An Cosantóir

| 19 3: Actions-on being seen. Detection may not mean being targeted immediately; the kill chain takes time. Question what is coming - corrected fire, or an FPV? Act: small-arms CUAS fire, smoke, rapid dispersion, a rush to cover. Get under foliage. Put obstacles between the soldier and an FPV. 4: Route planning is required to be a section skill. Do not assume yesterday's route is safe today. Drones sit over likely movement corridors, and waiter drones (FPVs lying in ambush) make patterns dangerous. The battlespace requires all soldiers to be critical thinkers. ⁸ 5: Treat downed/grounded armed drones as IEDs. Do not approach. Mark from a distance, report and avoid. 6: Move decisively once committed. Speed reduces exposure, but speeding vehicles create casualties of their own. What junior and mid-ranking officers and NCOs need to change Small UAS attack movement, sustainment and commanders up to 30 km from the FLOT. Plans depending on visible congregation and repeated radio use will fail. Orders and control measures must be understood before movement. Mission command is essential. A veteran section commander put it bluntly: "I have to accept that I don't have control of my section for long periods of time". HQs are found through their radios; clear intent and mission command mitigate this. The planning burden is heavier; every action must assume enemy observation. Since fire support and CUAS are one problem, these must be habitually associated. Once seen, the enemy need not close - corrected artillery, a dropper or FPV, a strike on the reorg. A jammer helps but will not save them; ultimately "you need a gun; an AI-assisted gun would be good". What senior officers need to act on Nine soldiers cannot solely carry the task load, operate the new systems and remain cohesive once dispersed. Capability must evolve continuously. CUAS must be decentralised. Dismounts and light vehicles cannot rely on higher echelons. Without organic CUAS, they will take avoidable casualties - pertinent for crisis-management operations. The downed-drone-as-IED problem restores the assault pioneer as an essential role. Successful CUAS action can drop an IED into a position. These requirements point to a 14-soldier section: three detachments under a corporal, possibly a sergeant. ⁹ ISR and hard- kill CUAS sit where needed, and the section commander has the force protection required. The DOTMLPF-I implications for the civil and military sides of DOD are direct. Training must produce soldiers competent with drones, CUAS and CIED. Procurement must prioritise section-level ISR drones and armed FPVs at company level, expand the light mobility fleet and consider electric bicycles. Applying conventional aviation administration to small drones suppresses the scale and consumable nature that gives them value. ¹⁰ Adversaries have adapted; the force design has not. Armies which waited for doctrine to catch up with the machine gun paid the price. As the machine gun once organised the section, the UAS operator may now organise the detachment - where drones deliver the lethality and the soldiers protect and enable the pilot. Conclusion Drones have not made infantry obsolete. They've changed survival, where combat begins and how movements judged. For the soldier: battle drills. For the platoon commander: delegated authority and CUAS and CIED integration. For the senior officer: DOTMLPF-I must catch up. Movement is timed exposure; every downed drone is a likely hazard. The section that understands this - equipped and trained accordingly - has a better chance of survival. The section that does not will be degraded from afar. References are available upon request to the editor www.military.ie THE DEFENCE FORCES MAGAZINE Battle Drill 1: 'Packeted' movement Figure 5: Battle Drill 2: Soft contact Battle Drill 3: Hard contact

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