Photo By Sgt. Hayden Epperley | The 1st Air Cavalry Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division hosted a Leader Professional...... read more read more
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FORT HOOD, TEXAS – The 1st Air Cavalry Brigade is advancing the 1st Cavalry Division’s goal to adapt to the modern battlefield by launching "Transformation in Contact 2.0" at Fort Hood, Texas, as part of the division’s "Pegasus Charge" initiative.
Chief Warrant Officer 5 Tobias Long, the 1st Air Cavalry Brigade's Chief Warrant Officer, is a key member of the 1st Air Cavalry Brigade's transformation in contact initiative, developing new ideas with the teams designated to support this mission within the brigade.
“Army Aviation is an integral part of what the Army does as a whole,” said Chief Warrant Officer 5 Long. “To facilitate and lead combined arms maneuver, we, as Army Aviation, have to adapt our systems and capabilities to support the division commander and Armored Brigade Combat Teams.”
To support the 1st Cavalry Division and its Armored Brigade Combat Teams, the 1st Air Cavalry Brigade created a Modern Adversary Small Tactics (MAS-T) team, comprised of 15Es, Unmanned Aircraft Systems Repairers, and 15Ws, Unmanned Aircraft Systems Operators. Led by subject matter experts, MAS-T showcases and influences how innovation can be created at the brigade level and has an aviation impact supporting all types of missions in the division.
The MAS-T analyzes threats they’ve seen across the globe where the use of unmanned aerial systems (UAS) is present. After analyzing these threats, they begin creating their own UAS products while coding and programming different software and capabilities for their created systems. The systems and software they create help provide offensive and defensive tactics, reconnaissance, resupply, or sustainment to the Army as a whole.
This initiative was tested during their mission to the Joint Multinational Readiness Center (JMRC), a U.S. Army Combat Training Center (CTC) located near Hohenfels, Germany, during their rotation to support Operation Atlantic Resolve in early 2025. Working with the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, the 1st Air Cavalry Brigade was able to assist by implementing small unmanned aerial systems (sUAS) and establishing an integrated tactical network (ITN), thereby providing situational awareness and success in meeting their mission requirements.
“We have a lot of innovators within this brigade,” said Chief Warrant Officer 5 Long.”We are trying to find new technology that can allow us to accomplish command and control, sustainment, and reconnaissance pieces.”
The 1st Air Cavalry Brigade is changing tactics in warfighting by building the capability to penetrate deep into enemy territory, shaping both the close and deep fight, and achieving overmatch against peer adversary armored formations, thereby extending operational reach, maximizing lethality, and maintaining the tempo of the 1st Cavalry Division. By deploying MQ-1 Grey Eagles closer to or behind the forward line of own troops (FLOT) to leverage existing ground moving target indicator (GMTI), retransmission, and dynamic targeting capabilities in addition to traditional full motion video (FMV) roles, and ensure survivability while providing rapid strike capability to the division for high-payoff targets (HPT). By integrating the MQ-1 as the upper-tier sensor in a layered human-machine integrated formation (HMIF), the brigade enhances the division's ability to sense and strike targets utilizing both UAS and AH-64E “Apaches”.
Their initiative to build a team of innovators to discuss and build concepts of different systems and software to help support missions and units such as the 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division at JMRC will continue as they will be supporting the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division during their rotation to the National Training Center (NTC), Fort Irwin, California later this year.
| Date Taken: | 09.11.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 09.12.2025 18:18 |
| Story ID: | 548051 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 63 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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