Source: United States Army
oderator: Good morning, everyone. Thank you for calling in to today’s media roundtable hosted by Colonel Neal, the 2nd Calvary Regiment Commander. Team, we’ve got a little feedback, I’d ask that you please mute your phones, thank you.
Before we get started, first and foremost, I just want to take a moment to send my thoughts and condolences to our team members that unfortunately lost their lives in operations in CENTCOM. I’d ask that you all keep them and all the other soldiers and troops forward in your thoughts and prayers.
With that being said, this media roundtable is a part of the regiment’s ongoing Army Current Operations Engagement Tour. The leaders that we have here from 2CR will discuss the unit’s recent mission in Europe and its implementation of lessons learned and other innovations and training and readiness. I’d ask that you please keep your questions focused accordingly. As always, should you have questions beyond the scope of what I just mentioned, myself and my teammates here at ACO are happy to action them following this media roundtable.
For today’s discussion, we are on the record, and I ask that you attribute all comments to our panelists by name as they will state before they speak. Please feel free to record this discussion, although a transcript will be provided following this roundtable.
We’ll get started with Colonel Neal’s opening remarks and introductions of the panelists. And following that, I will moderate our question and answer and any follow-on discussion. Like I said earlier, I’d ask that you please keep your phones muted until you are called upon. We have time slotted for one question and one follow-up. Pending any questions about any of that, I will turn things over to Colonel Neal. Sir.
Colonel Donald Ray Neal, Jr: Hey, good morning, everybody. I’m Colonel Donald Ray Neal, Jr., and I am, again, the Colonel–the Commanding Officer of 2nd Cavalry Regiment. We’re home-based in Vilseck, Germany, so we are the largest combat formation in Europe for the Army. Before I get started, I just want to offer, as well, my condolences to all those that are lost in the Middle East with the current events that are going on, and our prayers in the regiment go out to their families and to their units.
So as mentioned before, we’re here really in D.C. as part of the ACOET program, and we’ve been talking about what Army Continuous Transformation is doing for our unit as a ground combat unit. And also, I think we can highlight and give context to how that’s actually helping drive transformation in NATO, as well as we are a forward-assigned unit in Europe. There’s really three things that I’ll talk to you guys about. So first, I’ll give you some context on what started this journey of transforming ourselves and innovation within our unit. We’re going to talk to you about some of the key capabilities that we focused on, and then we’re also going to talk a little bit about some of the things that are going on currently that may be of interest in terms of capabilities development.
Before I go to that, I’m just going to tell you who’s in the room with us real quick. I’ve got my regimental chief of staff, Galen King, and he really can speak to anything that goes on in the regiment as the chief of staff, but he’s got a special kind of interest into our drone-building program that we took on last year. I’ve got my fire support officer, Major Andrew Kang, who has really been instrumental kind of in all innovation efforts. He’s been my chief of innovation for the regiment, so he can speak to any of these. Now, by trade, he is a fire supporter, so when it comes to the kill chain and how we’re using modern technologies to accelerate the kill chain in modern warfare, he can speak to that. I’ve also got Captain Gabe Glazer, who’s really a signal officer for the Army, but he’s really, really good at the data management side of the house, and so he can be value-added as well. I’ve got Sergeant First Class Styrum that’s here with me, and he’s actually a UAS operator, been doing it for 10 years, all things UAS, training soldiers to use it, fly it, build it. He’s also an expert. Then I’ve got, from one of my squadrons that was intimately involved in Project Flytrap, I’ve got Captain Cam Woodard that’s here with me, and he can tell you about his experiences with the first few iterations of Flytrap that took place over the last year. He’s also an intelligence officer.
All right, I’m going to pause there just briefly before I move on. Did I miss anybody? Okay. All right. We’re good. All right, so why we’re transforming. Obviously, the Army has the Continuous Transformation Program that’s going on right now. Our personal story as a unit really starts out with training Ukrainians in Europe, coming off the front line and having an interaction with them, where we’re able to help train them in individual skills all the way through battalion-level collective tasks. When we were training them, one thing that we were able to learn from is how they were using what we like to call in 2nd Cavalry Regiment the triad. It’s not the nuclear triad, don’t get it confused, but when we say it, what we mean is actually UAS, counter-UAS, EW, and the fourth component of that is really the network that enables it all.
What we realized is that they had some really good foundational skills in that area, and that the way they were using it with maneuver was something that we could learn from as an American formation that likely will employ some of the same capability in our next fight. We wanted to make sure that we extracted the right lessons learned from them. Not all of them will be transferable. We’ll say that up front. I don’t think all lessons that we’re seeing there will adapt to the style of the way the U.S. Army fights. We’re an offensive-minded Army, and so when it comes to counter-UAS, we’re really developing through Flytrap, offensive counter-UAS capability, so as we move and we become stationary before we do a key task, we’re able to protect ourselves from all types of drones.
The fourth thing that I mentioned–now, sorry, let me backtrack. Coming out of our training mission with the Ukrainians, the other thing I’ll add is that was the third iteration that we had trained Ukrainians that were coming off the front line. So this has been something that happened well before my time here in the regiment as well. And so naturally, the unit just kind of had this tie into the lessons learned coming out of Ukraine. So we’re already a unit that was starting to realize we needed to evolve before this. When we start talking about the triad, I think you’ll be interested in the follow-up questions and the network, because really, if you’re going to swarm and you’re going to unlock all of your maneuver potential in a future fight, if you don’t have a network that can really have access to the cloud with enough computing power, with technology on the edge, and with multiple transports to move data around, you really can’t use counter-UAS, UAS, and EW in the future fight. We’re learning that from the Ukrainians now.
And then one last thing that I’ll mention that I’ll throw out there for the follow-up questions that you might be interested in is the Army has really done a lot to help units at our level transform. And I think Flytrap is a great example, because what Flytrap does is it takes the acquisition community from across the Army on a specific subject, like counter-UAS or UAS, in the example of Flytrap, that’s really counter-UAS. It takes the acquisition community, it takes industry partners and vendors with the equipment, and it takes a combat unit and it puts them all in a training exercise where soldiers can give real-time feedback to the vendors, to the acquisition community, so we accelerate change the way Army Continuous Transformation is designed to do.
Flytrap, that model will persist. Our next Flytrap is in May, the 1st through the 15th in Lithuania. But I think you might also be interested in talking to Drew about xTech. Now, the story on xTech is my commander charged me with developing a deep-sensing capability for our Corps, and I knew that that involved, from our time with the Ukrainians, it would involve unmanned ground vehicles being a part of what I fight in my formation. That’s a really expensive thing to get into at this point in time in the American market. What xTech does with the acquisition community is it allows me to have a sponsor, really, to bring in vendors, figure out whose equipment works best, and I think the real beauty of this program is that we’re able to keep some stay-behind equipment. So it feeds the Army’s requirements on future capability, it allows units at the fighting level to get their hands on equipment, and then it allows us to work with industry, help them refine their requirements, and then keep it behind so we can train and develop tactics as we prepare for war.
All right, so that was a lot for an opener, but I’ll leave it there. Anybody on the team can really talk to any of the things that I just laid out for you, and we’re excited about the question and answer.
Moderator: Hey, sir, thanks for that really detailed overview. I know for us here, this is a really great opportunity. I think, as you will see from this discussion, 2CR really is an example of a lot of the things that HQDA is getting after in terms of their train, man, and equip mission. I said this in the opener, but before we start with our questions and answers, I just want to remind everyone, you know, it’s not lost on us, you know, the seriousness and the interest and the operations that are going on in CENTCOM. That is not the focus of this discussion, but as you can tell from Colonel Neal’s remarks, there’s a lot of good information that I think you can glean from this discussion. So, with that being said, we’re just going to go right down the line, in complete fairness, I’m really just going to call on reporters in the order that you RSVPd. So, our first question goes to Allyson Park from National Defense Magazine. Allyson, your question, please.
Allyson Park: Hi, thank you so much for your time. You mentioned that you’re developing offensive counter-UAS capabilities through Project Flytrap. I was wondering if you could go into a little bit more detail on what specific capabilities you’re looking to develop.
CDRNJ: Specifically, this one is a headquarters, you know, Department of the Army Headquarters Direct Admission. And what they’ve done is essentially–with all of the pieces of equipment that were–some of the pieces of equipment that were in the program of record already, and some that are emerging in the industry, really kind of ascended onto the unit for the previous Flytraps that we’ve done. And this thing started out, you know, smaller last year. Our next iteration has really grown and gained some steam. We’re going to have about 60 different pieces of equipment from 60 different vendors that will be working out there. Cam will talk through some of the, kind of like the macro thing, or the micro details of Flytrap. But it’s really designed to pair, like I kind of said in the opening, it’s designed to pair industry, the acquisition community, with combat formations.
And what I really think it does from a, you know, from a big picture level, is it takes the development of new capability out of the lab, and it really puts it in the field so you’re getting soldier feedback. Folks that their job is to close with and destroy, or something very tactical. The ones that are actually going to be the ones that use the equipment when it comes time to fight are the ones giving feedback directly to vendors and the acquisition community. That’s kind of the big picture. Cam can talk some of the specifics that you might have as well. Go ahead, Cam.
Captain Cam Woodard: Thank you, sir. So in terms of specific capabilities that we’re testing, so what we found is that different echelons require different capabilities and solutions. So down at the basic team squad level, requiring some sort of radio frequency detect and jam solution, requiring some sort of, you know, dismounted kinetic solution, whether it’s, you know, an M4 mounted optic or at the, you know, specific type of shotgun and ammo to range farther and hit those drones. So really that’s where that lives at, that capability, and then at the higher echelon platoon and troop, potentially some passive radar, interceptors, mounted kinetic solutions and proximity rounds, things like that. And then the capabilities grow and grow and grow as you go higher and higher and higher. So cyber takeover technology, active radar, things like that. So really we’re seeing is there’s no singular solution for the entire thing. It requires different solutions for different echelons.
CDRNJ: Allyson, does that answer your question?
AP: Yes. Thank you so much.
Moderator: All right. Our next question goes to Carly Welch from Breaking Defense, please.
Carly Welch: Excuse me. Hi there. Thank you for doing this. I’m interested in the xTech edge strike competition. And what have you learned in terms of the capabilities you’ve seen there? And how does that relate to some of the lessons learned from the Ukrainian soldiers that you’ve been working with?
Major Andrew Kang: Yeah. Hey, Carly. This is Major Drew Kang. I think the biggest thing we’re learning is challenges with navigating the market. I think what we found is it is actually harder to break into the unmanned ground vehicle market because the platforms vary at price points that are a little bit outside of the reach of a brigade combat team level. So I think there are some platforms that are a little more attritable at the $500 to $1,000 range. And then you’re seeing it expand all the way up to potentially million-dollar platforms. When we’re looking at the conflict in Ukraine specifically, most of the use cases for unmanned ground vehicles have actually been in the sustainment and logistics, specifically the medical casualty evacuation, where they’re using unmanned ground vehicles to load casualties to take back to the rear. So those are the initial ones that we’re interested in.
I think the big benefit of the approach that xTech is taking is, one, they’re soliciting feedback from the soldiers who are testing the kit so that they are the ones that are actually selecting the tactical employment and capabilities that the Army needs to acquire. And two, it’s that they’re leaving the equipment behind for us to continue to iterate on. So we are actually developing some of the tactics, techniques, and procedures and the standard operating procedures for how we employ these capabilities to further inform the institution. And then we’re also able to take the systems and then integrate them into other operations. So we plan on integrating these systems out of Project Flytrap to build on the capability.
CW: Yeah. Thank you. Just a quick follow-up to that. Are you finding, or are the soldiers finding, that kind of the more attritable ones do the job just as well as the expensive ones? Or kind of what’s been the feedback in that realm?
MAK: Yeah. So we haven’t had a ton. Just truth in lending, we are doing this testing right now, like, as we speak, the exercise is ongoing. I think the big thing that’s important for us is these systems have to be purpose-built. So for the smaller attritable ones, potentially we see the biggest bang for our buck in utilizing them for things like breaching, where now instead of having a manned formation go to the breach point, we could potentially load an explosive on a RC car-type platform and drive that, mitigating risk to soldiers. I think the possibilities are endless. There’s–every warfighting function has some application, and I would say we’re very much in the early stages of this, but very excited to continue testing.
CW: Great. Thank you.
Moderator: All right. Alexandra Ingersoll from OAN, please.
Alexandra Ingersoll: I think I’ll pass on this. Thanks.
Moderator: Okay. Meredith from Janes, please.
Meredith Roaten: Hi, all. Thanks for doing this. My question is on the UGBs as well. Is there a certain price point or a range that you could give me for what you’re looking for for UGBs, and also, what is kind of the thinking behind how many systems you plan to buy at the end of testing? Thanks.
MAK: Yeah, I think it’s difficult to map out exactly what the right price point is. We have to start with the requirement and the capability. I think the most promising one that’s kind of the easiest one to do is mirroring what the Ukrainians are doing with a lot of the backhaul logistics and casualty. As far as like how many systems that we need at echelon, again, I think that’s difficult for us to define without clearly defining the requirements. So I know that’s not necessarily a direct answer. I think—-
CDRNJ: I can jump in too. Hey, this is Colonel Neal. On price, I mean, to be honest, and I’m not saying this to be kind of to be a smart aleck, but I think the cheaper, the better, because in most uses for unmanned ground vehicles, we know we’re going to put them in a position where we’re not going to recover them or they’ll be destroyed because we want to make contact with the enemy first with a line of sensors and robots. So we need them to be as cheap as possible, but what we also need them to be is scalable, tailorable, to fit the mission-specific requirements. And so to get something that’s super expensive that has this exquisite capability on it and costs $1.3 million really doesn’t do us a whole lot of good. It would not be a good investment for most commanders because we–just on how we know the Ukrainians are using them probably has a lot of application to us as well. And most of these systems are attritable.
MR: All right. And just a follow-up question. Are you only testing the companies that kind of won the xTech competition or are you involving companies that didn’t win but kind of were still involved? Thanks.
MAK: So when the initial call to industry went out, and I think we got about 140 responses. And then the Global Tactical Acquisitions team that the ASA(ALT) stood up narrowed that down to about 15 different vendors for this specific contest. Two of the vendors are actually actively being used in Ukraine. So those are generally the ones that we’re really excited about. But there’s a broad range of different vendors that are participating.
MR: Can you say what those two vendors are?
MAK: I have them in my notes. Let me get back to you on that one. I’ll take that as a question and we’ll get back to you.
MR: Thank you.
CDRNJ: Thanks, Meredith. One last thing I’ll throw on the UGB is I think right now the way we’re seeing them, you know, Drew mentioned logistics, backhaul of casualties, things like that. I think it has the greatest potential of use as we develop future warfighting concepts. I mean, like with my charge to build a deep sensing capability for my higher headquarters, you know, a line of robots gives me the ability to put out, you know, decoys, sensors that can, you know, tell if there’s movement in areas where I don’t necessarily want to put a soldier. It can extend my communications, you know, out a little bit further depending what I put on it. It can do a whole lot of things. So we’re really excited about xTech because it allows us to help shape a requirement for the Army that we think will really be transferable in the future.
MAK: And ma’am, to answer your question, the two companies are one is GuardTech and the other is Mountain Horse.
MR: Thank you.
Moderator: All right. So our next question goes to Mr. Sakamoto from Senkei Shimbun, please.
Kazuyuki Sakamoto: I’m fine. I don’t have a question. Thank you.
Moderator: Okay. Thanks for calling in. Kelsey Baker from Business Insider, please.
Kelsey Baker: Hi. I don’t have a question right now. Thank you.
Moderator: Okay. Brian Everstine from Aviation Week, please. Actually, I don’t–yeah. Go ahead, Brian.
Brian Everstine: Hi. Thanks, everyone, for doing this. I was hoping to follow up a little bit more on Flytrap, kind of a two-parter for anyone who wants to jump in. How does this overlap with kind of the broader efforts, what the JCO is doing, what JIATF 401 is doing? How are you feeding into that? How are they feeding into what you’re trying to do? And also, I was hoping you can kind of elaborate more on the scenarios, what you’re looking at based on real-world inputs. Two specific things I was hoping to ask about is the rise of EW, denied comms, denied GPS, that sort of thing, and countering tethered fiber optic drones. How are you getting after that problem? Thank you.
CDRNJ: Hey, Brian. Thanks a lot for the question. This is Colonel Neal. I’ll answer your first one about the overlap with JIATF 401. There’s some information sharing, but it’s very limited at the moment. And I think that’s primarily because we have different mission sets and different requirements that we’re driving towards. Ours, again, it’s kind of, you know, when we talk counter-UAS, it’s to enable maneuver, and so it’s offensive in nature. I think 401 has a slightly different capability requirement that they’re trying to develop on their end. Some of the technology, I think, you know, that we’ll employ will be the same. So there’ll be a need for a little bit of collaboration, but right now it’s very minimal.
Captain Gabe Glazer: Yeah, Brian, this is Captain Gabe Glazer. I can answer the second part of your question. So in terms of the exercise design, what we’re doing is putting a company versus company with a suite of counter-range UAS capabilities sort of against each other in a scrimmage style exercise. And something that we’re really trying to do with Flytrap for this iteration of it is to validate the network and its ability to operate denied and degraded. So we’re getting a couple pieces of equipment that have all of the sensor ingest and deconfliction abilities that can operate without being needed to be connected to the Internet or the cloud. And we’re moving all those capabilities from the cloud to what we’re calling the tactical edge.
Moderator: Hey, Brian, does that answer your question?
BE: Yeah, I guess to delve a little bit more on that, I mean, does that go directly combined at what I was raising with denied EW and fiber optic tethering? It seems like a lot of the demos we’ve seen lately has kind of not yet gone into the tethered FPV type problem, which is so prevalent in Ukraine. Is that something that is specifically going after?
CCW: Hey, Brian, this is Captain Woodard. We are going after the fiber optic problem set in terms of looking at EOIR cameras and acoustics. So we are testing the full suite of systems at Project Flytrap to get after that problem set.
BE: Great. Thank you.
Moderator: All right. Thanks. Next question is for Evan Lynch, Signal Magazine, please.
Evan Lynch: Hey, everybody. Thanks so much for taking the time to do this today, guys. My question is just regarding Project Flytrap, kind of going off of what you guys were just talking about. I guess what is the biggest difference between Project Flytrap 5.0 and Flytrap 4.5 that happened, I believe, late November and other past Flytraps?
CDRNJ: OK. Hey, great–great question. And I’ll start out. This is Colonel Neal. So the biggest thing for me is the exercise design. What I charged my staff with was to really try to recreate a day in a life on the battlefield in Ukraine. And so what that really meant was increasing the number of UAS, the various types that are in the air that are either friend or foe. And then really, I think with the 60 different pieces of equipment from the different vendors that will be on the ground, what it’s really going to do is give us some stress on our network that we didn’t have at the previous Flytraps that I think will give us feedback on what we need to do to really improve our networks. I think that will feed into NextGen C2 and maybe give it some different data points that are needed as well. But I think the volume of counter-UAS, UAS, and EW use in this will be slightly different than before and slightly higher, actually.
Moderator: Okay. We’re going to move on.
EL: Thanks so much, guys.
Moderator: Thanks, Evan. Lizbeth Perez from MeriTalk, please.
Lizbeth Perez: Yeah, hi. I think most of my questions were answered, but if I could just ask, as you guys move through these iterations, can you talk about any lessons learned or any challenges you faced as you get into the new iteration of Project Flytrap?
Unknown Speaker: Yeah, I think good things we could talk about would be cognitive overload—-
CCW: All right. Lizbeth, I’ll start off in terms of the–two things is specifically that there requires a layered concept. There’s no singular solution to counter-UAS specifically. So different echelons require different solutions to create a full bubble that can maneuver and unlock maneuvers, we say. The second thing that I will say is that we’re seeing a cognitive overload on the ground for commanders who have to fight both the ground fight and air fight. So really, we’re driving home the technology to remove the cognitive overload for the commander so they can fight and win that ground fight. And I’ll turn it over to the other part of the team for the other part.
MAK: Yeah, I’ll elaborate a little bit more on the cognitive overload is I think a big piece of the counter-UAS fight is the complement of sensors that are collecting data. So Cam mentioned it earlier. There’s acoustic data. There’s electromagnetic spectrum data. There’s visual data. And all these things are now coming down to the troop and platoon level where now as a troop commander, you can imagine not only am I thinking through how I’m doing a combined arms fight to maneuver my forces to be in a position of advantage, I have to do this while on the move protecting my force. And really what allows that decision-making is the input–the ingest of all that data to optimize the right defeat mechanism against the threat.
So this is where I think we keep harping on the network. I think it’s easy to get caught up in the UAS and the counter-UAS kinetic options are the big shiny object that obviously need investment. But what truly enables all of this, the fundamentals of warfighting is still a commander on the ground making the right decision at the right time. The pace of the modern fight in Ukraine is almost incomprehensible, I would argue, and even just the rate of adaptation that we’re seeing is so rapid that you have to leverage a lot of the services that exist on the cloud, the machine learning applications, the AI applications to enable a commander to process the data to make the right decision at the right time. So the cognitive overload is the big piece.
Moderator: Drew Lawrence from Defense Scoop, please.
Drew Lawrence: Hey, thanks for doing this. I’m hoping you can talk about the relationship between signature management and EW. How are you integrating EW into recon and infantry units, and is it changing the way you think about your own signature management? Are you identifying your own signature vulnerabilities? And if so, how are you addressing them?
CGG: Hey, thank you for the question. This is Captain Gabe Glazer. So I would say yes, our interactions with developing counter-UAS has greatly deepened our understanding of the EW spectrum, how we look on it, and how our enemy looks on it. We’re calling that one of our new fundamentals on top of all of our warfighting fundamentals. There needs to be a baseline understanding of the spectrum across every single warfighter. In terms of our spectrum management, it absolutely has driven a couple of our tactics, techniques, and procedures, how we manage our communications architecture, how we are disciplined on the radionets, and times that we communicate. Those have seeped into every single echelon of the regiment, absolutely.
CDRNJ: And this is Colonel Neal. I also think the lessons that we’re learning out of it is that spectrum analysis is going to be needed down at a lower echelon than maybe we’ve designed our forces to have it now, because if you’re going to fly UAS or protect against UAS, the only way you’re going to have your assets in the right position is to understand the electromagnetic spectrum, which means we’re going to need it, again, down at a lower level than we have now, which typically resides at the brigade level and higher.
DL: Thank you. And just as a follow-up, we’ve talked about Ukraine a couple times here, and that has shown EW cuts both ways. And so I’m wondering specifically when it comes to EW in that signature management, is there anything that you’re taking away from that conflict and applying to the exercises that you’re doing now?
CDRNJ: Yeah, I’ll just give you a little bit of context. So we had our major training rotation last summer. And 10 years ago, when I was a brigade XO, we had a command post that could have filled almost every square inch the size of a football field, right? And at that rotation, just given all of these capabilities that are being brought to bear by our opposing force that were simulating real enemy, we had to be–our visual signature had to be significantly smaller. So from a football field to a half of a basketball court is about as big as you can get without being vulnerable. And instead of having one massive, we had four different ones spread sometimes up to 30 kilometers away from each other to be survivable. So yeah, hopefully that gives you a good visual and understanding on how we’re–how that’s changing.
DL: It does, thanks.
Moderator: All right. Eve Sampson from Military Times, please.
Eve Sampson: Hi. Thank you all so much for doing this. My question is, given how much reconnaissance is now done by drones in Ukraine, is that changing the role of, like, cavalry scouts in a really reconnaissance-heavy formation like 2CR?
CDRNJ: It is. But what I’ll tell you is, you know, Germany is a great place to train because you can get four seasons in, you know, in about a 48-hour period. And so if you can get–you know, if weather is supportive and you can get your assets up in the air, particularly when it comes to UAVs, perfect. But when you get freezing fog and, you know, your minimum requirements to fly anything in the air aren’t there, it’s still going to require an all-weather sensor, which is going to be a Cav Scout or an infantry soldier that’s going to a point to surveil a, you know, point of interest.
ES: Got it. Thank you.
Moderator: All right. Matthew Beinart from Defense Daily, please.
Matthew Beinart: Great. Thank you for doing this. I wanted to ask, how has 2CR made use of the new GTAD marketplace? And, you know, in terms of that–having that option now, is the idea that, you know, you see promising technology as part of Project Flytrap and then GTAD is the way to go rapidly acquire that? How has that all kind of worked?
Major Galen King: Hey, sir. Major Galen King, Regimental XO. Yeah, I do think that the mechanism of the GTAD or the, you know, xTech price challenges does enable and I think expedite commercial technology directly into the hands of soldiers who then provide iterative feedback back to that system or back to that vendor, rather, to be able to improve it and then drive the requirement. So I think in terms of a model, I think similar to what we’re seeing in Ukraine, this absolutely enables a symbiotic relationship between industry, the acquisition community, and warfighters to be able to accelerate the adaptation cycle. Like I said, very similar to what we’re seeing in Ukraine, and it enables us to keep pace with what we’re seeing from our adversaries as well.
MB: As a follow-up to that, is–so I guess is the GTAD not–is the primary purpose to still identify, you know, technologies that you can get in small quantities to do that sort of testing, gather that feedback, as opposed to say, you know, this is a mechanism for getting something in larger quantities for, okay, we’ve tested it and it’s ready for maybe a wider use? How is that being utilized? Is it primarily for that testing purpose, rapid feedback?
CDRNJ: I think the former of your examples is what we’re seeing right now.
MB: Okay. Appreciate it. And–but then to confirm then, have–there have been capabilities picked out through the marketplace that have been utilized for that rapid feedback to date?
CDRNJ: Maybe a good way to give an example. So like when Drew mentioned the UGVs that were–that are in the current prize challenge, we’ll–of the 15 that come out, we’ll probably keep, you know, half a dozen that go into future training events. But it’s not going to allow me to acquire a regiment’s worth of what I need. That feedback that we get from the training iterations will go back to industry. It’ll feed the requirements, you know, of the acquisition community, go back into the Army, and it should inform programs of record that the Army is going to put big dollars towards.
MB: Okay. Appreciate that. Thank you.
Moderator: Hey, team. I want to be sensitive of everyone’s time. That is my list, but I know we had a couple of people that called in after we started. I do want to give Colonel Neal and the team a chance for some follow-up comments, but–or closing comments, I should say. But I just wanted to just call out, if anyone that called in after we started, if you would identify yourself by name and outlet and ask your question, here’s your opportunity [pause] Okay. Nothing heard. So I’ll turn it over to Colonel Neal and the team for closing comments.
CDRNJ: Yeah. Hey, thanks a lot for y’all’s time. We really appreciate being able to talk to you about some of the things we’re excited about doing as we prepare for war. I’m going to hand it over to Drew, and I think, as you remember all of this capability that we said we’re developing, I think it’s important to understand how it fits into our mission in Europe, particularly when it comes to the Eastern Flank Deterrence Initiative. So Drew’s going to talk just briefly about that.
MAK: Yeah. So I think when General Donohue came into the theater, he established the concept that we call the Eastern Flank Deterrence Initiative. And everyone in the theater, and even many of our allies and partners, are very familiar with this initiative. And really, the core tenet behind the concept is how do we reduce forward posture with manned formations and build that sensor layer and the forward line of robotics is what we call it in 2CR, whether that’s unmanned ground vehicles or unmanned aerial vehicles. And again, really enabled by the network. The network is a critical component of all of this. But what the unique thing about the Eastern Flank Deterrence Initiative is, you know, it’s tied in with the Army’s Transformation Initiative, and it’s driving our transformation. But what we’re seeing, too, is many of our allies and partners are also transforming alongside us.
This is a prevalent challenge for everyone in the theater. And we’re seeing a lot of our allies and partners, you know, adopting things like Maven smart systems so that we can have better shared common operating picture with them. We’re seeing them navigate the Project Flytrap. You know, I don’t know if we mentioned this earlier. It’s actually a joint U.S. and U.K. initiative where we’re testing and building the same capabilities in our formations to continue enhancing interoperability. So really, the core tenet here is I think Army transformation is really driving NATO transformation across the board, and we’re doing this alongside allies and partners.
CDRNJ: All right. Well, thanks a lot again for your time. Have a great day. That’s all we have from 2nd Cavalry Regiment.
Moderator: Thanks, everyone. Have a good day. This concludes our roundtable.