Developing training around counter-drone systems and capabilities has proven to be the “most challenging” role of the relatively new Defense Department joint office that is overseeing the development of capabilities to detect, track, identify and defeat small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS), the head of the office said this week.
The Joint Counter-sUAS Office (JCO) has three main roles including developing, testing, and evaluating counter-drone systems, framing joint doctrine, and training, Maj. Gen. Sean Gainey said on Tuesday at the annual Space and Missile Defense Symposium in Huntsville, Ala.
Gainey, who has led the JCO for nearly three years, said he got the message early on in his tenure about training challenges and shortcomings during a visit with U.S. troops based in Iraq.
“We were talking to soldiers in Irbil and al Asad after some of the attacks and really trying to see how we can do better with some of the capability,” he said. “One of the first soldiers I talked to said, “Hey sir, you all are pushing out a lot of capability, multi-million dollar systems, but we’re getting about $10 worth of training. And we’re challenged to keep up with the ever-evolving training.’”
Gainey said the JCO’s “non-material efforts…are just as important as the material effort,” highlighting that in the U.S. Central Command’s area of responsibility “we saw a significant increase in the operators’ ability to process targets, track, identify, and defeat when we’re able to implement the training and the authorities down to the lowest level.”
The JCO has already stood up a Joint C-sUAS University at Fort Sill in Oklahoma and is slated to reach initial operational capability in fiscal year 2024 and full operational capability a year later.
“That university is real,” he said. “Capability is there now and they’re training installation operators and planners now and will move to the entire force.”
The Joint C-sUAS school will meet the training needs of all the services, Gainey said. The Army is training soldiers to operate vehicle-based and fixed-site—to be manned by an air defense battery—Coyote interceptors to defend against Group 3 UAS, he said. Division soldiers are being trained with electronic warfare systems to counter the smaller Group 1 and 2 drones, he added.
“The Army is putting it in formations so it will be out there supporting the warfighter in formations,” he said of the Army’s fielding plans for C-sUAS.
The Marine Corps is also deploying counter-drone defenses in their air defense battalions to defeat Group 3 UAS, Gainey said.
The Air Force and Navy are looking at counter-drone capabilities for force protection and are primarily focused on defending against Group 1 and 2 UAS, he said.