Force Protection: Army Transforms Integrated Air, Missile Defense Capabilities.

• Author: Gourley, Scott R.

HUNTSVILLE, Alabama -- Few arenas in the Army are witnessing more significant transformation than integrated air and missile defense, according to service officials.

Col. Pat Costello, director of Army Futures Command's Air and Missile Defense Cross Functional Team, said, "Nowhere during my career have I seen such transformation across a branch."

From new approaches to defending against small handheld drones to the well-established Patriot missile defense system, the Army is changing the way it defends its troops from airborne threats, he said at the Association of the U.S. Army's Global Force symposium in Huntsville, Alabama.

The Army is "doing it all simultaneously, and then making it all fit together and work together by eliminating some of the long-standing stovepipes we've had. And that's why I really use the word 'transformation,' instead of 'modernization,' because yes, we are modernizing the materiel solutions, but this is going to fundamentally change the way that we are organized and employed as a branch," he said.

Col. Curtis King, commandant of the Air Defense Artillery School at the Fires Center of Excellence at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, highlighted the growing threats to troops.

"One thing we've seen is no longer do we have one system focused on one threat. We're seeing this play out in Ukraine, in real-world time now," he said. "We have to have layered and in-depth defense. In many cases, you're having to use some of your air and missile defense capability to protect some of your other systems against some of your more advanced threats."

"This is not just an air defense fight," he added. "This is not just an Army fight. This is the joint fight."

Costello said the transformation of air and missile defense is going to not only open new opportunities for the Army but is also going to expose new gaps that it will have to address in the future.

There are five distinct lines of effort that the air and missile defense enterprise is supporting for the delivery of Army 2030 goals and paving the way for the Army of 2040, he said. They are: integrated air and missile defense; counter-unmanned aircraft systems; maneuver-short range air defense; indirect fire protection capability; and lower tier air and missile defense sensors.

The number one priority is the integrated air-and-missile defense, underpinned by its battle command system, which is designed to break down the long-standing stovepipes "not only within the Army, but within the joint...