The war in Ukraine has opened the eyes of many in the Department of War to the future realities of the use of drone warfare in modern combat. Small, cheap, and disposable, small quad-copter drones have become one of the defining weapons systems of the Ukrainian conflict.
Understanding that they will have to defend against enemy drones in a future conflict, military personnel are training up on what is known as a C-UAS or Counter-Unmanned Aerial Systems to shoot down to render useless the enemy's drone capability.
One of the training courses to enable this new capability is called the Joint Multidomain Counter-Unmanned Aerial Systems Course (JMDCC). Sgt. Maj. Kellen Rowley came to speak to the most recent graduating class held in Germany.
"The proliferation of UAS technology on the modern battlefield requires us to be agile and adaptive," Rowley told the students. "We must ask ourselves: what are we doing to establish and rehearse our battle drills and SOPs at the small unit level? How are we integrating C-UAS into our collective training? The answers lie in the hands of talented and dedicated individuals like you... A vigilant and prepared force is the first and most effective line of defense."
The three week course teaches soldiers to use a variety of counter-UAS platforms, with one week of classroom instruction, a week of practical exercises, a week of field training, which is followed by a culminating exercise.
"The JMDCC is an excellent course that has intuitively set the standard for the train-the-trainer model we need across the force," Rowley explained. "To my knowledge, there is no other C-UAS course in the department operating at this level of proficiency and realism."