Integrating Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems into LOG BOLC

Enhancing Sustainment Training for Multidomain Operations

By CPT Alexander Herrera, CPT Michael Patacca, CPT Michael Ranger, and CPT Emerald Wright

Article published on: July 18, 2025 in the Summer 2025 edition of Army Sustainment

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SFC Alfred Little, assigned to 188th Infantry Brigade, mans the Parrot ANAFI USA Small Unmanned Aircraft System during field training on Fort Stewart, Georgia, March 20, 2025. (Photo by SSG Marlana Cureton)

Modern large-scale combat operations demand logistics leaders who can sustain the fight under contested, multidomain conditions. The Army’s logistics branch recognizes that future battlefields — with peer adversaries capable of disrupting operations across all domains — require lieutenants to be agile, tech-savvy, and prepared for complex sustainment challenges. In response to this evolving environment, the U.S. Army Combined Arms Support Command (CASCOM) infuses realism and technology into training at its Sustainment Center of Excellence.

In January 2024, MG Michelle Donahue, CASCOM Commanding General, directed the Army Sustainment University’s Basic Officer Leader Department (BOLD) tactics course to integrate small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) into the Logistics Basic Officer Leader Course (LOG BOLC). This initiative was aimed at driving timely decision making, improving understanding of sustainment decisions’ effects, and better preparing newly commissioned lieutenants for contested, multidomain operations. The vision set by MG Donahue was clear: leverage modern technology to create more immersive training for logistics leaders at echelon. Incorporating sUAS into the tactics portion of LOG BOLC modernizes how lieutenants learn to sustain and protect the force on the battlefield. This forward-leaning directive acknowledges that young officers arrive at LOG BOLC having observed a changing operational landscape and that their institutional training must keep pace.

Training & Implementation

The tactics course is an intensive three-week program that builds foundational tactical skills for logistics officers. It begins with individual Soldier tasks followed by instruction on troop leading procedures, engagement area development, and convoy operations. This progression sets the stage for a week-long field training exercise (FTX) that simulates a contested environment aligning with a combat training center rotation. During the FTX, lieutenants operate in a realistic scenario where they displace from a brigade support area to a combat trains command post, conduct area defense, and execute tactical resupply missions. Class cohorts are organized into three platoons under a company headquarters, with each platoon leader being responsible for planning and executing sustainment missions while defending their platoon’s area. This includes managing logistics packages, coordinating supply distribution to supported units, and maintaining situational awareness of both friendly and enemy activities.

sUAS training is embedded throughout all phases of the course. For example, students employ sUAS for leader’s reconnaissance of key locations such as logistics release points (LRPs), supply routes, and future defensive positions. The students request sUAS operators to survey objectives, routes, potential LRPs or cache locations while maintaining their concealed positions. During defensive planning, lieutenants use sUAS to observe avenues of approach and adjust their positions with proper camouflaging of supply nodes and fighting positions based on the aerial perspective. Cadre members deliberately present scenarios that require drone support, from scouting a resupply route to monitoring the perimeter for threats, so that lieutenants build confidence and understand their perimeter’s strengths and weaknesses in requesting and employing these assets.

One innovative aspect of the training is the added simulation of enemy aerial contact. Traditionally, students are trained to respond to three forms of enemy contact: visual, direct fire, and indirect fire. To reflect modern threats, the course introduced contact with enemy aerial platforms. Citing Field Manual (FM) 3-90, Tactics, the cadre define aerial contact as encounters with air-based platforms. During the FTX, opposing force (OPFOR) elements include enemy sUAS. Lieutenants must detect them and determine their intention (surveillance or directing fires against them). Adding this aerial threat dimension forces students to analyze and respond to a new challenge in real time. They learn to employ countermeasures to mitigate the aerial threat (e.g., improved camouflage, movement techniques, or reporting to higher authority for counter-UAS support). Incorporating sUAS in this way expands the tactical problems students face, honing their decision making under pressure.

The result is a more robust culminating exercise where logistics lieutenants not only execute resupply and defense but also manage real-time intelligence from above. For instance, during an area defense scenario, students position their sustainment assets and then launch friendly sUAS to scan their sector. The sUAS live feed might reveal an exposed fuel tanker or a gap in camouflage of their observation post and fighting position, prompting immediate corrective action. If OPFOR drones are detected, lieutenants take steps to relocate key supplies or increase security at likely enemy target points. By the end of the course, students have experienced using sUAS to support a mission from start to finish, integrating the drone into planning, execution, and after-action review and ensuring new officers leave LOG BOLC with practical understanding of how to employ sUAS in the field.

SSG Jonathan Melvin, master trainer for small unmanned aerial systems for 2nd Cavalry Regiment, operates the Skydio X10D drone at Grafenwoehr Training Area, Bavaria, Germany, Feb. 13, 2025. (Photo by PFC Jolene Cintron)

Warfighting Function Alignment

Integrating sUAS into LOG BOLC directly supports multiple warfighting functions, reinforcing that sustainment is a critical component of combined arms operations. The training highlights how sUAS capability enhances logistics, protection, movement and maneuver, and intelligence functions in a tactical environment:

Logistics (Sustainment): sUAS bolster the sustainment warfighting function by improving visibility and management of the logistics network. Real-time aerial footage of supply points, convoys, and supply routes allows lieutenants to monitor distribution operations and infrastructure. Drones help young officers anticipate logistical needs or adjustments (such as rerouting a convoy around obstacles or choosing alternate LRPs), thereby increasing the efficiency and reliability of support.

Protection: The protection warfighting function is enhanced as lieutenants use sUAS to safeguard personnel, supplies, and facilities. Drones act as an extra set of eyes, extending the unit’s security perimeter beyond what ground scouts can observe. During the FTX, logistics officers learn to deploy sUAS to detect enemy activity like ambushes or indirect fire observers before they threaten the unit. Early warning from aerial surveillance enables quicker reactions — such as shifting unit positions, reinforcing defenses, or masking vehicle signatures. Additionally, recognizing and countering enemy drones is now a key training point. By learning to mitigate enemy sUAS observation, lieutenants directly contribute to force protection and the survivability of their sustainment formation.

Movement and Maneuver: Although sustainment units are not maneuver elements in the traditional sense, their operations are tightly linked to the movement and maneuver function. sUAS integration allows logistics leaders to support maneuver forces more effectively. In training, lieutenants use drones to conduct route reconnaissance for supply convoys, checking roads for obstacles or enemy presence. This enables safer and faster movement of supplies and personnel. Drones also help in positioning sustainment assets, e.g., scouting a new location for a refuel point that is concealed but accessible to maneuver units. By coordinating logistic movements informed by drone reconnaissance, sustainment officers enhance the overall freedom of maneuver for the brigade. The sUAS essentially become a bridge between the sustainment and maneuver plans, ensuring that logistics support keeps up with and enables the scheme of maneuver on the battlefield.

Intelligence: sUAS are invaluable for the intelligence warfighting function at the tactical level. Logistics lieutenants at LOG BOLC learn that they can do more than push supplies — they can also feed the fight with information. During exercises, students develop priority intelligence requirements (PIRs) related to sustainment (e.g., identifying where the enemy interdicts supply lines or finding suitable drop zones for aerial resupply). They then employ drones to gather information addressing those PIRs. Full-motion video or thermal imagery from sUAS reveals enemy troop movements, terrain trafficability, or battle damage to critical infrastructure. Lieutenants relay this information to their S-2 (intelligence staff ) or higher headquarters. In essence, the course teaches that every sustainer can be a sensor. This mindset shift encourages junior officers to integrate with the intelligence enterprise, using aerial surveillance to improve logistics planning and the brigade’s overall situational awareness. As noted in emerging sustainment doctrine, the ability of sustainment Soldiers to assist intelligence and protection efforts with real-time collection is a force multiplier. sUAS give logistics leaders a practical tool to fulfill that doctrinal vision on the ground.

A small unmanned aerial system deploys a simulated 60 mm mortar round during CAPEX2025 on Fort Bragg, North Carolina, April 3, 2025. (Photo by SSG Isabel Diaz)

Future Impact

The inclusion of sUAS in initial officer training will shape future sustainment operations. Army doctrine is already moving in this direction: FM 4-0, Sustainment Operations, highlights the importance of contested logistics and calls for decision dominance through better information and technology, while Army Techniques Publication 4-98, Army Sustainment Command Operations, underscores modern sustainment techniques at the operational level.

LOG BOLC’s sUAS integration directly reflects these concepts by producing junior leaders comfortable with technology and capable of making faster, data-informed decisions in the field. We are likely to see these lieutenants apply this newly taught skill set in their first assignments, whether running a supply support activity, leading a distribution platoon, or serving in a combat sustainment support battalion as a platoon leader. They will plan resupply missions with an eye toward enemy observation capabilities, incorporate aerial surveillance into convoy security, and continually seek innovative ways to sustain the force under threat. As these officers progress in rank, their early exposure to multidomain sustainment challenges will inform unit tactics, techniques, and procedures Army-wide.

In short, this training initiative is building a generation of sustainment leaders who instinctively leverage aerial reconnaissance and other emerging technologies to solve logistics problems. The lessons learned from the Fort Lee pilot program are already informing broader Army efforts to institutionalize drone usage in sustainment units. Future BOLC classes will refine and expand on this foundation, keeping Army sustainment education on the cutting edge of realistic, combat-focused training. Crucially, the impact of this program spans all components (COMPOs) of the total force (COMPOs 1, 2, and 3). Active-duty (COMPO 1) lieutenants bring these capabilities directly to operational units, enhancing immediate readiness and innovation in active COMPO sustainment brigades and battalions. National Guard (COMPO 2) officers, who often train alongside their active counterparts at LOG BOLC, return to their states with the same advanced skills. This parity ensures that National Guard sustainment units benefit from officers adept in drone employment and counter-drone measures. Army Reserve (COMPO 3) lieutenants likewise carry this experience into a wide array of sustainment roles across theater support commands, expeditionary sustainment commands, and logistic support units that augment active forces. By standardizing sUAS proficiency across all COMPOs, the Army strengthens its sustainment enterprise at every level. In the next conflict or crisis, it will not matter whether a logistics mission is led by an active or reserve COMPO officer — their baseline training in multidomain sustainment operations will be comparable and complementary. This integration across COMPOs reinforces total Army interoperability because units know their logistics leaders share a common understanding of how to use drones to support and protect the force.

As the Army continues to modernize, the LOG BOLC sUAS initiative exemplifies how adapting training today prepares the sustainment warfighting function for tomorrow’s fights. New lieutenants who have practiced sustaining under persistent surveillance and threat will approach real-world missions with a mindset for innovation and adaptability. Their ability to coordinate logistics, protection, movement, and intelligence inputs will translate into more agile and resilient sustainment operations in the field. In an era of contested logistics and multidomain complexity, giving our junior sustainment leaders this kind of experiential edge is an educational improvement and a combat multiplier. The integration of sUAS into LOG BOLC is a decisive step toward a logistics force that supports the fight with precision, speed, and a full understanding of the operational environment, ensuring Army sustainment remains a strategic advantage on the multidomain battlefield.