By Melissa Buckley, Fort Leonard Wood Public Affairs Office

FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (Sept. 19, 2025) — Fort Leonard Wood Soldiers are learning to operate unmanned aircraft systems, commonly called a UAS or drone, so they can incorporate the critical battlefield technology into combat training.

“Learning about UAS will increase our lethality across the formation,” said Capt. David Taylor, Maneuver Support Center of Excellence G-3 Air Operations officer-in-charge.

In July, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, issued a memo “Unleashing U.S. Military Drone Dominance,” containing a directive to integrate UAS capabilities into “all relevant combat training, including force-on-force drone wars.”

“Drones are the biggest battlefield innovation in a generation, accounting for most of this year’s casualties in Ukraine,” Hegseth wrote, “Accelerating this critical battlefield technology requires a Department of War culture.”

From Sept. 15 to 19, UAS master trainers from the Robotics and Autonomous Systems Platoon, from the 82nd Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, are at Fort Leonard Wood training 30 MSCoE Soldiers from the Combat Training Company, 1st Engineer Brigade, 3rd Chemical Brigade and 14th Military Police Brigade.

According to Chief Warrant Officer 2 Andrew Nakamura, Robotics and Autonomous Systems technician, training other organizations is new for his mobile training team.

“This class is the first time the 82nd has had joint training with an organization outside of the XVIII Airborne Corps,” Nakamura said.

The UAS initial qualification training course focuses on the small, unmanned aircraft system known as the RQ-28A, a short-range reconnaissance quadcopter.

Soldiers spent the first day of training in the classroom learning UAS definitions, classifications and applications, along with the capabilities of various systems.

“We went over fundamentals of flight, basic axis of flight, how to assemble the aircraft, how to pair the aircraft and basic maneuvering with the aircraft,” Nakamura said.

On day two, they met at Training Area 401 to get hands-on time controlling the drones.

“Out here they’re learning familiarity with the controllers and the system — how to hand launch, how to land and how to do basic maneuvers with it,” Nakamura said.

Some of the other skills taught include orbiting targets, obstacle avoidance and nighttime flying.

“We’re also going to teach them visible and audible masking. They will learn to use the trees to hide while flying and observing a target outside of the trees,” Nakamura said.

According to Taylor, Fort Leonard Wood’s newly trained UAS operators will allow BCT units to implement drones during the Forge, a multiple-day field exercise designed to test what Soldiers-in-training have learned through basic training.

“After the course, the CTC operators will fly UAS for BCT unit’s during their Forges. The other operators will go back to their units and implement UAS operations based on the guidance of the commandants,” Taylor said, referring to the commandants of the U.S. Army Military Police, Engineer and Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear schools based at Fort Leonard Wood.

One of the Soldiers taking the class, Staff Sgt. Shadd Miser, a drill sergeant with Delta Company, 795th Miliary Police Battalion, said he hopes to be able to incorporate drones into other field training events.

“For instance, when they’re learning to set up an area of operation or assembly area, we can fly these drones around and use the cameras to show them gaps in their defenses, show them how they’re either properly concealing themselves or not properly concealing themselves,” Miser said.

Ultimately, the goal of adding drone operations to basic combat training, according to Miser, is for Soldiers-in-training to be aware that drones are “a quickly developing threat, but also a quickly developing capability.”

He said he wants new Soldiers to leave basic training with a complete understanding of drones and how they are being used on today’s battlefield.

“I think it is important for them to know how drones are being used. The casualty production rate is devastating,” Miser said. “I want to give them the understanding of how to not only identify UAS but also react and report to be able to hopefully put some type of counter capabilities in effect.

“If we can do that at the lowest level with all our Soldiers, we will be more effective on every single front.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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About Fort Leonard Wood

Fort Leonard Wood is a thriving and prosperous installation that has evolved from a small basic training post more than 80 years ago to a premier Army Center of Excellence that trains nearly 80,000 military and civilians each year.

Fort Leonard Wood is home to the U.S Army Maneuver Support Center of Excellence and three U.S. Army schools: the U.S. Army Engineer School; U.S. Army Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear School; and the U.S. Army Military Police School. In addition to training engineer, CBRN and military police specialties for the Army, Fort Leonard Wood also provides gender-integrated in-processing and Basic Combat Training for new Soldiers.

Fort Leonard Wood also hosts and trains with the largest Marine Corps Detachment and Air Force Squadron on any Army installation as well as a large Navy construction detachment.