDC.

“What we’re seeing now is our formations requiring more of those low-density, high-demand skill sets. It’s incredibly difficult to maintain because they’re highly specialized,” Atkinson said in an interview with DefenseScoop on the sidelines of AUSA. “The training timelines for those are great. And so, when you’re looking at the human resources aspects of it, that piece is challenging.”

The Army has already established three MDTFs — two in the Pacific and one in Europe — and plans to activate two more over the next few years. According to the space vision, the MDTFs will be responsible for “employing Army space interdiction forces alongside cyber operations and electronic warfare enablers,” allowing them to destroy adversary space systems.

The service has already sent a provisional TSEG unit to U.S. Indo-Pacific Command to integrate into exercises and inform how SMDC will ultimately field the formation in 2027. The group was recently at Joint Warfighting Assessment 24 in Europe, during which the Army evaluated how the unit can augment the MDTF, Brooks said. 

“One of the great things with the TSEG is the counter surveillance [and] reconnaissance capabilities that are bringing navigation warfare, along with the high-altitude assets that it can bring to the fight,” he said. “And it really does build that, not only capacity, but build additional capabilities to shape and influence.”

SMDC is also “aggressively pursuing” the establishment of a military occupational specialty for non-commissioned officers specific to space careers, as well as an Army space operations branch comprising the enlisted cohort, its current functional area officers and a potential warrant officer cohort, Brooks noted. 

“We need an Army space operations career field and branch to produce and sustain the specialized, highly experienced and talented non-commissioned officer corps and officer cohort capable of integrating space across all warfighting functions and converging effects in support of maneuver operations,” he said.

Demand for new capabilities

As it grows the number of space personnel, the Army is also adding capabilities and equipment in alignment to the two new mission areas outlined in the space vision: integration with joint, coalition and commercial space capabilities, and interdiction against adversary space operations.

Atkinson told DefenseScoop it is imperative that the capability development and fielding is in line with the Army’s near-term growth plan for formations.

“Our goal is to make sure that they receive equipment as part of their activation, as part of their establishment,” he said. “So that alignment is what we’re focusing on right now, to make sure that we don’t have equipment on the shelf that could be waiting for a unit to be established, and then we don’t have units that are established without equipment.”

The service’s integration mission will include providing assured position, navigation and timing (PNT), deep sensing and reliable satellite communications, among others. While it keeps an eye on emerging technologies it can incorporate in the future, there are several prototypes for the integration mission the Army will field in the next few years, Atkinson noted.

A key challenge, however, will be scaling new space-based capabilities at relatively high volumes across the service. In many cases, the Army will require individual systems that can be fielded in the thousands — such as terminals needed for satellite communications, he added.

“The Army’s challenge with terminals is that we have too many, and it’s really hard to scale,” Atkinson said. “You’re talking about tens of thousands of individual terminals, each one unique to that satellite, that specific constellation — whether it’s military SATCOM, whether it’s commercial SATCOM.”

To mitigate delays in soldiers receiving new SATCOM capabilities, the Army is pursuing a hybrid terminal that can access multiple satellite constellations across orbital regimes. The service is hoping to leverage both military and commercial systems, Atkinson noted.

But for the Army’s new PNT capability, Atkinson said the fielding process is likely to be long. Developed by Collins Aerospace, the Mounted Assured Positioning, Navigation and Timing System (MAPS) and the dismounted variant known as DAPS are designed to give soldiers assured PNT in GPS-contested environments.

The department started initial fielding of the capability during fiscal 2024, and plans to begin scaling the system across the service in fiscal 2025, according to Atkinson.

“That is a long fielding process. That’s hundreds of thousands of individual items that the Army continues to upgrade to make sure that we have sound PNT,” he said.

Atkinson also highlighted the Army’s prototyping efforts for the Tactical Intelligence Targeting Access Node (TITAN), a ground station that will integrate data from multiple platforms across all domains to assist commanders in making sense of the battlefield.

The service awarded Palantir a $178.4 million other transaction agreement for TITAN in March, under which the company will deliver five “basic” and five “advanced” variants of the ground station over a two-year period.

For the Army’s space modernization efforts, the platform will give soldiers immediate access to space-based ISR at remote locations, Atkinson said.

“There is a tremendous amount of innovation happening with space-based ISR. We’re seeing it in commercial, we’re seeing it in industry and we’re seeing it across the [intelligence community],” he said. “So being able to harness that is going to be critical for the Army.”

The department has been more tight-lipped about specific systems it is developing for its interdiction mission, but they are considered offensive space control capabilities designed to deny adversaries the ability to use space for hostile purposes “by delivering necessary fires and effects at echelon to protect friendly forces from observation and targeting by counter-satellite communications, counter-surveillance and reconnaissance, and navigation warfare operations,” according to the space vision.

Atkinson said the service is trying to outpace emerging threats from China and Russia’s recent growth in the space domain. Although space control isn’t a new requirement, the threat is now pushing the Army to scale more tactical interdiction systems.

“The threat landscape has evolved significantly coming out of [counterinsurgency] and transitioning to great-power competition,” he said. “We have not been focused on a conflict with Russia and China, and when you look at their use of space capabilities, it really threatens our way of life, our way of war and our abilities.”

As the Army carves out its new role in the space domain, it’s working closely with the Space Force and others across the Pentagon to ensure there is no duplication of effort and that each service’s space capabilities complement each other.

“The Army’s not doing space for space,” Atkinson said. “There’s a direct requirement for the Army to protect its forces, to ensure that we can enable our moving maneuver and basic functions. And right now we can’t strip out all the requirements for space and cyberspace.”

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The update, which the JCO is working on with U.S. Special Operations Command, will include a greater focus on offensive, “left-of-launch” capabilities to defeat adversary UAS, Maj. Gen. Sean Gainey noted during an event Tuesday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“We’ve developed the initial doctrine, strategy, and we’re revising that strategy to now look at this holistically, not just from a … defense operations [perspective], but also incorporate the offensive, left-of-launch capability that SOCOM has been directed to move forward,” he said.

The term “left of launch,” in U.S. military parlance, means before an aircraft or missile has commenced flight.

“We’re working closely with SOCOM on the strategy. We’re rewriting the strategy to take it from a right of launch — meaning a defensive posture — and how you defend against this, to incorporate more [ideas about] how do you get after this holistically,” Gainey said. “They’re looking at from everything that it takes to get after holistically this UAS threat without having to just rely on capability to defeat” drones after they’re already airborne and operating against U.S. forces.

The JCO, which was stood up in 2020, has been experimenting with a variety of counter-drone weapons including interceptors, lasers, high-power microwaves, electronic warfare systems and other tools.

However, as adversaries are able to field unmanned aerial systems in greater numbers and in swarms, the U.S. military will be challenged to take them all out with defensive systems.

“That’s why the left-of-launch piece is a significant piece. As we move forward, you can’t just sit back and think you’re going to pay your way with capacity and capability, out of this problem set. You’re gonna have to leverage the full range [of options] … to be able to decrease the impact of this [enemy drone] capability. We fully realize that the left-of-launch piece is going to be a significant area that we’re gonna have to invest in,” Gainey said.

“You’re only gonna have a finite amount of interceptors, and you can’t get in a shoot-for-shoot, one-for-one match, because it’ll never work out. Because you know as you look at what’s being developed and the numbers that are being developed, it’s just incredible. And you got to find a way on the left of launch to be able to get after this to level the battlefield,” he added.

In recent weeks, one-way attack drones have been launched repeatedly against U.S. troops in Iraq and Syria. The Pentagon has blamed Iran-affiliated groups for the attacks, and the U.S. military has launched airstrikes against their facilities in response.

After the CSIS event Tuesday, Gainey told DefenseScoop that the JCO and SOCOM are aiming to finish the counter-UAS strategy update soon.

“We think we’re looking to get the strategy done by the new year. So we’re moving fast. We’re taking our existing strategy and then incorporating the left-of-launch aspect of that to have a more holistic strategy by the new year,” he said.

These types of approaches could include creating a variety of “effects” intended to reduce the number of drones that U.S. forces might otherwise have to try to shoot down, he noted.

“You can look at how do you disrupt the supply chain — could it be something you can do from the left? … Left of launch can expand the whole spectrum,” he said. “Some may say, ‘Hey, what’s a cool widget to be able to get after something left of launch?’ I think it’s really how do you operationalize attritting [and] disrupting prior to launch?”

A new CSIS report released Tuesday noted that advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning could facilitate drone swarm attacks.

“These are large, coordinated, and at least semi-autonomous group operations; thus far, there have been few if any attacks that fit this strict definition. Yet even small, human-controlled group attacks have proven capable. The 2019 Houthi attack on two Saudi Aramco oil facilities only employed 10 drones but still degraded business operations for some time. Commercial drone shows have operated with more than 3,000 drones,” according to the study.

“Once mass drone swarm technology is established, it will be an increasingly difficult threat to intercept. In those cases, the best options for defenders may be ‘left-of-launch’ strikes on [command-and-control] nodes and ground control stations associated with the attack,” the report said.

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The company is touting the portability of the 10-kilowatt system, which is approximately 12 cubic feet — or about the size of a mini fridge — weighs less than 200 pounds and can be carried and installed by just two people, according to a release.

“The laser is ruggedized for field use and miniaturizing it allows for rapid placement in tactical situations,” per the release.

The company declined to identify the U.S. government customer that’s receiving it or say whether the technology is a prototype or a production-ready platform that is ready to be deployed in a real-world tactical operation setting.

“Due to the critical nature of the technology, certain information regarding Phantom will continue to be protected by enhanced security measures,” the company said in a statement to DefenseScoop, adding: “We are unable to speak to specifics at this time.”

However, the Defense Department has been openly exploring a variety of directed energy weapons. And the Northrop Grumman release noted that the unidentified Phantom customer “will integrate it with other subsystems for testing and delivery to military customers.”

“By miniaturizing this advanced capability, we are expanding the reach of our technology and continuing to lead the way in high-energy lasers. Northrop Grumman is using its expertise in directed energy to deliver an extremely compact, lightweight and efficient laser for the warfighter,” Robert Fleming, the company’s vice president and general manager for strategic space systems, said in a statement.

The U.S. military is keen on fielding directed energy weapons, including for defense against drones and missiles, because they are relatively inexpensive per shot compared to traditional air-defense systems and they possess nearly unlimited magazines.

However, producibility, reliability and affordability are key considerations, Lt. Gen. Robert Rasch, director of the Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office (RCCTO), noted during remarks at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium earlier this month.

“The one thing we need help in is to get affordable directed energy, because that’s the reason we’re doing it, right. We’re doing directed energy because we don’t have the magazine depth, and quite frankly, can’t afford the magazine depth to have missiles everywhere that we want them. So, having the capability of directed energy to provide that kind of renewable kill power on a platform is very appealing — but it’s got to be affordable, it’s got to be reliable, and we’ve got to learn then how to fight it with those soldiers,” he said.

The U.S. military is still working through how best to employ lasers alongside other capabilities.

“What we don’t know yet for directed energy systems necessarily is how to fight [with] them. How to fight lasers on the battlefield, how to integrate kinetic and non-kinetic effectors, like directed energy, and our traditional air-defense missiles into the battlespace,” Rasch said.

When it comes to air-defense doctrine, “usually you get something about, like, shoot [the weapon] as far out as you can with an acceptable probability of kill. And so that generally leads to expensive missiles going out a long, long way to hit that interceptor. And we’ve got to figure out where’s our confidence base in directed energy where … I can make a conscious decision to let that missile come through because I know my DE system is going to take it out at a shorter range. We’ve got a lot to learn in that space and a lot of confidence to build,” he added.

The Army has been conducting demonstrations of 10-kilowatt palletized high-energy laser prototypes, among other DE technologies, as the service looks for new tools to combat small drones and other threats.

But officials still need to collect more data, according to Rasch.

“First, what’s the lethality of these systems? That’s the number one prerogative, you know, number one priority. What can we do with them to get at the threat set, the variety of threats sets that we face in this space? Number two, how reliable are they at different scales? You know, is the 10-kilowatts [laser] as reliable as the 300 [kilowatt]? What are our reliability weak points that we need to learn and where’s the knee in that curve? And then finally, affordability,” he said.

“As we collect our data over the next couple of years, I believe we’ll have the right set of data to again inform the next big decisions for the Army,” he added. Lasers “are gonna be on the battlefield in the future, we know it. But what point do we go all-in at first?”

New platforms are also being deployed overseas for operational assessments. For example, 10-kilowatt laser weapons have been transferred to Africa Command, Central Command and Indo-Pacific Command. A 20-kilowatt system is also being sent to Centcom, according to Maj. Gen. Sean Gainey, director of the Pentagon’s Joint Counter-Small Unmanned Aerial Systems Office (JCO).

The JCO is focused on new technologies that could defeat small drones and UAS smarms.

The “higher the kilowatt, the quicker in most cases, if the beam control is done properly, you will get a quicker defeat on some of these UASs, which allow the operators to move to multiple [targets] and then move to higher-end target sets,” Gainey said at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium.

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Plans for the gathering come as the U.S. military, Ukraine and other forces have come under attack by groups of unmanned aerial systems. And the Pentagon is looking for ways to counter the growing threat.

The JCO has been hosting a series of tech demonstrations in recent years. The most recent, known as Demo 4, was conducted in June at Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona. It looked at capabilities that could defeat Group 3 category “one-way attack” drones, also known as kamikaze drones or loitering munitions.

Demo 5, slated for June 2024, will be focused on “counter-swarm” tools, according to slides presented by Maj. Gen. Sean Gainey at the Space and Missile Defense Symposium on Tuesday.

“I essentially sum up the future threat in three words. Speed — because those Group 3s are getting faster … in cruise missile-type attacks that we’re seeing in the [combatant commanders’ areas of responsibility] — and developing capability for that. Mass — whether it’s flying multiple Group 3 [kamikaze drones] to try to overwhelm our operators and our capabilities, or is it a swarm attack where you have several hundreds of quadcopters essentially overwhelming your radars or sensors and your operator — to be able to defeat that capability as we move forward and the complexity of getting after those type targets,” Gainey said at the symposium.

He continued: “And then the last piece is the autonomy. So as the adversary continues to move more and more towards autonomy, our predominantly electronic warfare systems are continuously challenged because it’s a game to try to take what we use predominantly and try to make that not as useful or highly successful.”

A request for white papers related to the demo is expected to be released soon, most likely in the October time frame, according to officials.

The U.S. military needs layered defenses against UAS threats, Gainey noted. The Pentagon is testing and deploying overseas a variety of systems including kinetic interceptors like missiles and gun trucks, electronic warfare tools, and directed energy weapons such as lasers and high-power microwaves.

EW and directed energy weapons, which are relatively inexpensive per shot and possess nearly unlimited magazines, are considered particularly advantageous for defeating drone swarms and small UAS such as quadcopters.

“You won’t have enough interceptors to one-for-one match [the enemy’s drones]. So you have to leverage the EW capability and the high-powered microwave capability that we’re bringing on today,” Gainey said.

New platforms are being put into the field now for operational assessments, he noted.

For example, 10-kilowatt laser weapons have been sent overseas to Africa Command, Central Command and Indo-Pacific Command. And a 20-kilowatt system is being sent to Centcom, according to Gainey.

The “higher the kilowatt, the quicker in most cases, if the beam control is done properly, you will get a quicker defeat on some of these UASs, which allow the operators to move to multiple [targets] and then move to higher-end target sets,” Gainey explained.

High-power microwaves (HPM) are another area “as a department that I felt we had to invest in when we’re looking at the mass and the ability to fry the electronics of these UASs when they’re coming at you in waves, and through a layered approach be able to layer through some of these threat sets and a large amount of volume,” he added.

The Coyote interceptor with an HPM warhead is already in the Centcom region in the Middle East, he noted.

The Army’s Rapid Capabilities and Critical Technologies Office has also purchased prototypes of Epirus’ Leonidas high-power microwave system that can kill drones by zapping their electronics.

“That’s going to show up to … one of our units in the Indo-Pacom area to get it out there and from an operational assessment getting capability that’s, you know, under evaluation — we haven’t gone to a full-rate production — and getting it out there to the warfighter to not only test it for us, but to provide capability to deliver against the adversary,” Gainey said.

During the recent demo at Yuma, the JCO tested Lockheed Martin’s Mobile Radio Frequency-Integrated UAS Suppressor (MORFIUS) — a tube-launched, fixed-wing unmanned aerial system — that can fly close to small drones and attack them with microwave pulses.

“The MORFIUS HPM system essentially flies by, loiters, and any drones that come into its area [it] fries the electronics. And you’ll see the Epirus Leonidas system pretty much doing the same thing, but on a larger scale,” Gainey said.

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Kamikaze drones — also known as loitering munitions, suicide drones, or one-way attack (OWA) unmanned aerial systems — have played a prominent role in the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war and have also been used in other regions of the world such as Nagorno-Karabakh and the Middle East. They’re also a growing concern for U.S. military commanders who want to protect their forces.

“My challenge working with, you know, our [combatant command] partners is, you know, how do we stop the one-way attack UASs that have grown from these quadcopter type threats … more to, you know, destructive loitering munitions” that are being used in Ukraine and elsewhere, said Army Maj. Gen. Sean Gainey, director of the Joint Counter-small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Office (JCO) and director of fires in the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff, G-3/5/7.

“This is so important and why my office was designated to get after this problem set,” he said during a presentation at the Association of the United States Army’s annual convention in Washington on Wednesday.

The JCO, as the executive agent for DOD initiatives to defeat Group 1-3 drones, is planning to host a technology demonstration in the third quarter of fiscal 2023 and will soon ask industry for white papers.

“That request for white paper will outline what we’re looking for from industry on a defeat of Group 3 one-way attack [drones]. We know this is a threat. We know it’s important to the COCOMs, important to the services,” said Col. Michael Parent, division chief for acquisition and resources in the JCO.

“We want to make sure that we can put this out to industry and let them come back with the solutions. We’re not going to tell them how to do it, they’re gonna come back and tell us how they can solve this problem to get after this threat, which is continuing to evolve. Our adversaries are continuing to evolve this threat, and we must be able to be in the forefront to get at it. And that’s what that demo intends to do,” he added.

The white paper is expected to be released in the next week or two, according to Parent.

Kamikaze drones are the high priority threat, he noted.

“We see that a lot in theater,” he told DefenseScoop. “That one-way attack is something that we have been told again and again by the COCOMs and services that this is something that’s evolving … and we must therefore evolve with it. So this is something that’s coming up quickly.”

The JCO has an “aggressive timeline” for moving forward after the white paper comes out, he noted.

“We want to get the goodness from industry and what they can do,” Parent said. “We’re gonna expect industry to come back very quickly. We’re going to evaluate their proposals, hear from them about those proposals. And then we’re going to react very quickly to it and get to that demo and very quickly get after it.”

Gainey noted that the U.S. military needs a layered defense to address a variety of drone threats.

While electronic warfare systems are one option, “kinetic” air defense capabilities may be better suited for defeating loitering munitions, he suggested.

Although the U.S. military wants new technology solutions, it isn’t currently defenseless against suicide drones, Gainey said.

“I don’t want you to walk away from here thinking that we don’t have capability just because we’re doing a demo. We do have capability. And our integrated air-and-missile defense posture that we’re developing in the Army also provides a capability against the Group 3” systems, Gainey told DefenseScoop.

Meanwhile, the JCO is updating its counter-drone operational requirements document that was published about two years ago, according to Col. Cedric Lee, the office’s division chief for requirements and capabilities. The operational requirements include materiel and non-materiel solutions.

The JCO is working with the services and combatant commands on the update, with the aim of publishing it by the end of this calendar year.

To office is also looking for better ways to help get advanced technology developed by industry into the hands of soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines.

“We are currently developing a process, right, in which industry can submit their counter-UAS capabilities … to get JCO endorsement,” Lee said. The ultimate goal is to publicize those up-to-date, advanced capabilities for the services and the combatant commands to then procure.

At the AUSA conference, Gen. James Rainey, the new commanding general of Army Futures Command, told DefenseScoop that developing capabilities to defeat loitering munitions is “hugely critical.”

“Not only is it a current problem, but we believe that as we start developing better capabilities, we’re going to have to be in a continuous improvement process” to keep up with threats, he said.

During the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, the Army accepted risk in its air-and-missile defense portfolio as it prioritized other efforts, he said.

“We are now pursuing the growth of that at the max possible speed,” he said. “There’s going to be a need to continue to provide [soldiers] with new and better kit.”

However, the Army isn’t just focused on defensive capabilities, he noted, adding that the joint force also has a lot of offensive capability to go after these types of threats.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military has its own kamikaze drones and is developing new ones. For example, the DOD has provided AeroVironment’s Switchblade systems and AEVEX Aerospace’s new Phoenix Ghost drone to Ukraine for use against Russian invaders.

“What I’d be concerned about and most hopeful to do is to just take advantage from an acquisition standpoint of the innovation” that’s happening in industry, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Acquisition, Logistics and Technology Doug Bush told DefenseScoop at the conference.

He noted that vendors have been showcasing their systems at the AUSA convention and other trade shows.

“There’s lots of companies innovating here, which is great,” he said. “We’re not dependent on one company for this, we’ve got tremendous innovation happening in this space. So it just gives us lots of opportunities … When the Army decides to prioritize this, I think that gives us the ability to go very quickly when we get there using for example rapid prototyping, or if it’s far enough along even just a rapid fielding pathway if we need to.”

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Ukraine and Russia have employed a variety of airborne robotic platforms in the ongoing conflict — including modified commercial drones — for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and to attack their adversary’s forces. The U.S. military is sounding the alarm about the need to beef up its counter-unmanned aerial system (C-UAS) arsenal and skill set for forward-deployed soldiers to address these types of threats.

“What we’re seeing in Ukraine, I think, is bringing more to light of what we already know — that when you scale this [drone] capability from a small quadcopter all the way up to a larger Group 3 [system] and are able to leverage ISR to put other effects of other systems to bear, really shows the importance of having counter-UAS at scale, not just at a fixed site, but all the way down to the operational level,” JCO Director Maj. Gen. Sean Gainey said during an AUSA webinar broadcast Tuesday. Gainey is also the Army’s director for fires, G3/5/7.

More capabilities and more training are needed to protect mounted and dismounted units, and to counter small Group 1 and Group 2 drones as well as larger systems such as Group 3 platforms, officials say.

“Every soldier, almost like [nuclear, biological and chemical protection] individual skills — every soldier will have to understand how to use a, you know, individual weapon that … you can shoot a small UAS [with] or a Dronebuster EW type of system, or any of our other electronic warfare type system that may be employed at division [tactical operations centers], or even forward with the brigade location. So that’s how we in the Army and how the fires center is moving forward from a doctrinal perspective to get after this,” Gainey said.

The Army is currently fielding a set of counter-drone technologies at the division level.

“I truly feel as we field this capability inside of our divisions and we give those division commanders that capability and those soldiers are trained … and understand how to integrate into the division fight, maneuvering with the division, that’s where I think this really takes off, because then they’ll go to the [combined training centers], they’ll train down there and they’ll get the [tactics, techniques and procedures] down on how to employ this capability. And then you’ll see the innovativeness of this,” Gainey added.

The Defense Department is eyeing a variety of additional counter-drone tools.

In April at Yuma Proving Ground, Arizona, the JCO put high-powered microwave weapons through their paces. In September it plans to host another technology demonstration.

“It’s taking some of our current systems and really re-baselining where we’re at … and see from a technology standpoint, how far you can push the envelope with those current systems,” Gainey said. “We’re bringing those systems and a few other government systems that are out there to operationally assess and putting them all out there at Yuma and seeing … with the updates that they’ve made, how have we improved those systems moving forward.”

In the coming weeks, the JCO plans to announce the focus areas of the next demonstration slated for Spring 2023, and then ask industry what it can provide to address those.

The Defense Department is taking a layered systems approach to dealing with drone threats, to include electronic warfare, directed energy weapons, “kinetic effectors” such as missiles, and supporting technology such as radars.

Gainey said U.S. forces need to have multiple engagement options, noting that electronic warfare systems like jammers might not be effective against autonomous drones that adversaries could employ in the future.

“The autonomy is a distinct effort to evade a lot of our EW-type systems … trying to get away from what the EW systems are targeting, whether it’s the connection between the operator and the drone, or the different type [of] satellites they’re leveraging. And that’s where the kinetic effects come into play and the radar. And that’s the beauty of the system-of-system approach, layered system” approach, he said.

“You may have an autonomous vehicle coming at you. It should be agnostic to the operator, because he may not pick it up with his EW system, but his radar system picks it up. And then he knows he needs to leverage one of his kinetic effectors against it,” he added.

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