“I’ve been asked if we have a role at INDOPACOM,” Rugen said. “It’s MDO-relevant distances,” said Rugen, referring to the Army’s multi-domain operations doctrine for wide-ranging warfare, particularly in the vast Pacific.
Rugen spoke approvingly of a drone called KRAUS and of the long-endurance, solar-powered Zephyr, which stayed aloft for 64 straight days before crashing and, he said, “helped us extend the network hundreds of nautical miles. The aviation branch has experimented with using drones as flying signal relays. “If you do it right, if you set the conditions,” Rugen said, “this tempo at greater distances, at greater speeds, with greater agility on the edge, is going to break ‘em.”Ĭrucial to this kind of combat is some kind of network, able to share orders, updates, and intelligence among widely dispersed, fast-moving aircraft. That allows Army aviators to fly under the anti-aircraft radars that threaten jets, while maneuvering and striking much faster than ground forces. “There’s a ton of gaps that we can fight in,” Rugen said.
#WAVE BREAK ZIP#
The idea is to exploit the unique nature of what the Army, awkwardly, calls the ”lower-tier air domain”: the space in between the ground-pounders and the high-fliers, where helicopters fly high enough to zip over obstacles but low enough to take cover behind terrain. But flying low, fast, and unpredictably, with accurate intelligence provided by drones, US Army aviators can move through the gaps in enemy defenses. “Poor tactics… ill-discipline… flying over the same route at a high altitude during the day, that’ll get your jaw busted every time, twice on Sunday,” he said.
Russian pilots over Ukraine have showed how not to do this, Rugen argued. RELATED: Army’s next-gen FLRAA helicopter will be chosen in ‘next few months,’ McConville saysĮven with unmanned systems paving the way, however, can manned aircraft really survive the airspace over a high-tech, high-intensity battlefield? Yes, Rugen said - with the right technology, techniques, and tactics. Then and only then do you send assault aircraft - packed with young Americans - to fly behind enemy lines and land ground troops, destroying critical targets and seizing key terrain. In other words, you have to be confident that your waves of deep-scouting, deep-striking drones have successfully blasted a path through the adversary’s anti-aircraft defenses. That cycle - see, strike, re-look, re-strike as needed - is critical, said Rugen: “It’s lost on some people we need to assess understand if you’ve set the conditions” for further maneuver. And then another wave comes in and does the assessment and sees if we need to do additional. “Then the next wave comes in, takes care of business. “We demonstrated with multiple, multiple waves of drones that came in see what’s out there and report back what we need to go after,” said Jeffrey Langhout, director of the Army’s Aviation and Missile Center. Walter Rugen, the aviation modernization director at Army Futures Command. This summer’s EDGE 22 exercise was the first live flight of drones programmed to use collaborative tactics consciously modeled on a “ wolf pack,” said Maj. Army drones fly in formation (US Army photo)ĪUSA 2022 - As the Army heads into its annual Project Convergence wargames, the aviation branch is building on earlier experiments with promising new technologies and tactics, officers and officials said during this week’s AUSA conference.
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