Cyber warfare

 

US Army conducts first-of-its-kind exercise for tactical information warfare unit

The U.S. Army’s new tactical information warfare unit conducted its first training exercise specifically dedicated to maturing the formation’s concepts and tactics.

The 915th Cyber Warfare Battalion was officially created by Army Cyber Command in 2019. It consists of 12 expeditionary cyber and electromagnetic (CEMA) teams (ECT) that are solely meant to support brigade combat teams or other tactical formations with cyber, electronic warfare and information operations capabilities.

These “fly away” teams, as some officials call them, would help plan tactical cyber operations for commanders in theater and unilaterally conduct missions in coordination with deployed forces.

Expeditionary CEMA Team 1, or ECT-01 participated in the training event that took place in early October at Muscatatuck Urban Training Center in Indiana. The sprawling facility provides a robust digital training environment equipped with infrastructure that can be manipulated in the cyber realm without damaging actual operational systems used by the military or civilians.

While this unit and its predecessor through the CEMA Support to Corps and Below pilot at Fort Irwin, California, previously augmented brigades during training events at the National Training Center, the ECTs were not the primary training unit. They were there solely to augment the brigade that was training.