The Army has solved its drone problem. What you do is: you shoot them with a tank.
Problem solved, right?
Not quite, but that describes some of the reaction after the service released its latest update to its “Tank Platoon” manual, known as ATP 3-20.15, late last week, and a set of diagrams deep in the appendix caught the eye of many online. It’s not hard to see why.
Taken by themselves, the diagrams do come across as a bit… optimistic. They present an extremely simplified vision of a hypothetical tank-vs-drone encounter, a subject that combat in Ukraine has proven is neither simple nor hypothetical for armor formations. In the diagrams, a squad of M1 Abrams main battle tanks aim at a passing drone — which the Army calls an unmanned aircraft system or UAS — and shoot it down with fire from their main 120mm cannon. The course of action instructions alongside the diagram suggest that crews employ the M1028 120mm canister rounds for the takedown.
The M1028 is a fairly awful weapon to contemplate, a 120mm shell stuffed with over 1000 tungsten projectiles designed to scatter like grapeshot and mow through dismounted infantry or, in this case, clip a fragile drone in its wide field of disbursement. At least that seems to be the thinking here.
Gunners should lead a straight-flying UAS, the manual says, by that most All-American of distance estimates, “one-half football field.”
A second diagram addresses the quadcopter variety of drone, which are rarely seen flying straight and narrow but instead loop and dive directly at their targets. For those, the diagrams say, aim “slightly above helicopter body.”
The new manual represents the Army’s first rewrite of its armor procedures to address the threat of drones, but the simple diagrams are hardly the service’s first crack at counter-UAS tactics.
In fact, missed by most of the online commenters is that the diagrams are pulled from the section on intentionally simple immediate action drills. Immediate action drills, or battle drills, are familiar to any soldier as the building blocks of combat tactics — simple, short, easy-to-memorize instructions for specific scenarios that units practice until they are second nature.
But revisions throughout the rest of the tank manual make clear that ‘second nature’ is what the army wants drone combat to be.
Drones now a ‘critical task’
The revised manual mentions unmanned systems over 100 times and puts combat with UASs into two of a tanker’s 12 “Critical Tactical Tasks,” alongside such tank basics as field maintenance and casualty care and evacuation. Drone engagements now also gets its own section in the manual’s operating instructions.
“The platoon should assume they are being observed by enemy reconnaissance and targeting systems, and not assume they are under a protective umbrella of friendly air and missile defense units,” the section begins. “The platoon must react quickly and appropriately respond and report when recognizing signs of possible enemy observation or attack.”
Tankers think of defenses against UAS in two categories: active and passive.
Passive defense is a relatively straightforward idea: more armor, more hiding.
“Limiting damage and attack avoidance measures are passive defense measures that are used to avoid detection from aerial threats and limit damage if attacked,” the manual says. Those measures include a checklist with everything from smearing mud on headlights for light discipline to OPSEC in the planning stages and using decoys — both real and electronic — to draw drones away.
Another passive defense the Army is looking into giving its tanks, as the War Zone reported last month, includes more armor and even ‘cope cages’ on the top, a weak spot made famous in Ukraine but exploited by ISIS as far back as 2017 in Syria.
Active measures are a whole different ballgame, which are manual and automated systems designed to shoot drones out of the sky as they approach a tank. They vary from decades-old reactive armor, to new and in-development laser or radar-directed rockets and 30mm cannons that can swat drones away as they approach.
Adding an ‘air guard’ to the crew
Perhaps most interesting though is the manual’s instructions for a designated member of the crew to act as “air guard.”
This job — which the manual says will likely fall to the crew’s loader — will be used “for every vehicle and position to establish 360-degree security.” The air guard’s job, the manual says, is “to be vigilant with eyes on the horizon. Air guards are responsible for spotting aerial threats within proximity to the unit’s location and providing early warning.”
And while drone battles are likely to continue to be a technology race between drone makers and counter-measure builders, the Army seems to think a key to that race will be the very human skill of listening.
“Air guards should position themselves where they can best observe and, more importantly, listen for threat UAS,” the manual says. “When listening, OPs should exercise noise discipline, ensure all engines are of,f and remove their headgear to listen. Early warning is the key for air guards.”
Read the full 432-page “Tank Platoon” manual here.
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