{"id":10314,"date":"2026-04-24T01:10:35","date_gmt":"2026-04-24T01:10:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/the-pentagon-replicated-a-ukrainian-style-drone-attack-in-florida-now-its-changing-its-counter-drone-strategy\/"},"modified":"2026-04-24T01:10:35","modified_gmt":"2026-04-24T01:10:35","slug":"the-pentagon-replicated-a-ukrainian-style-drone-attack-in-florida-now-its-changing-its-counter-drone-strategy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sawahsolutions.com\/range\/the-pentagon-replicated-a-ukrainian-style-drone-attack-in-florida-now-its-changing-its-counter-drone-strategy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pentagon replicated a Ukrainian-style drone attack in Florida. Now it\u2019s changing its counter-drone strategy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In a September exercise on a Florida airfield, members of the 10th Special Forces Group launched a drone assault that mirrored the \u201cspiderweb\u201d attack that Ukraine had recently staged against Russia. The defenders were counter-drone troops from across the U.S. military, trained for a week on tech that the Pentagon has spent billions to develop.\u00a0<\/p>\n

U.S. counter-drone efforts haven\u2019t been the same since.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I would tell you is that it helped us develop our priorities,\u201d said Brig. Gen. Matt Ross, who leads Joint Interagency Task Force 401, the Pentagon\u2019s counter-drone clearinghouse.<\/p>\n

Dubbed Operation Clear Horizon, the exercise at Eglin Air Force Base sought to replicate conditions and weapons seen on the battlefields of Ukraine.<\/p>\n

The special operators \u201chad lessons learned from Ukraine in Eastern Europe and they came back and they said, \u2018This is what we’re seeing on the battlefield\u2019,\u201d Ross said.<\/p>\n

In their mock assault, the special operators used a wide range of drones, from small to large, and many that were resistant to jamming and radar.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey flew drones that were regular [radio-frequency], commercial drones. They flew drones that had directional antennas on them so they’re harder to jam, drones that were frequency hopping so they have a more resilient connection\u201d against electromagnetic attack, Ross said Tuesday at the Sea-Air-Space event. \u201cThey went up to Group 3 drones\u201d and down to Group 1s. \u201cWe used fiber optically-controlled drones\u2026We used drones controlled by LTE, the cellular network,\u201d enabling operators in Colorado to launch against targets in Florida, a first for the U.S. military.<\/p>\n

That effort to replicate the battlefield of Ukraine is a big departure from the way the department usually tests its technology against drones.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Because the electro-magnetic effects used against drones interfere with airplane guidance and cellular service, the military can only test them in very particular circumstances. Even the most recent counter-drone tests\u2014such as August\u2019s T-REX exercise at Camp Atterbury, Indiana, and the Army\u2019s FlyTrap exercise last November in Germany\u2014don\u2019t do so. Instead, they mostly test concepts for bringing down drones without using million-dollar missiles.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What\u2019s more, data from such tests don\u2019t usually fully inform the planning of other exercises and experiments, according to participants and observers of such events. Between September and December, Ross said, 67 tests were conducted by the services, combatant commands, the Pentagon\u2019s research office, and other DOD outfits.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was all well-intentioned. But we couldn’t see all of that data in a way that would allow informed comparisons between different systems that were tested at different venues,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Even if circumstances make it hard to test jamming defenses against UAVs, the military still needs to drill against drones built to elude radar as well. What the U.S. really needs now is continuously up-to-date understanding of how U.S. tactics and gear would perform on a battlefield like Ukraine. That\u2019s what the task force is trying to do.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were over in Ukraine about six weeks ago, talking to the Unmanned Systems Force [sic], watching how they defend Kyiv on any given night, understanding what they have along the forward line of troops,\u201d Ross said. \u201cThen we’ve looked at those most promising technologies and we referenced their performance data in Ukraine instead of internal department testing and evaluation.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s leading to changes in how the U.S. buys equipment to take down drones and plans defenses for installations and forces.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The September exercise in Florida showed that U.S. drone defenders needed a way to combine the data coming in from far-flung radars, drones, and counter-drone systems.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look at the Department of War installations across the panhandle of Florida, we should be able to identify a [drone] track from the west and pass it between installations,\u201d Ross said.<\/p>\n

Now, the U.S. has a single drone-tracking software solution and interface across the services, he said. (Defense One <\/em>has asked for details.)<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you were to go to a location where you have multiple services working together, and even other federal agencies or international partners, we have seamless air domain awareness and the ability to sense connect any sensor with any effector\u201d\u2014that is, a drone-downing system, Ross said.<\/p>\n

The exercise also revealed a need to focus more on long-range drones that can damage\u00a0 \u201chigh-payoff targets, which are going to be command-and-control, logistics, or air defense,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

For smaller drones\u2014Groups 1 and 2\u2014the U.S. must develop interceptor drones that cost less than today\u2019s expensive defense missiles.<\/p>\n

Ukraine has already absorbed such lessons, which the task force is now passing to U.S. commanders, including those in the Middle East.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’ve procured some of those systems now to start integrating across the Department of War,\u201d he said. \u201cIn the past six weeks, we’ve committed over $600 million to this problem, specifically for the rapid integration of new counter [unmanned aerial system] technology.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the 2027 budget proposal, the Pentagon is requesting $75 billion for new drone technology, a sum larger than the annual GDP of some countries and the current budget of the U.S. Marine Corps.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If those numbers seem far apart, it\u2019s because the United States has highly-effective missiles to take down drones. But they were designed to take down missiles, and they\u2019re expensive. But Ross says that getting the most out of both efforts means linking them together in a way that traditional long-range fires teams and missile-defense units have not been, historically.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Offensive and defensive drone operations are \u201cinextricably, inextricably linked,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The threat, however, is evolving far faster than annual budgets. Ross took issue with the idea, advanced by some senior military leaders, that today\u2019s drones are analogous to the IEDs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. No commercial market spurred the evolution of IEDs, nor could software and data spur improved performance.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor IEDs, you had no commercial application for that technology. With unmanned systems, and specifically with autonomy, there’s so many commercial applications that we’re going to see this accelerated development in this space,\u201d he said. \u201cThat’s going to cause us concerns, from a security perspective.\u201d\n\n<\/svg><\/p>\n<\/div>\n