Source: United States Army
PARTICIPANTS
Moderator: CPT Gabrielle Hildebrand (Army Public Affairs)
Speakers:
- COL Alexis Perez-Cruz (Brigade Commander, 2/3rd ID)
- LTC Joseph Steadman (Squadron Commander, 6/8 Cav Squadron)
- SGM James Smith (Senior Enlisted Advisor, 3/15 Inf. Regt.)
Reporters:
- Drew Lawrence (Defense Scoop)
- Meredith Roaten (Janes)
- Hope Seck (Military Times)
- Mike Stone (Reuters)
- Carley Welch (Breaking Media)
- Shelby Holliday (Wall Street Journal)
- Matthew Beinart (Access Intel/ Defense Daily)
- Sotaro Hata (Asahi Shimbun Newspaper)
- Gina Cavallaro (AUSA Magazine)
- Corey Dickstein (Stars and Stripes)
- Evan Lynch (Signal Media)
TRANSCRIPT
CPT Gabrielle Hildebrand:
All right, we’re gonna go ahead and get started. Good morning, everyone. I’m Captain Gabrielle Hildebrand with Army Public Affairs and I’ll be moderating today’s media roundtable. We are fortunate to have direct, first-hand insight into Army continuous transformation initiatives and tactical combat lessons from the Rock of the Marne.
Joining us on the line from the Third Infantry Division is Colonel Alexis Perez-Cruz, commander of the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team; Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Steadman, 6th Squadron, 8th Cavalry Regiment commander; and Command Sergeant Major James Smith, Third Battalion, 15th Infantry Regiment senior enlisted advisor.
Before we get started, just a quick reminder on the ground rules pertaining to today’s discussion. This interview is established to discuss lessons learned from the critical training rotation at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, California, from 15 June to 25 July of this year. This was done to certify readiness to rapidly deploy anywhere in the world, while simultaneously adapting to the modern battlefield by testing new and innovative systems, technologies, and formations as part of the Army continuous transformation.
The Spartan Brigade is leading the way in adopting the next Armored Brigade Combat Team task organization, employing cutting-edge capabilities inside its armored warfare arsenal against a simulated near-peer threat. We will discuss how they’ve created a culture of evolution and innovation, gaining actionable results for the warfighter.
I’d ask that you please keep your questions focused accordingly. Should you have questions beyond the scope of today’s discussion, I’m here and OCPA is ready to respond to queries after today’s interview. We are on the record today with comments attributed to the panelists. Please feel free to record today’s discussion, although I will be sending out a transcript.
Following Colonel Perez-Cruz’s opening remarks, I’ll be moderating questions and follow-on remarks. Everyone will have one question, and I’ll ask if you have a follow-up if time permits. I’ll circle back for another round of questioning, but please wait to be called upon. I’ll give a reminder when we only have time for one more question or if something is severely out of scope of what’s already been discussed. Please ensure your phone or whatever device you’re calling on is on mute while you are not communicating. We’ve allotted one hour for this morning, so we’re scheduled to end around noon.
Pending any questions, I’ll go ahead and turn it over to Colonel Perez-Cruz for his opening statements. Sir, you’ve got the floor.
COL Alexis “Pancho” Perez-Cruz:
Thank you very much, Gabrielle, for that introduction and for moderating this morning’s discussion. Good morning to everyone, and thank you all for taking time to join us today.
As Gabrielle said, my name is Colonel Alexis Perez-Cruz. I go by Pancho. I’m the commander of the Second Armored Brigade Combat Team in the Third Infantry Division. We also go by the Spartan Brigade, so technically my call sign is Spartan 6.
Our soldiers completed a rotation at the National Training Center just at the end of June. It was rotation 26-08. We were there testing new equipment and new formations against the most demanding desert terrain at Fort Irwin, CA, as part of the Army’s broader transformation and modernization initiatives. We walked away with real results, real data, and real experience putting these new capabilities to the test under some of the toughest conditions—and by conditions, I’ll say it’s the desert. The highs were around 117 degrees. Our soldiers drove thousands of miles. This is what the Army does when we train; we keep it in the most realistic place, the most realistic aspects, which includes here at Fort Stewart, Georgia.
Now, what did we really do? We reaffirmed that armor remains a critical and relevant asset for future fights. I’m really proud of this brigade. For the 25 months that I’ve commanded—I’ll change command next week—we’ve learned a lot, and we think we’ve provided quite a few lessons to the Army. With that, I’ll stop there and I’ll be happy to answer any questions.
CPT Hildebrand:
Thank you so much, Sir. We’ll begin with our first question from Drew Lawrence from DefenseScoop. Go ahead, Drew.
Drew Lawrence (DefenseScoop):
Great. Thank you, Sir. You just said that armor remains a critical branch for future fights. There’s been a lot of discussion about the role of the Armor branch in modern warfare. I don’t know if you saw it, but an article in the Small Wars Journal earlier this week has gotten a lot of attention in the armored community and was critical of the branch’s role in contemporary conflict in parts, stating it had, quote, “remained trapped in a reinforcing feedback loop that has facilitated armor’s fall from the Army and joint force’s breadwinner, to a community which is more or less at odds with warfare’s prevailing conditions.” If it’s not resolved rapidly, the branch could be, quote, “dead by 2035.”
I ask this as a former armor guy myself: you mentioned the branch being relevant to modern conflict. How so? Is it taking on a new role, and if so, how does that role differ from the way heavy units have operated in the past? Thanks.
COL Perez-Cruz:
Thanks for the question. I’m glad we have another armored officer here on the line. Yes, I read the article. Amos Fox is a SAMS grad, and I think he’s a professor at Arizona State, if I’m not mistaken, or University of Arizona—one of the two. It’s thought-provoking.
But in the end, here’s what I believe, and I believe the armor branch believes this: armor remains the only force capable of delivering decisive, large-scale shock and terrain seizure when windows of opportunity open. Now, is the battlefield changing in the way that we’re using technology, AI, drones, and space? Yes. The modern battlefield may limit some maneuver. But when deception, electronic warfare, and firepower create even just brief openings, armor formations are still the only elements that can rapidly penetrate, exploit, and hold ground at scale.
When you deploy an Armored Brigade Combat Team, what you’re actually deploying is the net explosive weight of five Mother of All Bombs, right? That’s not a small force to contend with. Trusting the armor soldiers—and when I say armor, I mean everyone in the Armored Brigade Combat Team—when you conduct combined arms maneuver, you can overwhelm and have an opening so that you can exploit and hold that ground. I’ll leave it there, and we can continue to discuss that if that’s what you would like.
CPT Hildebrand:
Drew, did you have a follow-up?
Drew Lawrence:
I do. You talked a little bit in the beginning about testing new capabilities for this NTC rotation. What new capabilities did you test? What performed well for the armor branch’s function, and what did not perform well and needs to improve for the armor branch’s function? Thanks.
COL Perez-Cruz:
I’m going to turn this one over to JP Steadman because he was my lead. Not that I don’t want to say it, but I want to highlight he did a lot of things. We gave him the MRRs, which are the medium reconnaissance UAVs, and the LRRs, and we also gave him the loitering munition, and he had EW as well. As my lead reconnaissance Lieutenant Colonel, because he’s the Cav squadron commander, I’d like him to discuss that. Go ahead, JP.
LTC Joseph Patrick (JP) Steadman:
Yes, Sir. That’s a great question, Mr. Lawrence. We had a lot. From our Switchblades to our various different UASs to our EW systems, I would say everything worked. Everything supported our operations.
The thing that was the best was the Switchblades, the loitering munitions that we had. We had almost 200 kills with those things alone. They were super responsive. We could get them 40 kilometers out, and we were able to strike almost at will against Blackhorse with the Switchblade. We did them notionally because we’re at the National Training Center and obviously we’re not going to do live fires while we’re doing force-on-force, but those appear to be a game changer on the battlefield for us.
When it comes to the various UASs for the short range and the medium range—we did not have the long-range UAS—those helped out a lot. As the Cav squadron, we were able to use those to support maneuver and bridge seams and gaps that we have with our maneuvering forces, enabling us to set conditions for the brigade.
Where we still struggle with UAS is really in the battery capability of these systems and the distance in which they can fly. We saw a degradation to how often we could fly because the heat of the desert started having issues with the batteries. Obviously, you won’t have that everywhere you travel in the world, but that’s something we need to clean up. The briefed distances for these systems is not what you can actually get out of them when you go and use them in real life. It’s a little different—the systems we’re getting versus the systems that you’re seeing Ukraine use on a daily basis—but we continue to build toward that and find ways to gain more distance out of the systems that we’re getting.
Regarding our EW systems, I’m 20 years and a couple months in the Army, and we’ve had EW for just about the entire time I’ve been in the Army, but our understanding of EW and our ability to use that down at the troop and platoon level, I saw really expand over the past year and a half while I’ve been in command. We’re finally getting systems that we can constantly train with, constantly use, and constantly see the effects from. That’s not only from the knowledge of our soldiers but also the policies we have in place to enable us to use these things in the exquisite ways they are designed to be used.
We also worked with Army Research Labs, ARL, on a new unmanned ground sensor system. We had them come out and put that in place. That was a relationship we had with the research lab that’s a little bit different than we’ve done in the past. We brought in a lower TRL level system to really start to understand it. We didn’t get the full effects we wanted from that system, but we understood what different autonomous systems doing different stuff for us could mean in the future, and it helped advance the research lab’s program probably by a couple of years compared to if they wouldn’t have partnered with us going out to NTC. I’ll pause there in case there’s any further questions.
COL Perez-Cruz:
One thing I’d like to add—this is Colonel Perez-Cruz—is that for all the capabilities JP just talked about, the way we utilized them is JP expanded the security zone. If you think about it from a standpoint of what do you want to make contact with first, you want to make contact with the smallest element possible. Continue to stay in contact with the enemy, but do you want to do it with humans? The answer is no. You want to do it with robots.
All those things that he was talking about were the first things we made contact with. The way we did it was we had ISVs that went forward—very light, very small, and maneuverable. They went to a position of advantage because they go faster than even the enemy could go. They would launch these things up, they would make visual or actual contact with fire, and then they would maneuver their Bradleys and tanks as hunter-killers. Once we could fix, we immediately started to exploit, penetrate their defenses or whatever line they had, exploit the initiative, hold ground, and then continue and do that over and over. That’s the OODA loop that we were using, which again, there’s nothing new in that. It’s just different tools in the kit bag that armor is using to decisively engage with our armor force.
CPT Hildebrand:
All right. Thank you, Sir. We’re gonna go to Meredith from Janes. Meredith, do you have a question?
Meredith (Janes):
Yes, I do. Thanks. Could you talk more about the Infantry Squad Vehicles and if there are any new tactics that you tried out during this NTC rotation with ISVs other than what you just mentioned? Thanks.
COL Perez-Cruz:
Go ahead, JP.
LTC Steadman:
As far as new tactics with it, I don’t know the tactics our IBCTs are using with them. But being an ABCT and getting ISVs for the first time was extremely helpful. Going back to what Colonel Perez said, to get to key terrain fast, there were multiple incidences during the rotation where we were able to take terrain that was 20 kilometers ahead of where the brigade was fighting. We were able to take it quickly, and we were able to take it without getting into contact because it was such a small force.
That was the anchor point that allowed us to pull our Bradleys and our tanks forward. When we were talking to the OC/T afterwards, that’s something you would never be able to do with a Bradley. Even though it’s got more protection, it’s big, it takes a lot of sustainment, and you can only maneuver that thing so far and in so many locations before the enemy knows right where you’re at. When you put personnel on the ground, which is what the ISV brings with it, you then seed that terrain and make it extremely difficult for the enemy to pull you out.
The only thing we really had to worry about with the ISVs, which is something we’ve been doing for decades, is what is the right sustainment package to go along with that platoon or section so that you can sustain for multiple days. Our plan was 72 hours, and it worked really well. The only thing I think from our perspective is we just didn’t have the right number of ISVs for that platoon to be able to bring the right amount of stuff to mitigate a high risk of the sustainment piece. So we were always concerned about reaching that 72-hour mark, but that’s because we went in with three ISVs per platoon because we just didn’t get fielded enough to be able to do the full construct of what we want to do. That is something that we’re going back in white papers to figure out the right number to be able to support that concept. But it was a great piece of equipment that enabled us to get after the mission and the intent that we wanted to.
CPT Hildebrand:
Meredith, do you have a follow-up?
Meredith:
I don’t.
CPT Hildebrand:
All right. Thank you. We’re gonna go to Hope with Military Times. Do you have a question?
Hope (Military Times):
I do. Thank you. I wanted to ask—and if this is something that’s already been previously addressed, great. But the brief talked about testing new combined arms maneuver tactics and I wanted to see if there were other tactics that you can talk about that you were testing out and what those entail.
COL Perez-Cruz:
For us, we really like not to get into the specific minute details of our tactics because those are the things that make the secret sauce for us. But in terms of utilizing the technology we had, imagine if instead of having only artillery and rocket artillery, now you have the loitering munition and you can utilize them in the same manner, targeting in front of your cavalry and in front of your infantry and armor. So that’s just one of the things that we can do, which again, I’m not sure that’s new as much as it is trying and utilizing what we talk about as soldier-driven solutions.
Our soldiers give a lot of feedback and they drive critical updates to our real-world needs. A lot of times we’ll think we can only use this thing for this one piece of the battle—like everything’s loitering munitions, you’re going to use them way in front, or you’re going to use them when you’re in the defense. Well, in offense we can also use them. By utilizing our scouts in the right position, they can be utilized as a support-by-fire to enable the actual movement of our tanks to get to the point of penetration to destroy our enemy. I think those are the ways in which we utilize them. I’m not certain there’s anything new in that, or anything out of this world.
LTC Steadman:
If I may follow up on what Colonel Perez said, I think one of the areas where we saw new techniques with combined arms is really the air-ground littoral region. Using our small UAS, using some of our small loitering munitions to really support the maneuver of our vehicles. We had different task organizations and different vehicle types, but really it was how we’re integrating the UAS to support maneuver, which is something we haven’t had a lot of opportunity to do, but we’ve been training on for a year. We saw that being extremely valuable as we went out there, and a little bit different than what we’re normally used to doing.
Hope:
Thank you very much.
CPT Hildebrand:
Hope, did you have a follow-up?
Hope:
Not at this time.
CPT Hildebrand:
Awesome. Thank you. And we’re gonna go to Mike with Reuters.
Mike (Reuters):
Thanks. I don’t have a question.
CPT Hildebrand:
All right. Thank you. Carly with Breaking Defense.
Carly (Breaking Defense):
Thank you and thank you all for doing this. Just a question more broadly. If all goes well, in the next two to four years, the Army will have new Bradleys and new Abrams with XM30 and the M1E3. Are you doing anything to prepare for that, and what that might look like?
COL Perez-Cruz:
Right now the Army is still not sure what that’s going to look like; that is why we were testing a lot of what we’re doing here. There are two designated modernization brigades. It was ourselves and Second Brigade of First Cav. Both of us did different solutions to what the future looks like, and part of this was to determine and get data to determine how we’re actually going to integrate those. I think the future of the armored force is the M1E3 and the XM30.
Looking at the future, in terms of how many soldiers we’re going to have in each one of those platoons, that’s still up in the air. I believe our former Deputy Commanding General, who is now the Commandant of the Armor School, that’s one of the big things he’ll be working on, is what the future looks like. But obviously it’s bright. We know we’re going to get new technology and we’re always improving.
Carly:
Can you share a little bit of the data? Without getting too in the weeds, what you discovered in terms of what that future force will look like if there were any big things that stood out that would point to what those new vehicles would look like in your formation?
COL Perez-Cruz:
Unfortunately, we actually don’t have that data. The data we recovered, we’ll give that to the larger Army, and then the next iteration of this will be where they use that data to configure and do another test. I mean, the tests are going to go on for a little while before the Army can decide that, and that’s way above my pay grade.
What I can tell you is, we tested our configuration with the ISVs, the Bradleys, tanks, and support. We have Sergeant Major Smith on the line, who is my Sergeant Major for 3-15 Infantry. We were able to give them ISVs in support of their Bradleys, which meant their Bradleys had less people in the back of them and were supporting infantry that were moving around in lighter vehicles.
CSM James Smith:
I can add on to that, Sir. The advantages that we saw, or the feedback we can give, is this technology can help us fill the gaps and get our capabilities out a lot faster as we move across the battlefield. So not necessarily that our tactics are changing or evolving so much, as much as our speed and our use for them and how protected we are as we move and how much distance we can maintain between us and the enemy.
As we try this new equipment, one thing I think will remain steady state regardless of the new equipment we get is that no matter how much technology we put into it, there needs to be a mechanical aspect to it. The soldiers are always going to be the end user at some point, so their understanding, their fitness, they will always be the fallback if technology goes down. The soldiers will always be ready to fight whatever the technology evolves to.
CPT Hildebrand:
Awesome. Thank you so much, Sergeant Major. We’re gonna move on to Shelby from the Wall Street Journal. Shelby, do you have a question?
Shelby (Wall Street Journal):
Hey all, I don’t have a question. I just want to say thanks for doing this.
CPT Hildebrand:
Thanks for joining us. Alright, so we’ll move on to Matthew from Defense Daily. Matthew, do you have a question?
Matthew (Defense Daily):
I do. Thank you. Appreciate you doing this. To dig in a little bit deeper from what Carly was asking about specifically on M1E3—is there any more details you can provide about the timeline for bringing in that feedback and lessons learned that can inform what it will mean to have a hybrid electric tank as part of the brigade? What are you looking at in terms of the timeline for getting prepared to have that new platform integrated with you guys?
COL Perez-Cruz:
We do not have that timeline and we’re not sure when that will be integrated; those decisions are at the Army level. For us, we did just receive the V3s which we’ve integrated, we integrated AMPVs, and we’ve integrated all the A4s. Our brigade was one of the four brigades that received the V3s, and we were the second brigade to have AMPVs. We do have the most modern equipment of any brigade right now.
In terms of where they’re going to put it, that’s still up in the air. Would we love to have a vehicle that has a hybrid engine that consumes less fuel? Absolutely. We think that if you’re going to do it, one of the premier places to do it would be the Third Infantry Division because of the amount of terrain we have here, over 220,000 acres. Although a lot of it is forest and swampland, it is perfect to be able to actually tell in a realistic environment if this technology will work. It’s a harsh environment all year long and we can test it out here right in our area of operation.
Matthew:
Got it. Appreciate that. A separate follow-up: you mentioned the AMPV. I know part of that effort has looked at offering modularity to be able to put different payloads on that platform, whether it’s more counter-drone focused or mortar focused. How has that effort gone in terms of highlighting new ways you would want to use the AMPV?
COL Perez-Cruz:
That’s a great question. We have the C2 variant, we have the two types of variants for ambulance—one being an evacuation and one being the Role 2 variant where we can actually do long-term care—and then we have the variant which also has the mortars. Every combined arms battalion has the variants with mortars, the C2 variant, and the medical variant.
They’ve been very good. I’ve been very impressed by them. Those vehicles have a lot of capability for the comm systems. The ability to use them as a power source because they produce enough amps and wattage to keep the batteries that JP talked about well-charged at all times. For us they work very well. They keep up with the tanks and Bradleys, which was always an issue with the old APCs which were Vietnam-era equipment. Having these modern vehicles, basically built on a Bradley chassis, is an outstanding piece of equipment. We were able to put our satellite-based comms on them and talk on the move, using all the levels of internet that we own on the move by utilizing the AMPVs.
CPT Hildebrand:
Awesome. Thank you so much. We’re gonna go to Sitaro. Do you have a question?
Sitaro:
Thank you for having me today. I’m good. Thank you.
CPT Hildebrand:
All right. Next, we’re going to go to Gina, AUSA Magazine. Gina, do you have a question?
Gina (AUSA Magazine):
Hi, this is Gina from Army Magazine. What iteration of your testing of this equipment are you in? How many more do you have to go? And how are soldiers reacting to the new equipment? Does it take a change of mindset among everyone to think of this as augmenting your capabilities rather than just being equipment that you can rely on?
COL Perez-Cruz:
This was a 25-month test where over the 25 months we did 30-day long-term training, 45-day long-term training, we went out to NTC and did leaders training, and then came back and did another 30 and 45-day training here on home base. We tested it here in the swamps in Georgia. Then we did another leaders training and went back to NTC to do it in the premier area for armor at Fort Irwin.
Our First Brigade will go back out in October and do their own tests, so internally to the division, this is probably our third one. There will be multiple others within First Cav. In terms of the campaign of learning, since we’re designated the Modernization Brigade, we’ve been experimenting with organizational structure and testing this cutting-edge equipment to preserve our technological edge.
The soldiers have taken to it. Our soldiers are our strength. They are the thing that keeps us in a position of advantage. The soldiers have the solutions, and the more you give them the equipment to test, the more they’re going to figure out how to break it so that we know what the limitations are, or how to use it in a way that we never thought about using it, because they are being innovative. They are exactly what the American soldier is supposed to be. They are the ones that actually come up with how we use this equipment.
CSM Smith:
The soldiers are super smart and technology-savvy. As they find problems, they have solutions, or ideas for solutions that some of us old-timers don’t think of. Regarding how much testing we’re going to do, we’re not training towards a specific adversary right now as we did in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. We’re constantly training to a standard to deploy and always trying to get better. I don’t think testing is going to end until we’re actioning on a battlefield somewhere. The soldiers are giving us their feedback and ideas, and we’re executing those with our Innovation Cell here at Fort Stewart, with our defense industry always improving our products so we can be better on the battlefield.
LTC Steadman:
I’ve got a quick follow-up to that too. I love that question. That is something we’ve been trying to cultivate throughout our formation. I often tell our leaders that it’s not me or a company commander who’s going to come up with the next big idea. It’s the 19-year-old Bradley driver who used to code computers in their basement that is going to come up with the next idea. But you’ve got to create the culture where they’re willing to speak up. We’ve done that here in this brigade, and the Army’s messaging of transformation and innovation is really helping with that too.
We have an Innovation Center here at 3rd ID where anybody can walk in and say, “I’ve got a problem, how do I help solve it?” One of the outcomes of that this past year is we got all this UAS stuff, but you couldn’t fly it inside of a Bradley or on the move; you had to be stationary. That doesn’t work for an Armored Brigade Combat Team; we move really far, really fast. We had soldiers at the platoon level say, “How do we fix this?” They worked with the Innovation Center and figured out how to fly things from inside the Bradley and the JLTV. We went to NTC, and what I was told by our OC/Ts is we were the first unit to fly the small, medium, and launched effects on the move. That helped us extend our reach, and that was only because soldiers looked at that problem and solved it.
Gina:
Thank you gentlemen for the answer. And maybe this is for Pancho. Going a little bit back to Drew’s question at the beginning. How does an armored brigade avoid the static positions that we have witnessed early on with the Russo-Ukrainian conflict?
COL Perez-Cruz:
That’s a great question. Very insightful. The way we avoid that is combined arms maneuver, period. A lot of times we look at other armies and say, “What’s going to happen to us?” We have to understand that we have a professional army that are not conscripts. In the conflict there, the average age has gone up over the years, so you’re talking about folks who don’t have the experience that our soldiers have.
This is why it’s critical that we do these exercises. Over the last two years, our brigade has spent over 200 days in the field on their tanks, on their Bradleys, maneuvering, learning the fundamentals. Brilliance at the fundamentals—brilliant at the basics. That’s where we’re going to be able to create the ability to maneuver as a maneuver force, control key terrain, penetrate the enemy’s defense, exploit, and seize the initiative to get to the next key terrain. That’s something you’re not seeing there because they are overwhelmed by the firepower happening with all the drones, but the reality is that’s happening because their armor force doesn’t have the same experience that ours does. There are not a lot of forces out there willing to do 200 days in the field and continue to train their formations for the likelihood of being deployed.
CPT Hildebrand:
Awesome. Thank you so much. We’re gonna move to Corey from Stars and Stripes. Corey, do you have a question?
Corey (Stars and Stripes):
I do. Thanks gentlemen for doing this today. The battery and power generation issue. Have you guys had a chance to really AAR and look at that issue and come up with any solutions moving forward in extreme heat like that?
LTC Steadman:
Through some discussion with leaders on the ground, some of that appears to be just how we are doing our loads on our vehicles—not putting batteries on top where it’s constantly under the sun. Some of it’s spreading out the vehicles that can actually recharge the batteries versus putting them on a single vehicle and that vehicle going down. I think a lot of it is more our techniques and procedures associated with how we operate. We just fell into some traps since it was our first time really doing that at the National Training Center.
They are looking at that at the troop level. We’re talking about that with the UAS platoon and figuring out the right way to adjust it. Do I think it’s solvable at our level? 100% I do. It’s just understanding the different types of terrains that we work in and the different weather that comes with that.
Corey:
And then I’m also curious about the defensive side of everything. Obviously counter-UAS and especially counter-small UAS has been a big problem spot for the military at large. What did you guys see out of Blackhorse in that realm, and what were you able to accomplish on the defensive side? What do you need to improve on or what would you recommend the Army look at?
COL Perez-Cruz:
First off, I don’t think at our level we have enough of the technology. With current conflicts, a lot of that is being tested elsewhere in real life. We’re just scratching the surface on counter-UAS. I’ll let JP talk about some of his experience because he’s got some good experience with this.
LTC Steadman:
That is the biggest capability gap that we have as an Armored Brigade Combat Team. In order to maintain maneuver, if we can’t do something about the enemy’s UAS and do it rapidly, then we’re not going to be successful at continuing to maneuver, and we as an Army are continuing to figure that out. There are a lot of great projects going on way above us.
The way we addressed it as a Cav squadron, since we were most likely going to be the first force to hit that level of defense, we spread out so the enemy couldn’t mass any of their systems if we were not massed into a single location. We assumed risk on our own ability to mass fires, we assumed risk on communications, we assumed risk in a lot of areas in order to be big and spread out so they could not mask things on us and could not take out all of our systems at once. And that worked. It took a lot of work and training to operate as wide and as deep as we operated, but we did not see an overwhelming impact to our operations based off the enemy counter-UAS systems. It made it harder in other areas, but we were still able to achieve the security zone and achieve the mission without having huge impacts.
CPT Hildebrand:
All right. Thank you so much. We’re going to go on to Dan from The Well News. Dan, do you have any questions? Actually, I don’t think Dan’s here. I’m gonna go to Gordon.
Gordon:
I didn’t have any questions per se, but I’m writing something on a more broadly structured basis looking at the long periods of how the Army approaches change. The whole concept of the continuous transformation is fascinating because it does impose some real challenges. I assume that’s being received down through the ranks as something that’s just never going to stop.
COL Perez-Cruz:
That’s a great observation. This is going to be something that we’re going to continuously do. As long as we approach that from the campaign of learning. We have lessons learned; those lessons are shared with the other brigades, then validated during deployments, whether to Europe or to Korea. We update the concepts and the tactics and then provide a feedback loop back to the Big Army, our higher headquarters, TRADOC, who does training and doctrine, so that we can change with the times and we’re not just stuck on what we’re doing.
CPT Hildebrand:
All right, awesome. And we’re gonna go to Evan from Signal Media. Evan, do you have a question? Is Evan still here? Nothing heard. OK. It looks like we do have time for a couple more follow-ups. Did anybody have another question that they wanted to ask?
Drew Lawrence:
Hey, this is Drew with DefenseScoop. Am I good to ask a question?
CPT Hildebrand:
Go ahead, Drew.
Drew Lawrence:
So I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask a question about our maintainer and logi friends here. Colonel Steadman, you mentioned the Air Ground Littoral (AGL). It’s a hot topic, and I wanted to hone in on it because it’s defined as contested airspace, and it requires maneuvering units to be really fast, which tanks and Bradleys can be. But in an ABCT there’s a heavy maintenance, logistics, and supply requirement to support that maneuver, which in a contested environment can create vulnerability. How does the ABCT control the AGL, and how are you all thinking about some of the logistics and supply qualities of an ABCT when it comes to a contested environment and preventing vulnerabilities there?
LTC Steadman:
We thought about this a lot: how do we sustain ourselves as a Cav squadron based off the distances we’re going to be operating at? The only way we were able to do that is we looked at new ways to push fuel and other sustainment down to the troop level so that they had their own forward logistics element minus forward with them at the troop level, so we weren’t delaying the troop’s ability to move to the next step. I think the stat is Cav squadrons typically culminate at the National Training Center within 48 hours because they can’t move fast enough and they can’t refuel fast enough in order to move to the next step. That never happened to us based off the way that we pushed sustainment forward versus keeping it back and pushing it forward later.
As far as the AGL is concerned with that, it’s hard, and I would tell you we don’t have a good answer. Going back to my statement before, until we solve the counter-UAS problem, we’re never going to fully own the AGL. We did push various small systems to our sustainers, so as they were maneuvering across the battlespace in contested environments forward of the Cav, they had something to clear the next forward line or the dead space before they actually drove past it, which was different than what my experience has been in the past. Did they do it well? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. That takes continued practice, but we wanted to make sure our distribution platoon understood that they maneuver no different than a tank company or a Bradley company, and the same fundamentals apply. We trained them that way, and we saw some level of wins coming off of that.
CPT Hildebrand:
Awesome. Thank you so much, Sir. OK. So thank you, ladies and gentlemen. We’re just about out of time here, but I want to make sure I offer Colonel Perez-Cruz an opportunity to provide any closing comments, Sir.
COL Perez-Cruz:
Thank you very much. Thanks to everybody for being on this call, being interested in our Army, and telling the story of our soldiers, because in the end, this is really about soldier-driven solutions. At the Third Infantry Division, we have our Innovation Center where our soldiers come up with solutions every day to wicked problems that the Army has, and sometimes even our engineers can’t come up with because they have the background to just think about the solutions for these problems.
But not only that, we have soldier solutions down at the infantry squad level. Our mechanics will come up with solutions on their own. This is nothing new. Whether it was during the Battle of the Bulge, when mechanics were the ones who welded equipment on the front of the tanks to get through the hedgerows, we’ve been doing this. We will continue to do this, and it’s really about our American soldier and the resilience that the American soldier has, especially in times of crisis. For us, it’s all about being able to train the American soldier, mastering the fundamentals, and being brilliant at the basics. Thanks for all your help in making the public aware of what our American soldiers do.
CPT Hildebrand:
Thank you so much, Sir. Thank you again everybody. This concludes today’s conversation. Please feel free to reach out to me here at ACOO for any follow-up questions or concerns. Thank you.