- A futuristic Ford F-250 was posted at one end of the range. Atop sat a 12-gauge turret, dubbed Edda, that shredded two targets as they flew overhead. A small shipping container labeled “Bee Hive” was parked at the other end. It brimmed with Bumblebee V2 drones, which zipped toward the horizon one after the other.
- In the middle, a crew with Safe Pro AI pored over aerial imagery and algorithms to identify hidden mines. And somewhere farther off, another F-250 finessed a slurry line charge into place. Its detonation, seen and felt, hurled into the air smoke and dust.
The big picture: This hourslong jam session was part of Sandhills 2.0, an ongoing experiment meant to remove U.S. troops from some of the bloodiest battlefield tasks, like breaching.
- More broadly, the tinkering shows just how deeply lessons from the Russia-Ukraine war have penetrated parts of the Army.
What they’re saying: “It’s a new era of warfare,” Col. Jeff Burges, commander of the 20th Engineer Brigade, told reporters at the range.
- The brigade manages Sandhills and is assigned to the XVIII Airborne Corps.
- “Gone are the days of a soldier running with a grapnel hook,” Burges said. “As we think through the next evolution, it’s attacking the enemy with that attritable, autonomous mass.”
Zoom in: Texas-based 9 Mothers furnished the drone countermeasure, which used a Genesis Arms shotgun. (9 Mothers is working on a belt-fed system, designed in-house, according to CEO Russell Smith.) California-based Perennial Autonomy provided the drones, dozens of which can be stacked inside the hive. Maryland-based Forterra ruggedized the F-250s and made them smart, capable of self-driving, sensing and communicating.
- “The Army is super self-aware that it needs to stop delivering yesterday’s technology tomorrow,” Col. Tom Monaghan, the director of the Joint Innovation Outpost, told reporters.
- “That’s why they’re doing these types of on-site experiments with soldiers, with vendors, with acquisition professionals,” he said.
- “Something that’s good enough 100% tomorrow isn’t good if we’re leaving today.”
Zoom out: Battlefields are increasingly mechanized. In Eastern Europe, autonomous and uncrewed tech is being used to assault trenches, evacuate the wounded, shuttle supplies and spy on positions far afield.
- Militaries and weapons makers are scrambling to keep up. Commercially available products with widely available, cheap parts are having a moment.
- “I think there’s a strong argument to be made that in order to really proliferate these UGVs at scale … biasing toward a vehicle that looks like this and has a supply chain like this and has a maintenance tail like this is a good thing to do,” Forterra’s Phil Cotter told reporters while standing beside an F-250.
What we’re watching: Where and how the Army strikes a balance between tradition, like a multimillion-dollar assault breacher vehicle, and novelty, like an armed, self-navigating pickup truck.
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