The US Army wants soldiers to test tomorrow's tech while preparing to fight today. It's a balancing act.
· Business Insider
US Army photo by Sgt. Nathan Arellano Tlaczani
- The US Army recently combined a major technology experiment with realistic training.
- Integrating new weapons into training situations delivers both benefits and trade-offs.
- Some soldiers avoided risk with unfamiliar systems to maximize their training time.
The US Army is embracing a wave of new weapons and systems, from drones to command-and-control platforms, and putting these experimental capabilities directly in the hands of soldiers during training events.
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That approach yields valuable lessons and gives soldiers hands-on experience with new technologies. The push and pull of experimentation and training, however, can create tension between testing unfamiliar gear and preparing units for the broader demands of warfare.
At Fort Irwin in California, the Army recently conducted its Project Convergence Capstone exercise, a large-scale experiment built into a training event in the brutal heat of the Mojave Desert.
Roughly 10,000 troops participated in this large multinational exercise and took part in simulated warfighting involving numerous drones, sensors, electronic warfare capabilities, and other new technologies, including the Army's prototype command-and-control system. Participants tested around 100 new weapons and technologies.
This year marked an evolution from previous Project Convergence Capstone exercises, which mainly focused on soldiers testing new systems in dedicated experimentation lanes.
Past iterations were "more laboratory-like, where we just kind of set that technology in motion, we do a quick assessment, determine what we want to do differently, and then we'll do it again," Brig. Gen. Daniel Hibner, head of the Army Joint Modernization Command, said at the exercise last month.
The shift toward a more realistic combat scenario was driven in part by the Army's desire to stress-test its new command-and-control system, but the environment and structure also created conditions for evaluating other emerging technologies.
Operators said they weren't pushing their drones so they could get more training out of the systems.US Army photo by Sgt. Nathan Arellano Tlaczani
The Army deployed emitters, jammers, and sensors to effectively create a denied, degraded, intermittent, and limited communications environment.
The Army said that testing new systems in a combat scenario against a simulated near-peer adversary produced more realistic operating conditions and potentially more useful feedback. That feedback could inform decisions ranging from whether the Army should acquire a certain drone to broader operational concepts for when and how to use specific weapons or tactics.
Soldiers said they learned firsthand how to support new systems and keep them functioning, gathering data on questions such as how many drone batteries to bring to an observation post or how to keep systems from overheating.
The Army has prioritized this hands-on testing in recent years, aiming to involve soldiers early in the development of a new technology and use their feedback to inform acquisition decisions or help vendors refine their products.
But combining experimentation with training creates challenges.
Testing new technologies involves learning by doing: evaluating how a system performs, determining where it might be useful, and developing tactics for employing it. The objectives are not always as clear, and, especially with drones, soldiers are still determining whether operating them is an additional task or an entirely new job.
At Fort Irwin, soldiers were navigating these competing demands. Some told Business Insider they did not push their systems to their limits in the harsh conditions because they wanted more time to practice with the technology rather than risk losing or breaking it. Other soldiers said they maintained physical backups in case they lost access to prototype digital maps or communications.
Soldiers provided feedback on weapons, including drones and the Army's new command and control system.US Army photo by Sgt. Sar Paw
Certain aspects of the exercise, including the need to manage and deconflict airspace shared by soldiers operating different drones, also constrained how the systems were tested.
In one example, a sergeant operating an Anduril Bolt-M drone, said he hadn't flown the aircraft to its full range or altitude.
"We could just do it safer, and that way we could get more repetitions in." Soldiers can also manage the shared airspace. "We're not the only people flying out here," he said.
US forces were not the only ones balancing experimentation with training. British soldiers described two distinct processes for evaluating and integrating new drones: trials and experimentation.
Trials involve "taking one of these things," Lt. Col. John Black, a British Army commander, told Business Insider, referring to drones, "put it through its paces, and test it to see if it does what the Army wants it to do" before it's acquired. This includes safety and integration tests.
Experiments are more focused on applying the system to specific use cases. For an uncrewed ground vehicle, that could mean examining whether it makes front-line logistics easier or safer.
The challenges of tomorrow's battlefields, including uncrewed systems, electronic warfare, and artificial intelligence, mean troops must acquire new skills while continuing to refine their foundational combat skills. That demands a more flexible and adaptable mindset.
Hibner told Business Insider the exercise's goals were to achieve combat realism, avoid interfering with how rotational units fight, and introduce new technology that disrupts but doesn't detract from foundational training. "So you bring in the right amount of tech, you train it in the right amount, put it in the hands of soldiers and leaders, and then you let them go," he said.
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