DUGWAY PROVING GROUND, Utah — The U.S. Army never fights alone. (Article by Amy Guckeen Tolson, DEVCOM Aviation & Missile Center Public Affairs)
Faster. Farther range. Greater survivability. To the Warfighter, whether their uniform bears the flag of the United States or they’re a member of the coalition forces, those attributes can mean the difference between life and death on the battlefield. That desire for advancing transformational capability and increasing interoperability brought more than 23 Department of Defense organizations and seven international allies to Dugway Proving Ground April 25-May 13 to experiment under harsh conditions at one of the nation’s premier western test ranges for the Experimental Demonstration Gateway Event, or EDGE, 2022.
“The most important thing we need to do as a Department of Defense is show interoperability in our warfighting capabilities, and the ability to transmit data anywhere we need it on the battlefield of the future,” said Under Secretary of the Army Gabe Camarillo. “To get there, it’s absolutely critical that we do experiments like EDGE22 on a more regular basis. I was very pleased to see that we’ve made tremendous progress today, not only with all the organizations across the Army that have a role to play in this effort, but with our coalition partners, as well.”
The annual exercise, sponsored by Army Futures Command’s Future Vertical Lift Cross-Functional Team, allowed participants to assess new tactics, technologies and interconnecting architectures in an effort to ensure overmatch and decision dominance in future conflicts. The 19 days of learning, which centered around a tactical scenario that simulated a wet gap crossing in Europe, pushed the boundaries on a variety of efforts to include interoperability, the network, electronic warfare, multi-intelligence sensors, interactive drone swarming and enhanced sustainment.
“Achieving interoperability is a massive systems engineering challenge,” Camarillo said. “There’s no substitute for getting out in the dirt and figuring out how these systems are going to work together and talk to each other.”
The Wolfpack
Somewhere in the desert, Soldiers with the 82nd Airborne Division launch a swarm of Air Launched Effects, or ALE. Taking to the air, the drones conduct reconnaissance, detect potential threats and report back.
A second swarm of ALE launches, becoming an additive measure to overwhelm enemy threat systems.
Then comes a third swarm — it’s kinetic, with the capability to take out a target or allow for long range fires.
Finally, a fourth swarm launches, performing battle damage assessment.
They call it the Wolfpack. EDGE22 marked the largest ALE swarm to date, maxing out at seven in one swarm, with only one pilot on the ground needed to execute the swarms’ tasks. That layered capability will provide commanders real-time decision making, while keeping Soldiers out of harm’s way, allowing for a situation to develop until ground forces are absolutely needed. The Wolfpack will deploy as a forward element of the Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft ecosystem in areas of expected enemy contact.