Drones Are Creating New Opportunities For The U.S. Army To Deceive Its Enemies

Key Points:

• The U.S. Army's Project Flytrap, led by the 2nd Cavalry Regiment in Europe, focuses on counter-drone capabilities and developing new tactics using uncrewed systems to shape the battlefield, including deception strategies against opponents.
• The traditional SOSRA framework (Suppress, Obscure, Secure, Reduce, Assault) is being adapted to a multi-domain environment involving electronic warfare, uncrewed aerial systems (UAS), and counter-UAS threats, with suppression involving probing enemy drone and electronic capabilities.
• Deception plays a key role in the "obscure" phase, using uncrewed ground vehicles (UGVs) with decoy emitters to mislead enemy forces about the true point of breach, while suppression involves forcing enemy emitters to reveal themselves for targeting.
• The Army is integrating loitering munitions and one-way attack drones to disrupt enemy command and control networks, with efforts to improve coordination between brigade and higher echelons to enable multi-domain breaches.
• Despite advances, U.S. Army leadership acknowledges lagging behind global trends in uncrewed system employment, with ongoing initiatives like AUTOWARCOM aimed at accelerating the fielding of autonomous capabilities amid lessons learned from conflicts like Ukraine.