The US Army’s training command in Germany is updating its drone warfare curriculum every 60 days in response to changes in this technology and the way it’s used on the battlefield.
These changes reflect what soldiers are learning from using drones, as well as ongoing conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine, and include electronic warfare, or EW, and counter-drone technologies to better replicate the challenges troops could face in future wars.
During a media roundtable last week, Army leaders discussed efforts to modernize the force for uncrewed aerial systems, or UAS, including the curriculum for troop training courses, called programs of instruction, or POIs.
Brig. Gen. Terry Tillis, the head of 7th Army Training Command, said the command developed drone-related programs of instruction based on its experience.
“We iterate every sixty days to update those POIs, primarily focused on UAS operations,” Tillis said on the call, per a transcript, “whether it’s a planning course, an instructor course, or an employment course, and also with EW and other effects.”
Tillis added that the command syncs with the different Centers of Excellence routinely to share updates. The 7th Army Training Command is the Army’s largest overseas center for training soldiers. Located in Germany, the command oversees the instruction and courses for soldiers across Europe and Africa and works with Army partners and allies as well.
Army officials also shared details on how the 173rd Airborne Brigade, elements of which were involved in the Unmanned Assault Battalion experiment focused on uncrewed systems, and other units had gained experience in drone warfare at the Hohenfels Training Area in Germany.
Tillis said that “over the last three iterations, each rotational unit, including the opposing force, has grown significantly. We have observed units grow in proficiency, lethality, depth, range, and ideas of how to task-organize and employ capability across the depth of the battlefield” to support combined-arms maneuver and achieve objectives.
The Army stood up the Unmanned Assault Battalion last fall and is now phasing it out after the recent Saber Junction exercise in Germany. Army leaders have said the unit was never intended to be a permanent thing; rather, it was a temporary role. The unit’s takeaways on drones will be disseminated across the Army while it returns to its airborne infantry role.
Tillis said that lessons were being applied from the Middle East and the war in Ukraine, sharing that the Army is learning lessons from its partnership with the Armed Forces of Ukraine, honed “in a very tough, demanding, relevant operational environment.”
The leaders of several Ukrainian drone schools told Business Insider late last year that they were updating their curriculum constantly, sometimes as often as every other week.
Earlier this month, Capt. Allan W. Watson, the commander of Blackhawk Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, wrote an op-ed describing what his troops learned from a combat exercise against Ukrainian forces. US forces saw clearly the threat that drones pose from a surveillance and attack perspective, but the training also gave them a chance to experiment with solutions for armored vehicles.
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