JULY 31, 2025 – The U.S and British armies worked side by side to evaluate the effectiveness of systems meant to counter the effects of unmanned aerial systems on the battlefield this week.
Soldiers assigned to 2nd Cavalry Regiment, under V Corps, and troops assigned to 1st Royal Yorkshire Regiment, British army, conducted the fourth iteration of the Project Flytrap exercise at the Hohenfels Training Area in Germany and the Bemowo Piskie Training Area, near Elk, Poland. The exercise aims to better prepare participating partners to counter the threats posed by unmanned aerial systems on the battlefield.
“Project Flytrap is … a series of training events that we’ve designed to test and refine some new counter-unmanned aerial systems … and tactics to respond to the evolving threat of drone warfare,” said Col. Matthew B. Davis, V Corps transformation chief, who also served as exercise director. “The lessons learned from … recent conflicts highlighted this critical capability gap, and we’re looking for Project Flytrap to directly address those through the training, which we conducted … we’re working to enhance our collective ability to deter potential adversaries and maintain a decisive edge.”
The Flytrap exercise involved U.S. military personnel, partner nation military and industry representatives, Davis said. During this exercise, personnel from participating militaries collaborated with industry experts in counter-UAS technology development to more quickly refine those technologies.
“What we’re doing here — think of the convergence of industry, of Army agencies with counter-UAS things that have been around and some that are emerging, taking it out of the labs, putting it in the field with combat soldiers,” said Col. Donald R. Neal, commander, 2nd Cavalry Regiment. “Think of a soldier operating a piece of equipment with the person from industry next to them. The soldier gives feedback on what would make it work smoother, they make that change, they test it out, and they iterate on it.”
That’s exactly the kind of drone-related work Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth pushed for earlier this month in his July 10 memorandum “Unleashing U.S. Military Drone Dominance.” Under that directive, the secretary intends to strengthen the U.S. drone manufacturing base, provide warfighters with the best tools and ensure they are trained to use them effectively.
“One thing that I know [the secretary] is trying to get after from the memo that’s been pushed down is he wants to see the use of drones incorporated in the training,” Neal said. “That’s exactly what Project Flytrap is doing. You’ve got troops that are fighting each other, force-on-force, that are incorporating small UAS and counter-UAS, all in the same battle drills that we’ve done for decades. So, I think we’re nested, we’re right within that intent on figuring this out and training with it now, so the first time we’re encountering it isn’t on the battlefield.”
Neal also said as a combat brigade, the role for 2nd Cavalry Regiment soldiers isn’t just to evaluate equipment, but to take the new counter-UAS technology and learn how to incorporate it into what they already know how to do — and report that back to the Army so it can be used elsewhere.
“What we’re tasked with doing is taking this technology that’s counter-UAS focused, and the answer that we’re trying to provide for the Army is, how do we take systems that have largely revolved around static defense, and put it in an offensive vehicle-centric organization that does combat tasks,” he said.
As part of this last iteration, eight different systems were evaluated by military participants from four different industry providers.
“What we’re trying to get after is we’re taking the latest cutting-edge versions of existing technologies like radar, RF detect and jam, optical sensors and audio sensors, and then merging those into a system that our soldiers on the ground can employ in a tactical setting in order to enable them to do their jobs, despite having a growing threat in the air,” said Command Sgt. Maj. Eric S. Bol, command sergeant major, 3rd Squadron, 2nd Cavalry Regiment.
One takeaway from the Flytrap exercise, Neal said, involves managing the type and amount of information required to operate counter-UAS effectively.
“Preliminarily, I think what we are finding … once you start talking O-5 level command and above, there probably is a need for folks that understand how to manage data and how to how to manipulate software,” he said. “It is going to require skill sets that maybe we don’t have throughout our force in a very formal way. We owe that to the Army. We don’t know what that looks like yet, but that’s part of what we’re finding out in this project, this exercise and feeding it back up.”
No matter what the Army does in the way of incorporating counter-UAS technology into ground combat units, one thing that won’t change is combat basics.
“The fundamentals of maneuver warfare still matter,” said Lt. Col. Jeremy S. Medaris, commander, 3rd Squadron, 2nd Cavalry Regiment. “Things like dispersion, protection, fortification, selecting the correct routes and planning to an objective — things like that. … Maybe some components are changing, but those fundamental pieces are still there, and that is just as applicable to the counter-UAS fight as well.”
By C. Todd Lopez, DOD News