U.S. soldiers assigned to 82nd Airborne’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team train with the Integrated Visual Augmentation System as a part of Project Convergence 2022 (PC22) at Camp Talega, California, Oct. 11, 2022.

U.S. soldiers assigned to 82nd Airborne’s 3rd Brigade Combat Team train with the Integrated Visual Augmentation System as a part of Project Convergence 2022 (PC22) at Camp Talega, California, Oct. 11, 2022. U.S. Army / Sgt. Thiem Huynh

The Army Brief: Network warfare, scaled up; New Indo-Pacific training; Innovation Oasis winner; and more...

Welcome to The Army Brief, a weekly look at the news and ideas shaping the service’s future. 

Autonomous Black Hawks. The third iteration of the Army-led Project Convergence wrapped last week after giving autonomous Black Hawks and futuristic augmented headgear a place to shine, Defense One reports. But the real focus was enlarging the military’s massive networked warfare experiment to better replicate a major conflict and include forces from other services and allies.

New Indo-Pacific training center. The Army this week announced a new regional Combat Training Center on Fort Shafter, Hawaii, meant to provide an “austere jungle” environment for soldiers to train in, Defense One reports. The Joint Pacific Multinational Readiness Center is the first such CTC established in 50 years.  

One counter-drone trainer to rule them all. An Army sergeant took home the top prize of this year’s Innovation Oasis competition with a virtual counter-drone trainer that allows operators to develop their skills across multiple systems at once, Defense One reports. Army National Guard Sgt. Mickey Reeve said there are so many different types of counter-drone systems, it can be hard for operators to stay up to date on all of them.

Sign up to get The Army Brief every Friday morning from Elizabeth Howe, Defense One’s Army reporter. On November 2, the Hughes Flying Boat, commissioned by the government after World War II, flew for the first and last time. Due to steel war-time restrictions, the flying boat was made of laminated birch and spruce paneling and thus named “Spruce Goose.”


From Defense One

The Military's Network Warfare Experiment Scaled Up This Year // Patrick Tucker

The U.S. Army-led experiment attempted to create a lot more targets, challenges, and complexities to test out futuristic concepts.

Army's New Training Center Keeps Forces Available in Indo-Pacific // Elizabeth Howe

Service leaders say the first regional center in 50 years will improve training and save time and effort.

Sergeant Makes One Counter-Drone Trainer to Rule Them All // Patrick Tucker

Having too many different counter-drone systems is making training unnecessarily difficult. An Army National Guardsman from CENTCOM has developed a solution.