U.S. Army integrates drone and jamming tech in Latvia exercise

Soldiers from 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment ran a live-fire exercise in Selija, Latvia, on April 29 that put drones and counter-drone jamming technology at the center of their infantry tactics. A training event that reflects how much the American ground combat model has shifted since Ukraine put drone warfare on every army’s priority list.

The exercise wove drone reconnaissance and counter-UAS operations directly into a simulated combat sequence rather than treating them as separate capability demonstrations. Troops conducted a vehicle infiltration into the training area, then transitioned to a movement-to-contact squad attack. During objective rally point operations, squads deployed drones to scout enemy positions and collect intelligence before leaders conducted their reconnaissance — giving commanders a picture of the objective before committing personnel to close observation. From a separate position, a soldier operating a Titan V3 counter-unmanned aircraft system jammed enemy drones attempting to enter the squad’s airspace, disrupting simulated enemy reconnaissance during contact. The exercise continued with soldiers establishing support-by-fire positions, suppressing enemy fire, and maneuvering teams to assault enemy positions.

The sequencing matters. Drone reconnaissance feeding directly into a leader’s decision cycle, while a dedicated counter-UAS operator simultaneously denies the enemy the same advantage — that’s not a technology showcase, it’s a tactical integration problem, and working through it under live-fire conditions is how units actually learn to trust the capability. “Essentially, you’re allowing the drone to isolate objectives and provide security that normally you’d have to send a security squad up to do,” 1st Lt. Richard Thomas, a platoon leader assigned to 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, said during the exercise. “And so, it’s trusting in the drone operator and trusting in your equipment. Sometimes that equipment fails, but that’s what we’re out here to learn,” Thomas said.

The Titan V3 counter-UAS system the unit fielded for jamming operations represents the defensive side of a tactical equation that U.S. ground forces have been working to solve with increasing urgency. Hostile drones entering a unit’s airspace during a movement-to-contact or assault phase can provide the enemy with real-time positioning data that turns a carefully planned maneuver into an ambush. A dedicated operator running electronic jamming from a separate position — not a rifleman pulled off his primary task, but a soldier whose job during that phase is specifically to deny enemy aerial reconnaissance — reflects a doctrinal shift in how American infantry units are structuring their internal roles.

Thomas was direct about the broader context driving that shift. “There’s always room to learn. We learned some new things about drone reconnaissance, where to place the drone, and the actions to isolate the objective without having to use extra manpower. It’s important that we, as the infantry and as a military in general, get familiar with what’s going on with our NATO partners. Right now, drones and electronic warfare are a large thing,” he said. That last observation carries real weight coming from a platoon leader in a U.S. cavalry regiment training on NATO soil in Latvia — a direct acknowledgment that Ukraine’s battlefield has rewritten the assumptions American infantry has trained against for decades.

The 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment is part of the 1st Cavalry Division, one of the U.S. Army’s storied heavy combined-arms formations. Cavalry regiments have historically served as reconnaissance and security forces, making the integration of drone-based reconnaissance into their tactics a natural extension of a mission set that has always prioritized information advantage over brute force. What has changed is the technology available to execute that mission and the threat environment requiring it — a squad that can deploy a drone to isolate an objective and collect intelligence before committing soldiers to physical reconnaissance is a squad that exposes fewer people to direct fire while gathering the same or better information.

Running drone reconnaissance and counter-UAS jamming together in a live-fire environment, integrated into a full movement-to-contact sequence rather than conducted as standalone skill stations, suggests a unit that has moved past the introductory phase and is working on how the pieces fit together under realistic conditions. The acknowledgment that equipment sometimes fails — offered by the platoon leader, not a public affairs officer — suggests the training is honest about the limitations as well as the capabilities.