How Drone Swarm Tactics Are Becoming The New Norm For U.S. Soldiers

Drones Versus Pickup Truck Turrets

Army engineers tested troops’ abilities to control Bumblebee V2 unmanned aircraft systems, deployed from a “hive” payload, across vast open areas.

They also used a UGV to practice killing drones flying in a swarm. The vehicle was a semi-autonomous Ford F-250 truck equipped with Forterra’s AutoDrive kit and a turret designed to track and shoot down drones.

The 9 Mothers turret, manufactured by EDDA, uses a 12-gauge shotgun that can spin 360 degrees to destroy drones in mid-air.

While a shotgun fires at a slower rate, Army leaders chose this firearm to avoid risks to troops.

“We specifically chose the shotgun and not a machine gun because machine guns present problems,” Sgt. Maj. Corey Wilkens, the Army’s project manager for the exercise, told Forbes.

“Machine gun rounds go a long way. This was a very conscious choice to pick a shotgun because I can have 360-degree firing without having to worry about rounds flying back towards friendly forces and shrinking directions in which I can fire.”

The exercise demonstrated that the equipment not only functioned as intended, but that U.S. soldiers have reached new benchmarks in robotic combat techniques.

How Industry Is Speeding Up Tactical Progress

A key element of the Army’s recent progress has been the extent to which the service has facilitated direct contact between soldiers and private industry at test ranges and exercises.

This has significantly sped up the process of improving and acquiring new technology, according to Col. Thomas Monaghan, commander of the Lt. Gen. James M. Gavin Joint Innovation Outpost for the Army’s XVIII Airborne Corps.

“One really big key factor here is, for the first time ever, you’ve got soldiers who are coming up with problem sets and being able to solve or address them at the tactical edge with the help of acquisition and industry professionals,” he said in an interview.

“This is the first time the Army has partnered an acquisition cell with an operational unit, the XVIII Airborne Corps. So, through us, with us they can put those companies on contract and push that information back to other portfolio acquisition executives.”

“It’s really helping to enable solving problems at the tactical edge for the warfighter in record time,” he said.

Swarm Tactics As The New Standard

While the early years of the war between Russia and Ukraine placed demands on U.S. forces to learn lessons from Ukrainian drone operators, U.S. soldiers are now efficient enough at wielding unmanned systems that the concept of a single operator using a single drone for a mission now belongs to a past era.

Army officials say that swarming is the new standard expectation for soldiers – not only in terms of wielding unmanned aircraft systems but also autonomous systems on the ground.

“The real point of having robotics is to have a force multiplying capability. We see a lot of one-to-one [drone to operator scenarios] in combat between Russia and Ukraine right now, but we know the next evolution – not fighting the last war, but the next war – is that you need robotics be a force multiplier,” said Wilkens.

“We can’t have all of our soldiers operating single UAS [unmanned aircraft systems].”

Fighting With Mass Robotics

Soldiers can now efficiently operate over two dozen Bumblebee V2 drones each and send them to perform different missions, including intelligence and reconnaissance, plus lock them on targets for one-way explosive attacks.

The Army has also rapidly expanded its use of autonomous ground vehicles. The semi-autonomous Ford F-250 truck can perform a variety of tasks for Army engineers, releasing “hives” of drones in remote areas, detecting mines, and breaching through obstacles.

“You end up with a very, very powerful engineer platoon that can punch a lot heavier than the amount of people that are in it because you’re able to bring mass robotics to bear in the fight,” Wilkens said.

“Theoretically, a single soldier could breach in four different places, with each vehicle doing a hundred-meter breach.”

Drones As Smoke Screens

Robotic vehicles are also highly conducive to deception operations, he noted.

“A key component of fighting with mass robotics is that we can carry out a very elaborate deception operation only using robotics and with next to no risk to human force,” he explained.

“Carrying out multiple operations across a wide front makes it very hard for the enemy to understand where we actually intend to fight,” he said.

Although popular concepts of drone warfare envision small unmanned aircraft systems attacking isolated targets, those tactics are now outdated. U.S. troops are ready for future conflicts in which individual soldiers can launch large swarms of unmanned systems through the air and across the ground to attack enemy forces and fortifications.

The era of swarm warfare is no longer a future prospect. It is here. The net outcome will be battles that see machines attacking each other – an alarming concept, but one that will remove humans from immediate danger in combat.

“If there are drones attacking our unmanned systems, they’re not attacking us,” Wilkens said.