A US Army commander used attack drones and C4-packed robots to clear a deadly breach before soldiers even got in the fight

• A U.S. Army company commander used attack drones and ground robots to clear a breach.

• Dozens of drones crashed into enemy mines, trenches and barriers before two C4-filled ground robots finished the job.

• The mission acted as a drone contact layer by placing the systems in front of the soldiers.

In a recent exercise at Fort Polk, Louisiana, a U.S. Army company commander used attack drones and ground robots to destroy enemy positions and clear the way for soldiers.

Drones and robots have demonstrated the Army’s role by doing difficult and dangerous work that a rifle company might normally have to do. crewless systems may play out in future wars.

The attack on uncrewed systems occurred during a 3rd Mobile Brigade Combat Team exercise at the Joint Readiness Training Center in April. Brigade commander Col. Ryan Bell told reporters that he gave the task to one of his company commanders.

“I want you to make this breach undisputed when your riflemen come in,” Bell recalled telling the commander.

Breach is a very dangerous battlefield mission that requires soldiers to slowly move through obstacles such as mines, wires, trenches, barriers, walls, and anti-vehicle ditches. Enemy forces may have trained machine guns, artillery, or mortars on the most predictable paths. If troops are pinned down by obstacles or trapped in a kill box, this can quickly turn deadly.

The company commander returned drones and robotics to clear the breach. Bell, who shared his experience at a media roundtable on Thursday, said the unit responsible for carrying out the breach mission launched 25 attack UAVs that the soldiers themselves created, targeting bunkers, machine gun nests and three-strand concertina wires.

Other drones targeted electronic warfare sensors and jammers. And even more uncrewed aerial systems dropped smoke canisters, darkening the battlefield. Later, the remaining obstacles such as mines and wire obstacles were destroyed by two people. uncrewed land vehicles It’s full of C4 explosives.

“When the riflemen got there, there was no objection to the violation,” Bell said. “Every target had been hit.”

“And you didn’t have an engineer or a Digger team running with a grappling hook trying to crawl low with a Bangalore torpedo,” the commander said. “We required 35 drones and just over 100 pounds of C4, but the cost was less than three 155mm artillery fires.”

The exercise highlighted the value of the “drone contact layer,” which helps prevent casualties by engaging the enemy before human soldiers do.

“By the time my riflemen get there, the enemy has already fallen and they are about to end the war, but it is an unfair war,” the colonel said. Drones and ground robots are increasingly considered useful vehicles that can activate soldiers and keep them safer.

The breach mission was just one part of the brigade’s larger experiments with drones. The soldiers there establish their own order. cheap, attributable systems With parts from the USA’s Blue UAS [Uncrewed Aerial Systems] List and your own 3D printed parts.

Bell said the brigade learned many lessons from the incident, including the need for a significant number of inexpensive unmanned aerial vehicles that are easy for soldiers to use quickly in combat conditions.

During the exercise, Bell said the brigade also worked with: artificial intelligence. The 3rd Mobile Brigade is applying AI to its planning, including allowing personnel to create their own agents. Bell cited a case where an AI bot processed 25,000 battlefield reports to provide a clearer picture of the environment.

While AI was useful in some ways, there were other situations where the technology was not helpful. “Large language models don’t really understand three-dimensional space, so they’re not good for developing action plans,” Bell said. “This is where you need the expertise of a skilled personnel to understand the martial art in order to plan the operation.”

If you like this story, don’t forget to follow Business Content on Yahoo.