Drone Dominance in Contact: sUAS Challenges and Adaptations at the Brigade Level

Daniel Temme, Clayton Cooper,Matthew Levengood

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In accordance with the Secretary of War’s drone dominance policy, 2nd Brigade Combat Team (2BCT), 10th Mountain Division, is aggressively pursuing Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS) employment within both collective and pre-deployment training. To account for the loss of organic reconnaissance capabilities as a result of the recent deactivation of cavalry squadrons and Military Intelligence companies across the Army, 2BCT stood up a Multifunctional Reconnaissance Company (MFRC) to provide 2BCT with modernized organic reconnaissance capabilities. As the only subordinate unit with trained UAS operators and maintainers, the MFRC incubated the brigade’s sUAS program before training sUAS operators in light infantry units across the brigade.

Throughout this process, 2BCT identified multiple obstacles that hinder the Army’s ability to rapidly integrate sUAS at scale. The focus of this field report is to articulate the challenges that cannot be solved at the brigade level. 2BCT identified four key obstacles and proposed solutions to the challenge of achieving drone dominance: