Soldiers from across the 10th Mountain Division conducted the Hunter-Electromagnetic Spectrum VI exercise, Aug. 11-16, on Fort Drum, New York. Hunter-EMS enhances Soldiers’ capabilities to respond and adapt to adversary electronic countermeasures appropriately by combining kinetic and non-kinetic effects in the modern theater of war.

This sixth iteration of Hunter-EMS served as its culminating event, incorporating different measures and advancements from previous executions into this exercise. Such integrations include simultaneously using multiple direction-finding systems to address air missile defense and electronic warfare threats more accurately and using a devoted AMD-EW asset, which the 10th Mountain Division announced in April, to do so.

“Hunter-EMS is a hide-and-seek style event that pits a live, free-thinking target set against electronic intelligence hunters,” said Chief Warrant Officer 2 Brett Melnyk, a counterfire officer assigned to the 10th Mountain Division Artillery Brigade. “The series was designed to refine radar and EW tactics, techniques, and procedures, to be used in large-scale combat operations. Hunter-EMS’s distinguishing characteristics are that we employ an adaptive and competitive adversary, and our open architecture welcomes participation from anyone who is willing on either side.”

Modernization and evolution are the driving force of the Hunter-EMS series, with the goal of preparing 10th Mountain Division to face the growing AMD-EW threats of a 21st-century battlefield. By having Soldiers isolate and locate simulated threats and coordinate the appropriate response of kinetic effects, 10th Mountain Division is one step closer to achieving this goal.

“Our training is beginning to change from the smaller scale of counterterrorism to large-scale warfare against a modern enemy,” said Sgt. 1st Class Thomas Zebrowski, electronic warfare spectrum manager assigned to the 10th Mountain Division. “We’re starting to look at how Soldiers and equipment react after we provide countermeasures to AMD-EW threats and how long it takes those Soldiers to recognize those effects and take the appropriate course of action.”

Vital to the training that Hunter-EMS provides is the simultaneous application of kinetic and non-kinetic effects on the battlefield, using non-kinetic EW techniques such as direction finding and signal jamming to aid kinetic effects like artillery.

“There are many ways that the relationship between kinetic and non-kinetic effects can help us achieve the commander’s targeting objective,” Melnyk said. “One of the more common ways is leveraging electronic attack capabilities at a specific time and space to allow aerial freedom of maneuver to achieve a desired effect.”

One of the key aspects of Hunter-EMS VI is allowing hands-on experience for Soldiers with emerging EW equipment, providing them an opportunity to not only build proficiency but be able to provide meaningful input into the use of that technology.

“The equipment our young professionals are using and testing in this event is the equipment they may eventually be fielded with and require to prevail in war,” Melnyk said. “They deserve input into the development of their tools, and we aim to shift the feedback frequency to our Soldiers and industry partners from months or years to hours or days.”

Hunter-EMS VI is not only an exercise that analyzes how Soldiers at the ground level train to properly use their equipment to answer EW threats quickly and accurately but also a way for assessing the capacities available to make those Soldiers more effective and secured in a field environment.

“This is a kind of pre-test, to help show the capabilities we have so that commanders can understand what’s accessible to them,” Zebrowksi said. “So they can see when they’re training up for their next deployment, that these are the kind of effects we can provide to make your Soldiers more lethal and better protected.”

The preparedness that Hunter-EMS helps to provide to both Soldiers executing on the ground and commanders planning from their headquarters is what will help the 10th Mountain Division and the U.S. Army stay at the forefront of the modern theater of war, by learning to recognize, monitor, target, and answer these developing threats.

“This exercise is helping us build the playbook to succeed in multi-domain operations against a near-peer adversary in a degraded, disrupted, denied space operations environment,” Melnyk said.