America's Contingency Corps Trains Against Drone Threat, Prepares for Future Battlefields

The character of warfare is changing, and the growing use of unmanned aircraft systems on battlefields around the world is forcing militaries to adapt faster than ever.

At Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the XVIII Airborne Corps is taking on that challenge through Exercise Scarlet Dragon, which brings soldiers and industry partners together to test emerging technologies in realistic field conditions. The exercise helped evaluate which capabilities can integrate across the force, including systems designed to detect, track and defeat unmanned aircraft threats.

"The Scarlet Dragon exercise has become a validation exercise in the dirt with soldiers doing integrated, real-world, operational-type tasks," said Army Col. Tom Monahan, director of the XVIII Airborne Corps' Joint Innovation Outpost.

Held Sept. 11-17 at Fort Bragg, the exercise combined soldiers, military systems, artificial intelligence, resilient data pathways and industry partners to address one of the Army's most pressing challenges: integrating sensors, electronic warfare, command and control and defensive fires against evolving unmanned aircraft threats.

"Basically, [it was] transitioning gaps to capability requirements that we need, capabilities that will fill the gaps, and then running them through the exercise and the experimentation to come away with our findings to support the warfighter," said Army Col. Paul Staeheli, the XVIII Airborne Corps operations officer.

Rather than testing technology in isolation, Scarlet Dragon placed emerging capabilities in an austere field environment where soldiers could evaluate performance against realistic threats and operational problems.

It also replicated tactics and capabilities soldiers could encounter on a future battlefield, including large-scale drone swarms and systems modeled after threats seen in current conflicts. Some scenarios featured swarms of up to 100 unmanned aircraft, giving soldiers the opportunity to train against the scale and complexity of modern drone attacks.

That threat environment allowed the XVIII Airborne Corps to evaluate not only individual systems but also how different capabilities work together.

"What we've found is that there's no one sensor to rule them all," said Army Col. Rob Kenny, the XVIII Airborne Corps chief of fires. "It takes an integrated, layered approach."

Electronic warfare, sensors, radar, autonomous systems and defensive fires each provide different tools for detecting, identifying and defeating unmanned aircraft. Integrating those capabilities is critical as adversaries continue to evolve their use of drones.

Scarlet Dragon also demonstrated how the Army can work with industry to develop and integrate new technologies faster.

Leading-edge technology companies worked alongside soldiers to identify operational problems, test potential solutions and gather feedback directly from the field. The partnership gave developers firsthand insight into how their systems perform in realistic military environments, while giving soldiers a chance to shape the technologies they may eventually use.

"The vendors out here are different contractors with different companies trying to show the limitations and capabilities of all their systems," said Army Staff Sgt. Charles Johnson, the noncommissioned officer in charge of the company node. "They're giving the full scope of what their systems can do and how it can help us in the best way possible."

The effort extends beyond developing new equipment. The exercise examined the broader counter-UAS challenge, from passive detection technologies, such as acoustic sensors and portable radar, to autonomous systems and emerging capabilities designed specifically for the UAS fight.

That approach reflects the XVIII Airborne Corps' broader responsibility as America's Contingency Corps.

The exercise also reinforced a larger message about modernization: preparing for the future battlefield requires more than buying new equipment. It requires understanding emerging threats, testing solutions under realistic conditions and rapidly adapting when those solutions fall short.

Through experimentation and collaboration with industry, the XVIII Airborne Corps is working to integrate autonomous technologies with legacy systems and address a rapidly evolving unmanned aircraft threat.

The goal is not simply to observe the future of warfare, but to prepare for it.

As unmanned systems continue to reshape battlefields around the world, exercises such as Scarlet Dragon give the XVIII Airborne Corps an opportunity to learn, adapt and develop the capabilities soldiers will need to maintain an advantage in future conflicts.