Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Michael Brabner: Slowly but surely, senior leaders, junior leaders, soldiers, officers, NCOs at every echelon across the DOD began to wake up and realize that if we don't prepare for this, if we don't start embracing this new technology, this change in warfare, that we're going to have a significant emotional event the next time we do go to war.
And drones are rapidly, increasingly becoming the go to source to solve simple tactical, operational and strategic problem sets.
[00:00:39] John Ramstead: Welcome to Hangar X Studios where former fighter pilot and host John Ramstead takes us on a journey across aerospace as it enters an historic period of innovation and transformation.
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Hey, welcome to the Hangar X Studios podcast. And you know, this is the place where innovators, aerospace experts, defense, commercial, this is where everybody comes to get the information that you need for decisions, for knowledge, for what's happening. This is the radar for this entire space in this transformation that's happening right now across what we are calling the vertical economy. From drones all the way through advanced high range, high speed VTOLs. And today we have on Lieutenant Colonel Michael Brabs Brabner.
Colonel, welcome onto the podcast.
[00:02:06] Michael Brabner: Thank you.
[00:02:08] John Ramstead: So I got a little background here. I want to read this, but 25 years in the army, you've frontline combat, you've worked, you've been deep in defense acquisitions and unmanned systems. You're currently the branch chief in requirements.
You've been on the front lines and commanded troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. And today you're really shaping the Army's future with purpose built attributable systems. PBAs we're gonna talk about the army has a lot of acronyms so we're gonna get into some of these acronyms bravs.
But really what this is is cutting edge drones, offensive and defensive. And you just have this warfare's grit. As we've gotten to know you a systems thinking mentality and now you're leading robotics innovation at Fort Moore and you are a big believer in not only rapid iteration but rapid adaptation and without which we're going to lose the next war. So. And recently, if people aren't familiar, there was an executive order that came out a couple weeks ago followed on making Drones and vertical flight. America the center of that. But Secretary of Defense Hegseth came out and just doubled down on that. I would just summarize what he said is we will be dominant globally for drones and drone technology and put a very thoughtful and thorough paper that came out, the one that was public facing is really a summary, a one pager. But, but Michael's gone all the way through in depth. It's actually what he's working on. And I just wanted to share maybe my first question for you Michael, as we jump in here, because you have a thesis, and that is that drones will change warfare. They've already changed it, but it's going to permanently change and transform warfare. And we have to adapt.
It's a requirement. And here's a question for you. So what observation or moments in time or maybe some things that are happening on today's battlefield have just cemented that belief for you?
[00:04:09] Michael Brabner: So I've been fortunate to be on the sidelines and I'm not at the two way petting zoo.
We work with a lot of people that are deploy and assist and then.
[00:04:21] John Ramstead: What'S the two way petting zoo?
[00:04:23] Michael Brabner: We call that the combat zone. You can pet the tiger, but the tiger pets back, you know, so I've been using that phrase since Baghdad during the surge in Afghanistan. But you can learn a lot of lessons and fortunately for us, we're not paying for those lessons in blood, sweat and tears right now. So as active listeners and learners like we are, if you look back at what we did with the IED threat and how we evolved and adapted and semi overcame that to some degree with materiel acquisition and military capabilities, when you really dive in and look at Ukraine taking all those lessons learned, they're free lessons, right? So we've been actively paying attention, attention to those working with subject matter experts across not just the army, but the DoD writ large, given we write joint requirements and have been trying to influence the joint space, and I think we've done a good job over the last 36 months of my tenure.
But it was hard. A lot of it was administrative. Sometimes I felt like we were barking up a tree. But we stayed the course. And slowly but surely senior leaders, junior leaders, soldiers, officers, NCOs at every echelon across the DOD began to wake up and realize that if we don't prepare for this, if we don't start embracing this new technology, this change in warfare, that we're going to have a significant emotional event next time we do go to war.
[00:06:00] John Ramstead: Well, no, I agree with that, you know, I'd love your thoughts too. I think just for people listening, what are some of the things that are actually happening on the battlefield that's creating such a focus and a transformation? I was in an unclassified Air Force briefing. I do a lot of strategic consulting to the Air Force. This was a major command, a wing Command, all 30, all 65 other officers were there. And I remember the intelligence officer, he just got back from Ukraine, and one of the most lethal things on the battlefield right now is no longer the sniper, it's the drone operator. And there was a Ukrainian soldier who had, I believe at this time, and this was nine months ago, 635 confirmed kills.
[00:06:39] Michael Brabner: Yeah.
[00:06:40] John Ramstead: So think about, you have this $200 drone that you just throw in the air, and now the sniper's not even exposed. He's not in a location that he has to crawl into.
And that's gotta just be completely change the battle space. And then you also. I just saw an article the other day about how many Russian tanks, I think 2,500 were killed by drones.
So what are some of the other things that are happening, those stories that are happening on the battlefield, both offensive and defensive, where we're going? Okay, this is radically going to change how we're going to be fighting wars and how our troops operate in the field?
[00:07:12] Michael Brabner: Yeah, it's been incredible. Just yesterday I was on Fort Benning, not Fort Moore, by the way, it went back.
And I. I ran into Second Lieutenant Hasna.
And I think about 18 months ago, I was up at Picatinny Arsenal. And he was a West Point cadet at the time doing an internship at Picatinny Arsenal. And he did a.
He did a research study, I think, where he.
He used over 200,000 variables of data points collected from Russia and Ukraine on the conflict. And he ran a whole series of metrics and analysis and his outputs were incredible. And so it was really cool bumping into him yesterday. Fast forward, you know, I'm getting ready to retire. He's, you know, commissioned and is now starting his journey as an infantryman.
But just seeing that the young soldiers that can see over the horizon what the problems are going to be and then what tools we need to solve those problems. And drones are rapidly increasingly becoming the go to source to solve simple tactical, operational and strategic problem sets. And acquisition. One of the tenets of acquisition, I learned early on at Picatinny as an assistant product manager working ammunition programs in combat, especially material acquisition, you want to look to what you want to kill, what effects you want to have on it and then reverse engineer back to the end user, the system or systems of systems to achieve that desired outcome or effect.
So I've been really impressed and very fortunate to befriend a lot of soldiers, officers and NCOs in this space that are at the cutting edge of. Of trying to learn. And they've been doing a lot with a very little.
So now with Pete Hess memorandum and declaration, it sounds like, you know, nobody's. We're not just listening to the, you know, the beating war drums anymore. People are, like, marching in tune to that rhythm, that change. And a lot of what my office has had to do is act as a change agent. When you look back across, like, the 25 years of the global war on terrorism, we were not good users of technology.
I don't know if you listened to General Rainey's podcast where he was a guest on the drone Ultimatum a couple weeks ago, but I listened to it and took notes, and the podcaster was asking him some very poignant questions. And drones, General Rainey, master of strategy at the strategic, operational and tactical level, was breaking it down. He's like, basically what I took away was, we're not going to fight like the Ukrainians. We're going to attack warfare in a joint capacity. Just look what the B2 bombers did over Iran a few weeks ago and how we can layer in multiple layers of offense and defense to achieve those objectives.
So I'm just really pleased that this memorandum came out. And as I'm getting ready to retire with a son and a daughter who will probably end up going into the army, that they hopefully enter a service that was better than I left it.
[00:10:12] John Ramstead: Well, I want you to think back. You know, some of those deployments when you were on the ground. Brabs.
[00:10:17] Michael Brabner: Yeah, right.
[00:10:18] John Ramstead: And some of the things you've talked about, there were some capability gaps. There are some things that we have today you really wish you would have had then. There's some things that are coming, you're like, that would have been a game changer, especially some of these UAS unmanned aerial systems that are being deployed. What are some of those gaps and what are some of those things that we're working on right now that you can talk about that are going to be changing how we go to war and how do we keep our guys from, you know, also coming home?
[00:10:45] Michael Brabner: Yeah, my, our, you know, looking back at Iraq and Afghanistan, it's, you know, sensor to shooter, shortening that, that kill chain, that loop. It was always paralysis by analysis with, you know, higher group level, 3, 4, 5 systems, combatant commanders that were, you know, eyes on the screen, dictating things at the tactical level that we had little to no control of due to separation by time and space. And then really the geographic terrain, whether it was, you know, the urban areas of, of Baghdad and other areas of Iraq, and, you know, where I was in RC, East Kunar Province, you know, it was really a 3D war fighting octagon that we were in. And, you know, weather comes in, clouds, storms, you don't have enough time on station. The tactical force is just left there kind of holding the ball, and you still have to fight the fight. And like, a lot of what drove our strategy with the joint small UAS capabilities development document strategy was thinking back on those vignettes and then taking all the current intelligence and information we were getting and trying to mesh, mesh it and like, make it meet in the middle to somehow define what we needed in terms of a material solution, small UAS group one and group two to solve and achieve those tactical outcomes to very complex problems, the crux of which kind of stems on like, you know, in the infantry, we always say master the basics. Shoot, move, communicate. And if you can do those well, nine times out of 10, you're going to be pretty successful.
And we looked at the basics of group one and group two. UAS really centered around what's the difference between group two. For those that don't know, it's a weight matter, you know, dictated by, you know, the faa. And I think with this memorandum, we may see some exemptions come out of it.
More capability, you know, more juice for the squeeze.
But we really focused on first and foremost, eoir sensor. So it's an aerial sensor.
Maybe you've heard me say this on other podcasts in the past, but throughout the history of mankind, key terrain is always the high ground. Right? So as an infantryman, high ground to me is the highest point on the ground that I can get to, so I can have observations, fields of fire I can sense, and then I can shoot and deliver effects on target. Right. For you, as a naval aviator, you always occupied the most critical piece of key terrain, which was the sky, the air. What you've heard General Rainey say, you know, the air ground littoral, you know, that space between the, you know, the actual ground to a set degree for small UAs and like the lower echelons of unmanned aerial systems, so the ability to get up there with an organic asset and not have to get on your bone mic and call for help is going to be absolutely critical. And we've seen this play out in Ukraine where technology tactical commanders at any echelon like battalion and below, brigade and below now has an organic asset. And they can use that organic asset at a time and place of their choosing. And that's, that's going to be absolutely paramount in changing the way we fight.
[00:13:55] John Ramstead: And that organic asset I'm guessing is a, some kind of kinetic drone or, or a sensor or.
[00:14:02] Michael Brabner: Yeah, we, we've kind of developed a strategy that hinges on a hunter killer paradigm.
You know, if you, if you need a, a really good sensor, you probably don't want to strap kinetics to it. And then with purpose built attritable system, otherwise known around the world as fpv.
Now I have a kinetic capability that's relatively low cost. I kind of say next to no cost in terms of capability when compared against other armaments. You know, just look what's happening in Ukraine.
A low cost FPV taking out a tank. Right.
[00:14:37] John Ramstead: And what does the stand for again?
[00:14:39] Michael Brabner: First person view.
First person view. Drones. Yeah, so operator under goggles.
[00:14:43] John Ramstead: We gotta translate their system the rest.
[00:14:45] Michael Brabner: Yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry. In the army, as you said earlier, we do use a lot of acronyms, but it's gonna be absolutely critical.
So EOIR sensor was like our first modular mission payload that we really zeroed in on. And then based on the echelon of small UAs that we're using, you'll have a varying degree of sensibility through that sensor. So our soldier borne sensor program, teledyne FLIR black hornet 479 gram, you know, copter, very good sensor on it. But you know, we can't put any lethality on it. So it's. That would be like a hunter for the squad and like platoon level. Right. But when paired with PBAs, I can spend, I can send that soldier. Born Sensor, Black Hornet. 4 out of 10. Low radar cross section, very hard to detect. Has an increase in survivability for the number of missions it can do based on its physical attributes, you know, size, weight and power.
Low acoustic signature for detectability by the enemy thermals. I can go out and hunt now and I never have to leave my location. So it flips the paradigm that we were under the knife in Afghanistan and Iraq of, you know, I don't know if you ever heard the phrase. It was always, I was always taught from being a enlisted soldier, an army ROTC cadet and a young officer and then up through multiple combat deployments, it was always a time and place of the enemy's choosing. But now by embracing small UAs, changing our culture, having them be consumable commodities, tools in our kit bag to use tactically, we can flip that paradigm to a time and place of our choosing. And that's what got a lot of soldiers, you know, hurt, injured, even worse killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, as we were always on patrol. And it was always that time and place of the enemy's choosing. And we were not good users of the technology we had at the time because we relied on bigger assets like rotary wing, fixed ring, bigger group UAs at the brigade and above level to go out and find those targets.
[00:16:49] John Ramstead: So are these designed to be used like down at the. What's the smallest element? Like a squad?
[00:16:54] Michael Brabner: Yeah, squad. So group one and group two, six people?
Yeah, about six to nine, depending on strength. Yeah. And then so for group one and group two, at Fort Benning, we do battalion and below. And then at Fort Rucker, Alabama, they do group three, four, five.
But really, over the last three years, in partnering with the aviation proponency, us being the maneuver proponency here at Fort Benning, we've really synergized efforts. And where they're enabling us, we're enabling them and we're learning. And now through so much collaboration of not just, you know, subordinate leaders, but senior army leaders across the DOD or across the army and the dod, now we're, I think we're starting to maximize efficiencies and then focus on the problem at hand, which was really outlined in the, the secdef memorandum last week.
The second sensor that we really focused on was communication extension network relay. It goes back to the basics of shoot, move, communicate. So eoir sensor I need to see, I need to sense communications extension network relay. I need to be able to communicate across a mesh network that enables my small unit subordinate elements the third.
[00:18:13] John Ramstead: So I'm basically launching a little portable relay station that then allows you to immediately jump into the system. And I'm guessing, yeah, it also is designed to probably be effective against jamming or any kind of EW type.
[00:18:26] Michael Brabner: Yeah. Survivability of the system across the army tactical network. You know, I've seen a lot of soldiers with end user device attack, you know, so the ability to communicate was something that kind of plagued us across Baghdad and especially where I was in the mountains of Afghanistan. You know, you go couple ridge lines deep into the Hindu Kush mountains, and if you don't have satcoms, you are alone and unafraid for an undetermined amount of time and what, what may happen will probably most likely will happen. That's kind of a scary place to be in as a tactician on the ground, responsible for the lives well being of your soldiers, officers and NCOs under your command. So now having that organic tool time and place, if you're choosing to gain decision advantage or dominance over your enemy is going to be paramount. The third modular mission payload we worked on was electronic warfare, either passive or active at various degrees. And also the survivability aspect of that as well.
If your system can't survive GPS degraded denied environments, it's not a very good system. So it ties back to the requirements and industry is really starting to rise to the top and deliver solutions. Whether that be a modular emission payload for EW electronic warfare, sorry, or system survivability. We always try to aim to have systems that are suitable, effective and most importantly survivable, not just for the system, but for the operator. And the fourth and final modular mission payload that we zeroed in on by direction of Army Futures Command was lethality, organic lethality. Or if you're fighting that hunter kind of killer model, what lethality can I call or bring to bear? Whether that's launch defects, low altitude and stock and strike ordinance, rocket cannon, artillery fires, or even at higher echelons, you know, fixed wing, rotary wing armaments, delivered capabilities on the battlefield. So it's going to be a really layered approach. And General Rainey, I think said it best a couple weeks ago and when he said we're not going to fight like the Ukrainians, you don't see a whole lot of maneuver over there in Eastern Europe.
We're always expeditionary, especially as an Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, you always have to go to them, right? So, and in a great, you know, greater capacity we're going to have to maneuver. We don't just sit somewhere in the defense like we like to be on the offense.
You know, short, short amounts of time in the defense to reconstitute combat power and then prepare for your next maneuver action to overwhelm the enemy. And I think, you know, that's the point of unleashing us, you know, military drone dominance.
Very proud of this memorandum.
I didn't help in the draft stages of it. I like to think that the work my team did over the last 36 months and then my predecessor, and this has been condition setting now for many years in the making as we, you know, closed out the global war on terrorism and began to look around the world and kind of prepare for where our next fight may be. And I don't think anybody can truly say beyond a reasonable doubt where that may be, which kind of makes a hard problem set for us to have to solve. So we need to have adaptable solutions.
We need to focus on our US industrial base and then cultivating innovation based on our requirements and our tactical, operational or strategic needs.
A big part of it was reducing regulatory barriers too.
It has been a frustrating pain over the course of my 25 year career. You know, looking back at the use of the RQ11 Bravo or Charlie, which more commonly known as the Raven, that's what I had. The, that's all we had at the company level in terms of unmanned aerial systems or small uas.
[00:22:29] John Ramstead: And that was more like an eye in the sky type capability, is that correct?
[00:22:34] Michael Brabner: Yeah, had no lethality, had a sensor, had some good station time. It was a good tool for the time that we had it.
I would venture to say that we were not good users of that technology.
So to now see like the regulatory red tape being, being cut and pushing down that risk acceptance level, you know, to the oh, six commander level is going to be huge in, you know, kind of breaking down those regulatory barriers that have really inhibited us, you know, end of G Wat to like where we are now in 2025.
[00:23:04] John Ramstead: Well, you know, earlier you talked about just the lethality of drone warfare. Right. That the Raven was good, wasn't lethal.
And you know, some of you said in the past, I don't know if I'm asking this question the right way, but feel free to reframe it or phrase it. But you talked about moving beyond fpv, first person view. And there's some systems out there like audible and click. But there's things that are coming to make, I guess, better, more lethal drones. Could you talk a little bit about for people to understand what is fpv, where are things going and what are some of the capabilities we could be seeing out there? Anything you can talk about that's not classified?
[00:23:41] Michael Brabner: Yeah.
So we had to take an incremental approach. Right. Everybody wants to get to swarms. Everybody, you know, swarms on the battlefield.
[00:23:50] John Ramstead: You'Re hearing about those. I mean the, the Russians with a drone swarm and then the defense of these are problematic and. Right.
[00:23:58] Michael Brabner: Yeah. But at the time in July 1st of 2022 when I came on, we didn't have a culture or even an appetite to want to do that. So we were like, how do we attack this problem? And you know, you got to eat the Elephant. One bite at a time.
So we started off small. It's like, can we take a program of record? Short Range Reconnaissance, Skydio RQ28 Alpha and 3D print a safe modular mission payload to deliver lethality on the battlefield and then pair those two together and, you know, achieve desired effects.
And we did that working with Devcom Armament center at Picatinny. We created the Audible, which stands for armament. UAS delivered immediate battlefield lethal effects. That just was a. I like that. That was kind of a. I just came up with it in my office one day and I'm like, what do we call this damn thing? And you know, I had seen a, A, a documentary of Peyton Manning standing at the line calling an audible. And he was, he was a master of coming to the line and reading the defense and then changing his offense to achieve what he wanted to achieve on the football field. So we called it Audible.
[00:25:06] John Ramstead: Well, every audible was Omaha. But it's how he said it and how many times, you know. Yeah, like, why'd they go that way? He just said the same thing.
[00:25:14] Michael Brabner: But yeah, it was, it was great. So we went out and did a soldier enhancement program proposal and we got $2 million to make 50 systems and get them out across the four brigades.
[00:25:26] John Ramstead: Done with commercial. Like, I just finished reading the book Unit X about the defense innovation Unit. That's. That is the partnership between the military and, you know, civilian, you know, commercial companies to rapidly, you know, iterate develop some of these technologies the warfighter needs.
[00:25:43] Michael Brabner: We did it internally. It was done internally. We did it separate. So we went through PEO Soldier out of Fort Belvoir, Virginia, and they awarded us, based on our Audible proposal and our, our intention to pair it with a program of record drone that had just been fielded. They awarded us $2 million to go out and make these systems, do some RDT and E field these systems and get actual soldier feedback. So for me, it was really the first stages of this whole change model that's been encapsulated in this, in this memorandum from the SEC def of let the end user kind of define what they want and then work to help them solve those problems. So with Audible, we went from having nothing on a drone. So, you know, the short range reconnaissance was just like the Raven. It was an ISR only platform. And in 2022, General Rainey said intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance payloads are no longer acceptable. And we kind of took that as a marching order, like, well, we better start getting after lethality. So with Audible, what we did was worked with some great Engineers at Picatinny, and they 3D printed a very safe, reliable, fuse compliant modular mission payload that allowed us to deliver hand grenades, smoke grenades, flashbangs, and incendiary grenades all in one capability. And we were doing that based on watching the Ukrainians and also understanding that no general officer or safety officer in any part of the DoD is going to let our soldiers sit in a foxhole and take a dremel tool or a hacksaw to existing armaments and try to demille them and then, then repackage them and, you know, put blasting caps in them because you know where that leads, right?
Don't have to be a smart person to know that we'd have soldiers like blowing themselves up. And we learned that a lot of Ukrainians actually died as armorers in small UAS units demilitarizing armaments that, you know, they had or we had given them. And we're like, okay, well, we got to do it better than that. The minute we blow up one soldier, you know, the train stops. Until they do a, you know, safety investigation, people are held accountable. And why'd you assume this risk? Was it a necessary risk? These are the consequences.
So we had to incrementally kind of climb this ladder to where we are now of testing the waters, not just at the maneuver center of Excellence at Fort Benning, but in tandem and in partnership with the Aviation center of Excellence, who has full proponency of all things that go in the air. Right. Not just small uas, UAS rotary wing, some fixed wing for the army. So it was a hard road to kind of. Or a hard path to walk. It was uphill both ways, but we did it. And audible was a huge success story.
And now it's codified in the purpose built, attritable system requirement for a first person drone capability. Just gives us another tool to affix to small UAs to achieve those battlefield outcomes in a low cost, next to no cost manner. If I can, you know, if my platoon is dug into a defensive position and I'll just say the mountains of Afghanistan and 5km away, I have observations on an enemy unit. I don't need to maneuver to them and get in a direct fire, you know, battle. If I can take a UAS and I can go over there and I can, I can strategically pick apart that unit, see where their command and control element is, maybe where their mortar firing point is or their machine gun point. I can drop a hand grenade there. I can mark the target with, you know, one of the various smoke grenades. We have in our, in our arsenal, then I can call for fire because now I'm, I'm, I'm adding to the cop, right? My boss, Dom Edwards, always says, you know, common operating picture, it's that, it's that shared common operational picture of where everybody knows what's going on. And if I can mark a target or I can take out a key enemy leader or machine gun nest or something, and I don't have to put myself in harm's way or within plunging or direct fire of those enemies.
[00:29:57] John Ramstead: Calling in the fire for effect call, isn't it?
[00:30:00] Michael Brabner: I've done it many times and my fo always called me, you know, he's like, hey, sir, I think they're dead now. And I was like, let's do another, let's do another volley, man.
[00:30:08] John Ramstead: I just want to make sure anybody out there listening, listening.
What you do is, is you, you, you throw in a couple marking rounds to make sure your accuracy, you're on the target you want to be on. And once you got it sighted in fire for effect is you basically unleash hell in that position. And they are then no longer, they are then neutralized.
[00:30:28] Michael Brabner: Oh, yeah, yeah, we were, My unit was very good at it. Up in the mountains of Afghanistan, we got reports from like Taliban commanders that we intercepted over their voice comms. You know, these infidels are smarter than the last ones.
You know, all they do is smoke cigars, laugh and kill us. Let's wait till the next unit like cycles in.
So. Yeah, but to have these tools, if I could go back in a time machine and deliver them to my unit, we would have been on orders of magnitude so much more successful in what we're doing.
[00:30:59] John Ramstead: So, yeah, more people would have come home. You would have been, yeah, shorter period at the time.
The obstacle, the, you know, the tempo, the. What that means is, you know, how much time you're spending over there in the sandbox was. It wears you out grinding people down.
[00:31:13] Michael Brabner: It wears you out.
It really does.
[00:31:16] John Ramstead: I did two nine month tours and that by the, by the end of that second one, man, I was, I was ready to like take a break.
[00:31:24] Michael Brabner: Yeah, I have, I have friends that have, I can't even tell you how many they have. It's just insane how much time they've spent overseas. But yeah, that was really a driving force of us working so hard and I mean, we started off as an eight man team in 2022 and then, you know, by early this year, you know, due to budget cuts and everything, you know, we're down to a two man team, still the same amount of work. But pain shared is pain divided. So it goes back to that collaboration and then teaming with other entities within the army and the DoD to achieve these outcomes. So very proud of it.
[00:32:00] John Ramstead: Well, you know you're getting ready to retire, right, and move into a whole new chapter of life. But I know this, what you're talking about here around UAS capabilities in this document that just came out.
What message would you like to leave for anybody listening who's active, they're leaders both in DOD and industry, about why this is so important, why there absolutely has to be a sense of urgency and the best and the brightest out there need to be focusing on creating real solutions rapidly.
[00:32:37] Michael Brabner: Yeah. One of the underlying things I took away from the memorandum was having a long term vision. And we've been working on that for a while now, but now to have it, you know, echoed from the man on the mountain at the top, you know, if the SECDEF came out and said, hey, I want every wall painted pink, you know, we'd be marching out to Home Depot and getting pink paint and paint walls. Not saying he would do that, but having a long term vision and then bringing everybody under that, you know, as a combined effort. And what does that allow us to do? It allows for strategic investment and competition and then also it allows us through execution and learning, how do we develop the training and infrastructure enhancements that we need to train as we're going to fight A lot of the places right now, it's, it's difficult to do UAS lethality. And I know over the last three years of working with various installations, army posts, that units, they really struggled trying to train this and they were getting after it with their own funds, buying stuff off the DIU blue list, trying to do paired lethality with it. So now to have a clear, concise, holistic vision on how we do this is going to be huge.
And then it's also going to, I think, really reinforce a continuous adaptation model. And I think that is what industry is looking at, that continuous adaptation model.
You're probably familiar with DoD material solutions that have 10 years. I mean, look at, you know, look at some of our strategic bombers. How old are they with small UAs? The adaptation cycle that we're seeing in.
[00:34:28] John Ramstead: Russia, Ukraine, flying the B52, that was old when I was in 30 years ago.
[00:34:33] Michael Brabner: Yeah, yeah. But it, it meets the bill, right? It fits the bill.
But allowing industry to get out and innovate and adapt and then challenge, I think that's going to be so good just in terms of competition brings out the best in everybody. And I don't think anybody wants to see one, you know, one ring to, to rule them all because then you fall, you fall into that complacency model where you're inconsistent and it's not meeting the needs of the warfighter.
So, you know, whatever the prescribed amount of time is, you know, kind of getting away, you know, if we do get away from a program or record status, allowing industry all these open on ramps to get into the game and then it keeps people honest and also on their toes.
Tuning software, hardware, modular mission payload solutions, basically creating multi tools that fly in the sky to give our warfighters that decision advantage that they so long to have organic at their disposal.
[00:35:37] John Ramstead: Well, very well said and Lt. Col. Brabner, look forward to the next conversation probably when you're out. Well, you get out next February, so you still got some time, but we'd love to have you back anytime.
There's a couple other topics I'd love to talk to you about.
We didn't really get into some of those. The swarm conversations, I think also drone is first responder that I think both the military and the civilian world are adopting. So there's some other things I'd love to have you come back on and even go deeper in if you're open.
[00:36:09] Michael Brabner: Yeah, I would love to.
Those are other areas I'm very passionate about too. I like to see a lot of the civilian technology and capabilities, they usually and mostly do transition towards military capabilities. And it goes both ways. So we're going to be able to do so much with this. And I think unleashing US Drone dominance is something. It's been a long time coming and it's really good to see as I'm getting ready to retire where we are and I'm really excited for the team to keep rowing and chopping wood and see what they accomplish in the next year or two, three years to come.
[00:36:44] John Ramstead: Well, you're going to. You know what, that can be your retirement job. You can set up the drone dominance store, create killer merch and killer drones and we can, we can sell them around the world. So.
[00:36:54] Michael Brabner: Okay.
[00:36:55] John Ramstead: All right, brabs, great having you on. Great to meet you and I look forward to our next conversation.
[00:36:59] Michael Brabner: Sounds good.
