FORT JOHNSON, Louisiana—The only sign of the drone was its moped-like whine, the noise rising and falling as it circled above the 101st Airborne Division’s soldiers deep behind enemy lines in an exercise last week.
But somewhere up above, the soldiers playing the enemy—a unit dubbed Geronimo—were watching.
For most soldiers, there’d be nothing to do but sit and wait. For the 101st’s Multi-Functional Reconnaissance Company, it was an opportunity to test their gear. Within minutes, a soldier had powered up the Bal Chatri, a hand-held drone detector that was previously only given to special operations soldiers.
The only problem: the detector didn’t find anything. First Lt. Adam Hendrick, commander of a platoon within the MFRC, guessed the Bal Chatri was not picking the drone up because it was American-made, and therefore marked as safe.
That information is exactly the sort of data point the MFRC is meant to collect. The new unit—launched in March and one of just three similar units across the entire Army—is tasked with testing out new technology in real-world conditions and developing new, innovative doctrine.
Over the course of five days, Defense One watched as the MFRC brought its superior technology to bear against Geronimo’s experienced “enemy” soldiers across 250,000 acres of pine forest, even as temperatures soared into the high 90s with over 60 percent humidity. While the battle was fake—kills were registered via a laser-tag like system—the blank-firing guns that soldiers used often made it feel like a real battle.
Transforming in contact
The MFRC has all of the very latest in new technology: commercial drones, counter-drone tech, electronic warfare tools, command and control software, deception equipment, hyper-mobile vehicles, and more.
Most Army units are not like this. For years, the service fielded equipment like it handed out uniforms: everyone got the same thing. The problem is that distributing tech in that way can take years, and it led to fielding drones that were literal museum pieces.
To overcome the delays, the Army came up with a “transforming-in-contact” fielding strategy, in which the service rapidly fields small numbers but wide varieties of new tech to three selected brigades. While each brigade has a version of the MFRC, the MFRC is furthest along in its “transformation process,” a 101st Airborne PAO said.
Much of the new tech is inspired by devices and tactics in use in Ukraine. “There’s so many lessons to be able to take from [the Ukrainians], and a lot of it does come down to the integration of new things, like the proliferation of [drones],” said Maj. Gen. Brett Sylvia, commander of the 101st Airborne Division.
Rather than just test the equipment on controlled ranges, the Army also wants to push its tech and doctrine to the limit by having soldiers use them in realistic training scenarios and on deployment.
Such realism can start on day one: Defense One joined the MFRC’s parent unit, the second brigade of the 101st Airborne, as it flew 500 miles via helicopter by way of refueling points into the training zone. The assault was one of the largest, longests air assaults ever performed in a training exercise, Sylvia said: “No one has ever done anything at this distance, at this scale.”
After a midnight landing in sweltering heat, soldiers began testing their equipment in a two-week battle against Geronimo.
The MFRC
Right now, the MFRC consists of three reconnaissance platoons dubbed “hunter-killer” platoons, one drone and electronic warfare platoon, and one robotics and autonomous systems platoon tasked with operating ground robots and drones. Although the unit was founded in March, its rotation to JRTC week represents its first time in a combat training center, a critical part of preparation for deployment.
The hunter-killer platoons have as many as six short-range commercially available drones each, a mix of Skydio, Parrot, and Vesper models. The new tech comes with a major culture shift. While other drone operators have previously said replacing drones is a challenge, the MFRC is allowed to experiment as needed without worrying about possible damage, said Sgt. 1st Class Mitchell Poalson.
And if the hunter-killer platoon finds a target with its Parrot drone, it can use artificial intelligence software dubbed Sentinel AI to recommend how best to angle a cannon to take it out. The new tech reduces the time it takes to destroy a target from as many as eight minutes to “less than a minute,” said Capt. Charlie O’Hagan, commander of the MFRC.
Each platoon also carries a guidance station for the Switchblade 600, a loitering munition capable of taking out tanks, and includes one soldier trained to fly a Switchblade. The actual Switchblades are stored back at the brigade operations center, to be launched in the direction of the target before the hunter-killer platoon takes control of the drone for the final phase.
The MFRC is also reducing the time it takes to attack a target, thanks to its Switchblades. Typically, if a reconnaissance unit sees an enemy force, it must radio headquarters and wait for the staff to make a decision about how to proceed. With the Switchblade, the strike approval process is simplified for high-payoff targets—like Geronimo’s vehicle commander—said 1st Lt. Noah Paffenroth, commander of another MFRC platoon.
Geronimo also has drones—but the platoon is ready for those, too. Each platoon comes equipped with a Dronebuster jamming rifle and Bal Chatri drone detector.
Electronic warfare capabilities round out the picture, with platoons toting the Beast+ backpack, which can pick up the location of radars.
Some of the gear is homemade: Paffenroth showed off small bags containing multiple Raspberry Pi micro computers, each no bigger than a few inches. The computers mimic the nodes of a command post, from the printer to the projector. Paffenroth said the plan was to hang them in trees and then leave, luring Geronimo to target them and reveal their gun positions.
The unit’s RAS platoon has even more advanced capabilities. The platoon fields the C100 drone as a drone bomber, as well as the SMET ground robot, the STEED powered wheelbarrow, and more counter-drone technology.
Knitting all of the MFRC’s capabilities together is a host of new command and control gear. Each senior platoon officer and noncommissioned officer carries a chest-mounted Android phone loaded with the Tactical Assault Kit (TAK), an open-source mapping software that allows soldiers to mark their position and enemies, track friendly air support, and communicate by voice or text.
The platoons are also equipped with MUOS satellite radio terminals, which can be run through TAK, as well as more traditional radio formats like HF.
Toting all this around is the Army’s new Infantry Squad Vehicle, a squat, Mad-Max-esque truck based on the Chevrolet Colorado. The vehicle’s storage space means that recon units, which formerly could only be out for three days, can now travel for as long as six days, said Sgt. David Warren.
Learning pains
Still, the new equipment is not without challenges.
Soldiers must be cautious with the TAK system, because running it requires using a WiFi puck, whose signal can be detected. Consequently, units try to use them sparingly during dedicated communications windows.
The new gear can also require frequent trouble-shooting that goes far beyond the training offered to infantrymen, said Paffenroth. Electronic warfare soldiers fare better with this work, meanwhile, but may struggle with the physical fitness required for twenty-four hour raids deep behind enemy lines. The Army could wait for the technology to be perfected — but it risks being “five years behind” if it does so, Paffenroth said.
And while a TAK-integrated app should allow the MFRC to stream footage from Skydio drones directly to commanders or to artillery units, the unit had yet to get it to work, Paffenroth said. Ukrainian units do this easily by using Chinese-made DJI drones in conjunction with Google Meet—an option not available to U.S. troops.
The Dronebuster also had problem, soldiers said: Unless the drone was close and moving slowly, the relatively narrow jamming cone sent out by the jammer was not sufficient to take them out.
Army safety regulations also occasionally got in the way of testing. Soldiers were not allowed to fly their drones when helicopters were in the air, even if they had a clear line of sight to the drone. So the first two days of the exercise, as Chinooks and Apache helicopters filled the sky, soldiers had little opportunity to fly their drones.
However, even a short flight could bring big rewards. Just one day in, Hendrick’s platoon got a drone airborne and spotted three of Geronimo’s artillery pieces in a nearby field.
They then called up to their brigade headquarters, which coordinated a simulated strike from a High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, destroying all three cannons, O’Hagan said.
In fact, the brigade destroyed 29 pieces of Geronimo’s equipment within a day of landing its forces, O’Hagan said. Every single one of those targets was directed by small drones, and was conducted using simulated indirect fire, like artillery.
“Gone are the days of having to get close and put a soldier right in harm’s way,” O’Hagan said. “We want to leverage this equipment to reduce risk to force.”
