Compass Points - Drones Overhead
New counter technologies are on the way.
February 13, 2024
.
What do CSIS in Washington DC, a new DOD school at Fort Sill, and the US Marine Corps have in common? They are all looking up and scanning the skies for drones.
.
New technology is a constant challenge. But no matter how powerful a new technology seems at first, it will soon not be as great a threat as it first seemed. Why? New technology always generates counter technologies. And counter technologies generate counter - counter technologies.
.
For example, aerial drones, along with their unmanned ground and underwater cousins, are a powerful new technology. Like any new technology, drones are generating new counter technologies.
.
Colin Demarest of the Defense News is reporting that US Central Command is using a "Sandtrap" hackathon to develop new counters to drone attacks.
.
===================
.
More than a dozen coders handpicked from across the U.S. Department of Defense spent a week chipping away at data and software challenges associated with swatting down drones in the Greater Middle East, Central Command said. The effort, dubbed Sandtrap, produced prototypes that improved the speed and accuracy of unmanned aerial system countermeasures, according to a Feb. 9 announcement from CENTCOM, the Pentagon’s combatant command whose area of responsibility includes Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
Downing a drone or other aerial threat requires spotting, classifying, tracking and targeting it in a process that is increasingly digital.
The U.S. military has in recent months faced a barrage of drone and missile attacks, including in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden. A one-way drone strike at the Tower 22 installation, near the al-Tanf garrison and Syrian border, killed three soldiers in January. Iranian-supplied militants were blamed.
Schuyler Moore, the chief technology officer at CENTCOM, in a statement said the command is committed to “leveraging every talented individual, technical solution and innovative process available” to advance counter-drone efforts. “The Sandtrap hackathon combined all three: exceptional coders, brilliant software prototypes, and a repeatable process that can give us creative solutions in the future,” she added.
-- Colin Demarest, The Defense News
.
==================
.
In addition to the CENTCOM Sandtrap hackathon, and many other initiatives, the Department of Defense has also started a new school, the Joint Counter Small Unmanned Aircrafts University. Joe Saballa has reported in The Defense Post:
.
===================
.
Located at Fort Sill in Oklahoma, the facility will be used to develop and teach countermeasures to address the increasing presence of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) on today’s battlefield.
With the help of state-of-the-art systems, trainees will be taught to determine the best sensors to detect even fast-moving enemy drones in the sky. The facility will also utilize both modern and conventional weapons, including modified rifles and directed energy lasers, to take down hostile UAVs.
“We don’t have five years to wait for the perfect system. We have to rapidly innovate with what’s possible now and keep getting better, because even when we figure it out, they’re going to make a countermove,” Army Futures Command official General James Rainey said.
The service plans to train around 1,000 soldiers every year starting this month. According to military officials, the Joint Counter Small Unmanned Aircrafts University will offer three main types of instruction tailored for specific needs of the army, air force, navy, and marines.
-- Joe Saballa, The Defense Post
.
===================
.
A recent comprehensive study from the think tank CSIS, ‘Countering Small Uncrewed Aerial Systems’ concludes, "Fortunately, there is a diverse mix of sensors, effectors, and C2 systems that can detect, track, identify, and defeat sUAS. The DoD is investing in a variety of kinetic, electronic, and RF-based defenses to counter UAS threats."
.
What does all this drone activity and counter drone initiatives mean for the Marine Corps? Compass Points reader, Polarbear, provides one perspective. (Comment has been edited for length and content.)
.
===================
.
Lots and lots of anti-drone experimentation and development -- as there should be -- but is this effort focused correctly? Experimentation should not be an excuse to cut force structure (ie Force Design). Experimentation should also not be done to reinforce bad strategies or concepts like the MLR. Why should the Marine Corps duplicate what the Army is already doing at great expense with their new “littoral anti-air battalions”? A related recent Army RFI calls for 252 FIXED SITE Coyote Launcher Systems and 25 mobile launchers. It sounds too defensive to me. The Marine Air Wing already has defensive anti-air battalions to protect the Air Wing’s, airfields, FARPs, radar units, fuel storage, and Command and Control sights. IMO we are still thinking too defensively. For Marines, the other part of the drone question should be: how do we protect Marine ground units as they maneuver offensively? The defensive MLR is a bad response to a bad strategy. It is also an excuse for the Navy to sail away like they did years ago at Guadalcanal.
--Polarbear
.
===================
.
What do CSIS in Washington DC, a new DOD school at Fort Sill, and the US Marine Corps have in common? They are all looking up and scanning the skies for drones. New technology generates new counter technology, which generates new counter - counter technology.
.
The next war will not be how we expect it to be. It will not be where we expect to be, or against who we think it will be. While the next war will be different, still, the next war will not be solely a deep drone battle that can be fought safely from a keyboard and screen. Part of the next war will be up close and bloody. The next war, once again, will require a substantial infantry force. When the crisis erupts, some of the infantry force must be capable, flexible, and fast -- they must be able to get to the crisis quickly. No technology can ever do away with the need for a flexible, capable, always ready, crisis response force.
.
Compass Points salutes all those helping to make sure that when the next crisis erupts -- with new drones and new counters to drones -- that the upgraded, enhanced, and rebalanced global Marine MAGTF will be the first to arrive, the first to deter, and the first to fight.
.
- - - - -
.
Defense News (defensenews.com) 02/09/2024
CENTCOM’s ‘Sandtrap’ hackathon targets drones amid Middle East barrage
By Colin Demarest
.
- - - - -
.
The Defense Post (thedefensepost.com) 10/17/2023
US Army Opens Drone Fighting School
By Joe Saballa
https://www.thedefensepost.com/2023/10/17/us-army-drone-school/?expand_article=1
This is an important post and a topic to easily undervalued is the approach is misunderstood. The integration of intelligent robotics and autonomous systems (IRAS) within each element of the MAGTF is not aimed to replace Marines. Rather, through a capabilities centric approach the ability to accomplish METs in each functional area are greatly enhanced given the proper integration of a family of uncrewed systems. In many ways the development is parallel to the foundations of the MAGTF's creation. Important in out history is CMC Shepherd in 1954 put forth the first bulletin outlining the creation of the MAGTF concept to enhance amphibious operations predicated on the inclusion of organic aviation capabilities within a task organized formation with a single commander over the constituent subordinate elements. Also important was Shepherd was envisioning a warfighting concept with nascent technologies, namely the helicopter, being employed from ships that did not yet exist. A very forward leaning and arguably controversial concept at the time both internal to the USMC and for the Navy. That concept took 8 years and a lot of refinement, to include the conversion of Navy shipping (CVE-90 to CHHA-1 in 1956), to finally be accepted in doctrine through CMC Shoup's signing of MCO 3120.3. Since that point, the MAGTF has evolved over the years providing a responsive "all arms" expeditionary formation -though "all arms" just with Shepherd's original bulletin has never been prescriptive.
The integration of IRAS in inline with the spirit of enhancing the combined arms capabilities of the MAGTF. Particularly with aerial robotics. Where the "A" in MAGTF is the binding element and typical reason why commanders fight to keep the MAGTF together, organic aerial systems become the lower-case "a" for ground formations. These systems augment the ACE and give ground commanders flexibility to provide internal ISR and striking capabilities that give options to maneuver like Marines have never had before -the systems also contribute to "saving the sortie" for crewed platforms where they are needed most. The rub rests in the DOTMLPFP requirements to integrate the at scale throughout the total force.
Quick Example: The training areas on our bases were designed predominantly between 1941-1943 for a force equipped with the weapons and tactics of the time. Yet the systems being employed today extend the operational reach of squads and platoons many times beyond the length of Camp Lejeune. Further, Group-1 systems are treated procedurally the same as crewed aircraft -greatly restricting how they can be used tactically due to not yet updated methods of airspace integration. This is not to mention spectrum fratricide as well as storage and maintenance shortfalls. *With all these current barriers it would be easy to understand why the Company Gunny says "leave that crap back in the rear." We have to get beyond this point smartly to realize what 21st Century Combined Arms truly means.
Last point and most important point -manpower. Current conflict is showing the increased specialization in training to employ any number of systems is required to achieved outsized effects of formations employing IRAS. We have created the 7316 PMOS (sUAS Operator) that trains Marines to employ aerial systems within infantry formations. They are trained within AITB, SOI-East along side and very much integrated with the other advanced infantry courses across the battalion. They spend the majority of their time in the field learning what it takes to put a sensor or munition in time and space to achieve a ground scheme of maneuver. As I am sure many have seen the videos coming out of Ukr showing these systems destroying tanks or locating and correcting surface indirect fires -what we dont see is the level of training to both operate and maintain the attritable mesh networks and data linkages to accomplish those tasks. Our Marines are doing that type of training today. It is quite impressive to see what a infantry platoon grounded in combined arms can achieve when given the tools to make their craft even more deadly to an enemy.
So again, it's not about replacing people and there are many challenges to overcome. But that is no different than what our Corps did to make itself better under the guidance of previous Commandants that first envisioned the utility of the MAGTF from the very birth of the concept.
LtCol T.L. Hord