Climb to Glory: Air Scouts out, UAS Company(s) Real In
Transformation is the buzzword.
The 10th Mountain Division (LI) made a quiet move last week to case the colors of the 164-year old (constituted 4 May 1861) 6th Squadron, 6th Cavalry Regiment (“Fighting Six-Six”) and disband the heavy attack reconnaissance squadron (HARS), sending its 24 AH-64D Longbow Apaches and six RQ-7Bv2 Shadows to other units.
In its place, Fox Company, 1st Battalion, 10th Aviation Regiment (F, 1-10 Attack Battalion), a new company dedicated to achieving “drone dominance” on the modern battlefield, was activated.
The other three companies in 1-10 Attack will be Apache units, fielding 24 of the birds, at least for now. In the meantime, the Army is retiring older AH-64D models (starting FY2026) to focus on modernizing smaller numbers of AH-64E, which notably have counter-drone capabilities and allow for more UAV integration. Further, with the long-planned Future Attack Reconnaissance Aircraft (FARA) program canceled last year, you can bet Apaches in general will likely be replaced by unmanned assets sometime in the 2030s.
“As the 10th Mountain Division’s first dedicated Tactical Unmanned Aircraft Systems (TUAS) and Launch Effects (LE) company, these Soldiers are now at the forefront of the Army Aviation Transformation Initiative,” said the Army of Fox 1-10 Attack.
Meanwhile, new Multifunctional Reconnaissance Companies (MFRC), focused on Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems (sUAS) employment, are standing up in the 10th Mountain as well as the rest of the Army at the brigade level.
At Camp Beauregard, LA, Soldiers from Sioux Company (Multi-Purpose Company), 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, prepared to launch a Medium-Range Reconnaissance (MRR) Ghost-X drone while utilizing the Soldier Borne Mission Command Surrogate (SBMC-S) system during a training exercise. The SBMC-S empowers Soldiers to task and hand off Uncrewed Aerial System (UAS) assets, simultaneously providing access to high-resolution, full-motion video (FMV) streamed directly from the drone. (U.S. Army photo by Zach Montanaro, PEO Soldier Public Affairs)