Courtesy Photo | A New York Army National Guard Soldier practices launching an RQ-11B Raven small...... read more read more
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CAMP SMITH TRAINING SITE, New York—Pictures and video of Ukrainian soldiers using off-the-shelf drones to target Russian troops are all over the internet and TV as the war in Ukraine moves into its second year.
“You can go online or on social media and within minutes see that this stuff is all over the battlefield right now,” said Sgt. 1st Class Masami Yamakado, a master trainer on what the Army calls “small unmanned aircraft systems,” or SUAS.
To help New York Army Guard leaders employ these aircraft effectively, New York’s 106th Regional Training Institute will conduct a newly developed weekend course from April 28 to 30.
“The introduction of SUAS to the modern battlefield is as significant as the introduction of large-scale use of machineguns in World War I,” said Yamakado.
And innovation in this new form of war is happening quickly, he added.
“The systems I am teaching right now are going to look like muskets compared to the systems we will see in another couple of years,” said Yamakado.
The class, officially known as “The SUAS Planner’s Course”, will teach eight students about what SUAS the Army has and the best way to use them.
According to Col. Jeffrey Csoka, the commander of the 106th RTI, it’s the only course designed for company and battalion leaders on how to employ SUAS within the Army.
The Army has good systems, but the doctrine and formal training on how to use them just isn’t there right now at the tactical level, Csoka said.
As the operations officer of the 27th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, he felt the absence of expertise on using SUAS when he was preparing for a 2016 training exercise deployment to Fort Polk, Louisiana, Csoka said.
And he heard the same thing from other commanders and leaders.
And since the Army has yet to address this with a force-wide formal training, the commanders of 1st Battalion, 106th directed its staff to come up with one, he said.
Yamakado was tapped to take the lead in creating the course.
He teaches a 10-day Army-approved course for RQ—11B Raven operators and wrote a paper on the importance of SUAS on the battlefield. This paper is used to train field grade officers at the Mission Command Center of Excellence at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
“He possesses a thorough understanding of both the resources required and the resources available,” Csoka said.
While the course discusses several unmanned aircraft systems, the focus, Yamakado explained, is on the ubiquitous RQ-11B Raven SUAS used for reconnaissance.
“This system is widely available within the Army inventory and is the aircraft that company and battalion staffs will likely have access to,” he said.
The Raven SUAS fits in an assault pack and is a hand-launched, battery powered aircraft with a speed of about 30 miles an hour. It has a range of 10 kilometers and flies for 60 to 90 minutes on a full charge.
It cannot hover or drop munitions, like the commercial drones used militarily in Ukraine, but it offers many benefits to the ground commander, Yamakado said.
The Raven SUAS provides full-motion video in color or infrared, high-definition photography, 10-digit grid coordinates of targets and even limited infrared illumination at night.
Each New York Army National Guard infantry company gets one Raven system, consisting of three aircraft, two ground control stations and associated equipment.
The weekend course will spend one day focusing on live flight demonstrations, SUAS capabilities and limitations, as well as SUAS employment.
During the second day, with the assistance of military intelligence experts, the course covers companies and battalion staffs planning and executing SUAS missions in the most effective way.
The Raven is integrated into the Army’s digital network. Images collected by a Raven can be shared with battalion and brigade headquarters through the Army’s One System Remote Video Terminal, Yamakado said.
This means a battalion commander’s staff can coordinate the use of the company Ravens to collect the intelligence the commander needs, Yamakado explained.
For example, the Raven can orbit over a specific area to keep it under observation. Or the staff could direct a company to send its Raven to ahead of a convoy on route reconnaissance.
The Raven can cover the same ground in five to 10 minutes that it would take a dismounted patrol several hours to check out, Yamakado said.
And since the National Guard also has a domestic operations responsibility, they will also discuss how SUAS were utilized in the past for disaster response or border patrol missions, he added.
The 106th Regiment is uniquely suited to offer this class, Yamakado said.
Some instructors have Federal Aviation Administration drone licenses and others fly them professionally in civilian law enforcement.
Several instructors attended the Army’s Counter-Unmanned Aircraft Systems academy at Yuma Proving Grounds, Arizona, and one instructor served at the SUAS Master Trainer school at the Maneuver Center of Excellence in Fort Benning, Georgia, he said.
“We have leveraged Army and civilian expertise to strive for excellence,” Yamakado said.
“Our school teaches SUAS not as a system, but as a weapon,” Yamakado said. “We make it a point to discuss tactical applications, employment and survivability.”
| Date Taken: | 04.11.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 04.13.2023 11:54 |
| Story ID: | 442381 |
| Location: | CAMP SMITH TRAINING SITE , NEW YORK, US |
| Web Views: | 128 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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