The Marine Corps recently launched a service-level organization responsible for integrating, standardizing, and institutionalizing training for Group 1 and Group 2 small unmanned aircraft systems and counter-small unmanned aircraft systems. It is assigned under Marine Air Ground Task Force Training Command (MAGTFTC), Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center (MCAGCC), in Twentynine Palms, Calif.
The Marine Corps Robotics Integration Group will serve as a focal point for unmanned systems training integration, curriculum development, and education, and also ensures emerging drone capabilities are transformed into standardized instruction programs, instructor certifications, and training products that can be delivered consistently.
The group is part of the Marine Corps’ ongoing efforts to adapt to modern warfare. Inexpensive, commercially available unmanned aircraft have changed how modern militaries detect, target, maneuver and fight.
“The battlefield continues to demonstrate that small unmanned aircraft systems are no longer niche capabilities; they are indispensable tools for reconnaissance, precision strike, force protection and survivability,” Maj. Gen. Mark H. Clingan, MAGTFTC, MCAGCC commanding general, said. “The Marine Corps Robotics Integration Group provides the institutional framework necessary to rapidly integrate validated capabilities into standardized training, ensuring Marines across the Total Force are prepared to employ and defeat these systems in future conflicts.”
Specialized organizations responsible for experimentation and operational assessment will submit validated capability packages, including tactics, techniques and procedures, pilot courses and training requirements to the group. After validation, the group will develop curriculum, training support packages and certification standards and distribute them through designated regional hubs that execute standardized instruction across the Fleet Marine Force.
“The Marine Corps Attack Drone Team and the Marine Corps Counter Drone Team are designed to move at the speed of technology,” Col. Charles Anklam III, Weapons Training Battalion commanding officer, said. “Through the analysis of exercises, operations, and purposely designed events we gain critical information about how systems should be employed or defeated. Our responsibility is to rigorously test ideas, validate capabilities, and rapidly transition those findings to MCRIG, where they become standardized training that benefits every Marine. This partnership allows us to remain agile to the constantly changing threat, innovate quickly, and provide the fleet with consistently reliable, credible, and operationally relevant information to increase lethality and survivability.”
The Marine Corps established the Counter Drone Team to accelerate counter-drone training development and serve as training command’s dedicated counter-drone training development cell. An element of Weapons Training Battalion at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Va., the team’s
role is to identify threats, test emerging solutions, validate practical tactics, and transition those findings to Robotics Integration Group for service-wide implementation.