Armor in 2025

Getting Armored Brigades Back into the Fight

By CW2 Trenton Huntsinger, 1st Cavalry Division Artillery

Article published on: February 1, 2026 in the 2026 E-Edition of the Air Defense Artillery Journal

Read Time: < 10 mins

A U.S. Soldier launches a drone during the lethal Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) lane as part of the U.S. Army Europe and Africa Best Drone Warfighter Competition in Grafenwoehr Training Area, Germany. (U.S. Army Photo by Spc. Adrian Greenwood)

Introduction

Heavy armor has long been the centerpiece of U.S. Army decisive action, providing protected mobility, shock action, and direct fire superiority. However, recent operational environments in Europe and Ukraine have demonstrated that armored forces are increasingly vulnerable to small, inexpensive, and proliferated unmanned aircraft systems (UAS.) Group 1 and 2 UAS, including first-person view (FPV) drones, now deliver precision indirect fire effects at a fraction of the cost and complexity of traditional weapon systems.

The U.S. Army is not adapting quickly enough to the speed of battle at the forward edge. Without immediate modernization of detection, sensing, and counter-UAS systems tied to direct fire networks, armor risks being rendered a liability instead of an advantage.

Problem Statement

U.S. Army armor and engineering assets cannot effectively reach or survive the forward line of troops (FLOT) due to:

1. Inadequate detection and sensing at echelon to cue and track Group 1 & 2 UAS threats.

2. Absence of integrated direct fire counter unmanned aircraft systems (C-UAS) capability organic to armored formations.

3. Operational lag in adapting armored doctrine to reflect the rapid proliferation of cheap, lethal UAS swarms.

If unaddressed, U.S. armored forces will be continually degraded before reaching decisive engagement, undermining combined arms maneuver and ceding initiative to adversaries.

DroneSentry RF sensor and jammer from DroneShield emplaced on an Abrams. (Photo courtesy of CW2 Trenton Huntsinger)

Operational Evidence

French-U.S. Exercise

During a recent joint exercise between French and U.S. forces in Europe, French UAS detachments demonstrated disproportionate lethality.1 With only 5% of their total force structure allocated to UAS, French forces achieved 20% attrition against U.S. units. This exercise was conducted with French UAS and teams that are not as advanced as those fielded by Russia, Ukraine, U.S. Marines, or U.S. Army Tiger Teams.2

The results underscore the exponential lethality of modern UAS and the inability of armor to maneuver effectively without robust C-UAS and sensing networks.

C-UAS Batteries and Current Limitations

The U.S. Army is actively standing up C-UAS batteries to address the growing UAS threat. These units employ Maneuver-Low, Slow, Small Integrated Defeat Systems (M-LIDS) and Fixed-Site-Low, Slow, Small Integrated Defeat Systems (FS-LIDS). M-LIDS employs the KU-720 band radar and while highly effective at detecting Group 1 and 2 UAS—including FPV drones—this radar requires seven minutes to deploy at the short halt.

In practice, this creates several survivability and scalability problems:

• Limited Distribution: A division such as 1st Cavalry will receive only five such systems for the entire battlefield. If two are lost, the formation becomes combat-ineffective.
• Targetability: KU-720 radars, while effective, are radiating systems that draw persistent targeting from enemy UAS, loitering munitions, and artillery.
• Employment Time: A 7-minute emplacement cycle is unrealistic under conditions where armored forces must bound, maneuver, and respond rapidly.
• Overwhelm Risk: Once identified, these limited assets will be saturated by enemy drones and indirect fire, degrading battlefield awareness and C-UAS protection. This underscores the operational necessity for rapidly deployable, cue-able sensors with maneuver forces, rather than sole reliance on large, fixed, radiating radars.

This photo displays guidance systems for unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) piloted by the UAS Platoon, Delta Troop, Regimental Engineer Squadron, 2d Cavalry Regiment at Balli UAS Airfield, Rose Barracks, Vilseck, Germany. (U.S. Army photo by Gertrud Zach)

Analysis

• UAS as Indirect Fire: FPV drones and loitering munitions function as indirect fire systems, saturating armored units with precision-guided strikes at ranges previously reserved for artillery.
• Armor Survivability Gap: Tanks and armored vehicles were designed to defeat anti-tank guided missiles (ATGMs) and artillery fragments, not persistent aerial surveillance and precision drone swarms. UAS will continue to seek mobility kills to halt movement before decisive effects are employed.
• Doctrinal Lag: U.S. Army doctrine continues to emphasize armored shock action at the point of decision but fails to account for battlespaces saturated with low-cost aerial threats that can attrit armor before decisive action.
• C-UAS Shortfall: While the Army’s M-LIDS and FS-LIDS efforts are a step forward, their limited availability, slow employment, and vulnerability as radiating radars prevent them from serving as a scalable solution.

Recommendations

1. Integrate C-UAS into Armor:

   1. Equip armored brigades with organic direct-fire counter-UAS systems (auto-cannons, programmable airburst munitions, electronic warfare suites).

   2. Establish “hunter-killer” C-UAS platoons inside combined arms battalions.

2. Layered Detection and Sensing:

   1. Deploy persistent low-signature passive sensors tied into armored formations to detect Group 1–2 UAS.

   2. Synchronize detection with direct-fire defeat systems at echelon.

3. Accelerated Doctrine Revision:

   1. Update armored tactics to reflect battlespace realities where survivability depends on UAS denial, not armor thickness.

   2. Train armor crews to integrate counter-UAS fires into maneuver battle drills.

4. Diversify and Accelerate Frontline Sensors:

   1. Employ passive detection systems (electro-optical, infrared, acoustic, illuminators, RF sensing) on the forward line to cue KU-720 radars and avoid constant radiating signatures.

   2. Field micro-radars and lightweight portable detection devices that can deploy in under 60 seconds, mounted on the C-UAS hunter killer platoon, scout platoons, engineer assets, and armored vehicles.

   3. Leverage networked cueing: allow passive forward sensors to hand off tracks to KU-720 radars, so those larger systems can be radiated intermittently, only when necessary.

   4. Explore distributed sensing pods on unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs) and tethered UAS to provide persistent overwatch without exposing armored columns.

5. Build Resilient, Scalable C-UAS Training and Doctrine at the Division Level:

   1. Establish division level C-UAS training centers to replicate drone-saturated battlefields in field exercises.

   2. Ensure every armor and engineer unit integrates C-UAS battle drills into maneuver lanes, not just Air Defense Artillery elements.

   3. Develop combined arms doctrine where C-UAS batteries, the C-UAS hunter-killer platoon, scouts, engineers, and armor synchronize effects under one mission command framework.

   4. Institutionalize lessons learned from the Russo-Ukrainian War, Middle East conflicts, and allied exercises into U.S. Army publications, ensuring continuous adaptation.

6. Targeting to Support Maneuvering and Breaching Operations:

   1. Adapt targeting methodology to account for changing battlefield geometries and the proliferation of UAS threats.

   2. Continuing to develop longer-range precision fires to offset enemy overmatch, while also acknowledging that these do not enable terrain occupation.

   3. Focus on targeting just in front of breaching and maneuver formations to disrupt enemy forces at ingress points.

   4. Enable armored and engineer assets to reach the FLOT by synchronizing fires and maneuver at decisive points of breach.

A Paratrooper with 2nd Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division prepares to collect a Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (SUAS) during Devil Avalanche at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Devyn Adams)

Conclusion

Heavy armor remains decisive, but only if adapted for survivability in the future fight. The recent lessons learned from wars, conflicts, and exercises demonstrate the disproportionate lethality of UAS against unprotected formations. Current C-UAS batteries employing M-LIDS and FS-LIDS, while effective in detection, are insufficiently distributed, slow to employ, and highly targetable on the modern battlefield.

Without immediate modernization of detection, sensing, and direct fire C-UAS integration, U.S. armored forces risk catastrophic attrition at the outset of battle. Armor must be integrated into layered detection networks and equipped to defeat UAS threats. Only then can the 1st Cavalry Division return armor to the forward fight and retain its decisive edge in large-scale combat operations.

Endnotes

1. Battle Order. “How France Tested Its New Hunter Drone Unit on the U.S.” YouTube, August 15, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVohl7wLiHM.

2. “Beehives, Queens and Workers - When Hunting Is Invited into the Army with the Fighter Drone Squadron (EDC) of the 1st RIMA.” Web log. Mars Attaque (blog). Mars Attaque, July 25, 2025. https://mars-attaque.blogspot.com/2025/07/drones-edc-escadron-chasse-rima-1errima-innovation-fpv-icarus-swarms-naval-group-alta-ares.html