Canadian Military Officers Discuss Ways With Allies To Counter Unmanned Aerial Vehicles

FORT SILL, Okla. — U.S. ground forces detect an enemy unmanned aircraft performing reconnaissance over their forward operating base. Now the Soldiers must determine how to neutralize the Unmanned Aerial System threat: whether to jam the electronic signal from its ground controller, kill the ground controller or shoot down the Unmanned Aerial System, or UAS.

This is a possible scenario in today’s battlefield, and as more countries obtain UAS capabilities including armed drones, it can bring a greater threat to U.S. forces. 

To address this threat, the Fires Center of Excellence hosted the first Counter Unmanned Aerial System coordination meeting Dec. 5-6, at the Fort Sill Conference Center. 

About 120 people attended the meeting, including representatives from the Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, as well as the other Army centers of excellence, said Lt. Col. Matt Tedesco, Capabilities Development and Integration Directorate, FCoE/Training and Doctrine Command capability manager, Air Defense Artillery Brigade, in an email interview. 

Army aviation, intelligence, and science and technology communities were present.

The Netherlands, France, Canada, South Korea and Germany were represented by their Fort Sill liaison officers. Founteen defense companies were also on hand. 
”We introduced the Fires Center of Excellence operational concept to counter UAS, discussed the threat, implications to doctrine, organization, training, material development, leadership, facilities, personnel as well as the implications to the joint community and the other Army centers of excellence,” Tedesco said. “Day 2 examined industry solutions to the problem. The most lively discussion occurred on the first day, especially during the discussion of the operational concept.”

The FCoE is the service lead for Army counter unmanned aircraft system efforts based on Joint Publication 3-01, Chapter 5, Paragraph 5; and Field Manual 3-01, which both place the UAS threat in the air defense artillery portfolio. Army Regulation 5-22 lists the FCoE commander as the Army’s proponent for the mission. 

As the proponency office, the FCoE is responsible for the doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership and education, personnel and facilities related to C-UAS. Within the FCoE, the CDID and its TCM ADA Brigade is responsible for fielding and equipping ADA forces and concepts against the UAS threat.

Over the next year, the Counter-UAS communities will meet through quarterly video teleconferences and engagements as a community, as well as a Counter-UAS simulation sponsored for the FCoE Battle Lab in the summer, Tedesco said. The next Counter-UAS meeting will be in December 2013, at Fort Sill. 

Tedesco said the first meeting went well. 

”The initial conference was a success and will continue to be so as long as we can bring the community together to address the growing challenges the UAS pose to our nation and our friends.”