Cheap electronic decoys providing Army units more flexibility and options on battlefield
By
Mark Pomerleau
September 3, 2024
FORT JOHNSON, La. — Commercially available technology, operationalized in the right manner, is yielding tactical advantages for soldiers, Army units discovered during a recent exercise.
During its rotation at the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Johnson, Louisiana — a culminating event that is a grueling campaign distilled into 14 days of the most realistic combat simulation the Army can produce and serves as a validation event — 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division strapped $30 dollar raspberry pi’s to small drones and used them as electronic decoys against its enemy, to great effect.
This is an example of how the service is looking to empower bottom-up innovation from soldiers to help inform new tactics on the battlefield and technology approaches that could yield novel capabilities or ways of doing business. It’s part of what the Army calls transforming-in-contact, where the service plans to use deployments and troop rotations to test new equipment — mainly commercial off-the-shelf gear — that could allow units to be more responsive on a dynamic battlefield.
Three areas where the Army needs to be faster and more adaptable when it comes to delivering equipment to forces, due to how challenging the threat environment is and the cat-and-mouse aspect of countering opponents’ moves, are unmanned aerial systems, counter-UAS and electronic warfare, according to senior leaders.
https://defensescoop.com/2024/09/03/cheap-electronic-decoys-providing-army-units-more-flexibility-options-battlefield/
