The Army’s latest modern concept unit is getting a new capability in the next year or so, as it works its way up to full operational capability.
The Hawaii-based 3rd Multi-Domain Task Force is getting one of the two Typhon mid-range missile launcher batteries based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash., Col. Mike Rose, the unit’s commander, told reporters Friday.
“We’re constantly looking for opportunities to exercise capability like that forward, in theater,” Rose said, though the Typhon hasn’t seen any live-fire exercises to date.
Both systems have been deployed to the Philippines since last year.
Two of the Army’s three existing MDTFs are based in the Pacific, as the centerpiece of the service’s efforts to deter and respond to conflict with China. The Army codified the units’ basic principles—integrating information, cyber, and electronic warfare with long-range fires under one commander—into doctrine in 2022, leaving behind the Global War on Terror’s siloed air, land, and information campaigns.
The 3rd MDTF stood up in September 2022 at Fort Shafter, Hawaii, and has been operating since May 2023. The Army is planning five of the task forces in all, with the fourth on track to stand up at Fort Carson, Colo., in 2027.
Recently, Rose said, the new unit became part of the Army’s Transformation-in-Contact effort, giving it access to the service’s rapid development and acquisitions program.
“Inside of that, we have been constantly working with and employing new program-of-record prototype capabilities, experimental capabilities … to inform programs of record and requirements specific to our mission,” he said.
The unit is looking to fill some capability gaps, he added, like unmanned aerial systems, counter-UAS and command and control systems—capabilities the Navy and Marine Corps are also seeking.
To do so, the3rd MDTF plans to add a few hundred more personnel over the next year and a half to get to its eventually 2,000-soldier formation, with a headquarters and four battalions. That will include a long-range precision fires battalion, Rose said, and a sustainment battalion.
“So we’re doing that and managing that growth and that capability development while also campaigning, so that it keeps us pretty busy,” he said.
