Senior leaders from across the U.S. Army attended a symposium about the branch’s air missile defense and electronic warfare capabilities April 18-19, 2023 on Fort Drum, New York. Attendees discussed the way that these capabilities will come to shape the battlefield as technology advances.
The event was hosted by the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, where Soldiers joined together to discuss current and future affairs related to the Army’s AMD-EW capabilities.
“For the past two days, leaders from various organizations across the Army have been discussing the future of warfare,” said Capt. James Bergeman, the 1st Brigade Combat Team air defense officer.
Bergemann said he and his colleagues believe that the importance of AMD-EW capabilities cannot be understated and that they will define theaters of combat as the technology continues to evolve.
This kind of warfare mainly involves unmanned aircraft systems, which provide lethal and informational capabilities for any military using them. UASs are categorized into five groups, each denoting a different size and carrying capacity, where group one is the smallest and group five is the largest.
“Those threats, if they remain unopposed, will significantly degrade the on-ground commander’s ability to effectively project his or her combat power in a 21st-century battlefield,” Bergeman said. “The purpose of this symposium and the reason that AMD-EW competency is so important is because it is the main method in which we can protect our Soldiers on the ground and enable them to close with and destroy the enemy.”
Among the steps that symposium attendees have taken toward solutions for the issue involves a change in the way that 10th MTN DIV AMD-EW personnel will be structured.
Maj. Kurt Wasilewski serves as executive officer of the 10th Mountain Division Artillery Brigade, where a company-level unit will soon consolidate, train, and specialize the division’s AMD-EW personnel.
“The AMD-EW professionals and their equipment are going to be consolidated to a task coordination under the DIVARTY headquarters,” Wasilewski said. “They will be attached to DIVARTY to train, and eventually return to their BCT with a higher level of proficiency and expertise.”
Wasilewski said the DIVARTY leadership believes that focusing these Soldiers and their respective equipment in a centralized way will bolster the division’s combat readiness.
“It allows for a single point to standardize their training path, to appropriate resources in such a way that benefits that organization,” he said. “It also gives you a more reasonable span of control for those elements and how they are integrated into the force.”
Wasilewski said DIVARTY leaders also believe that this decision will culminate in a unit culture that emphasizes the task proficiency and performance of its Soldiers and builds strong teams at the lowest level.
“It increases the amount of exclusive attention from a higher echelon,” he said. “That’ll create an enhanced culture because of how illuminated they are in that type of environment.”
Ultimately, Wasilewski said the DIVARTY leadership trusts that the more devoted training and specialization that these Soldiers will receive is a large and necessary step toward being more effective in any combat environment.
“It maximizes the effectiveness of the training path because you’ve generated a more focused environment,” Wasilweski said. “Now, there’s a higher headquarters that can resource that company and provide the mentorship and expertise necessary to guide it to becoming that combat-capable force.”
Social Sharing