{"id":485248,"date":"2025-06-18T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-06-18T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=485248"},"modified":"2025-06-19T07:40:06","modified_gmt":"2025-06-19T07:40:06","slug":"senior-leadership-discuss-importance-of-arcane-thunder-exercise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=485248","title":{"rendered":"Senior leadership discuss importance of Arcane Thunder Exercise"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n
\n
\n <\/p>\n

<\/a>
\n <\/span>
\n <\/span>

\n
\n
\n U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Andrew Baumgardner, 2nd Multi-Domain Task Force, checks in-flight data of an experimental Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) during the flight, crash and recovery stress-test portion of 2nd Multi-Domain Task Force led exercise Arcane Thunder 25 at a training area near Ustka, Poland, 14 May, 2025. Arcane Thunder 25 promotes innovation, collaboration, and interoperability between Allied and partner nations, and contributes significantly to regional stability and security by improving the ability of Allied forces to operate together effectively in times of crisis or conflict. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Jennifer Posy)
\n (Photo Credit: Spc. Jennifer Posy)<\/span>
\n <\/span>
\n VIEW ORIGINAL<\/a>
\n <\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

WASHINGTON \u2013 More than 300 U.S. and allied service members participated in Exercise Arcane Thunder 25 from May 11 through 27, a U.S. Army Europe and Africa directed, 2nd Multi-Domain Task Force-led exercise designed to strengthen multi-domain integration and interoperability across the European and African theaters. It took place across training locations in Germany, Poland and the United States.<\/p>\n

The exercise served as a critical opportunity to validate emerging Army capabilities in contested, multi-domain environments, and validated the precision synchronization of nonlethal effects across domains including land, sea, air, cyber, and space to enable joint freedom of action in contested environments.<\/p>\n

The Army and its NATO allies used the exercise\u2019s location near the conflict in the Ukraine as well as information from Ukrainian partners to transform the warfighting concept and technology for the future of the Army, said Maj. Gen. John Rafferty, commanding general, 56th Artillery Command.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re applying those lessons learned from our Ukrainian partners to the evolution of our warfighting concept and the technology we\u2019re using to put in the hands of our Soldiers,\u201d he said. \u201cThis multidomain training, live fire exercise stretched from Poland to Fort Huachuca, Arizona. It involved joint allied partners and proved the 2nd Multi-Domain Task Force capability to operate across all domains, to find targets at depth, and to strike those targets with kinetic and non-kinetic effects. I\u2019m extremely proud of our leaders, Soldiers and allies from the task force and those who continue to prove the feasibility of the multidomain concept.\u201d<\/p>\n

Exercise Arcane Thunder is also the Army\u2019s premier multi-domain effects exercise designed to synchronize non-lethal and lethal capabilities across the European and African theaters. The general said the exercise served as a critical opportunity to validate emerging Army capabilities in contested, multi-domain environments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Soldiers are improving and refining the technology and the tactics, techniques, and procedures,\u201d General Rafferty said. \u201cOur Soldiers, sergeants, and lieutenants are the ones who have their hands on this equipment, who are determining the best way to employ it to get the effects and find the targets. We are putting that feedback right back into the system to improve the capability and optimize not just the equipment that we have, but the way in which we\u2019re employing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The general said one of the biggest breakthroughs was the Army\u2019s ability to fight with live data across a large-scale combat theater using unmanned systems via land, sea and air.<\/p>\n

\u201cSharing and fighting with live data through our mission command system, having the Soldiers receive information, produce targets, pass the information to the 56 multi-domain headquarters to work through the process of assigning the right shooter to those particular targets, all in real time, it\u2019s a breakthrough,\u201d Rafferty said. \u201cGetting that data in real time from a micro high-altitude Balloon, refined by another platform interpreted by a Soldier at Fort Huachuca, [Arizona], and then back here at Wiesbaden in Germany for additional analysis and assigned to the right shooter. That kill chain used to take hours. Now it\u2019s minutes.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Army improved its real time tracking of the Navy\u2019s Unmanned Surface Vehicles through its command-and-control systems, said Colonel Patrick Moffett, commander, 2nd Multi-Domain Task Force.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n
\n \"U.S.
\n <\/a>
\n <\/span>
\n <\/span>
\n
\n
\n U.S. Army Soldiers assigned to the Multi-Domain Effects Battalion, 2nd Multi-Domain Task Force, retrieve an Unmanned Surface Vessel (USVs) from the water during Arcane Thunder 25, 16 May, 2025. Exercise Arcane Thunder 25 is a collaborative U.S. Army Europe directed, 2nd Multi-Domain Task Force led exercise designed to leverage the robust warfighting capabilities of the U.S., Allies, and partner nations to reach a precise, lethal end point. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Jennifer Posy)
\n (Photo Credit: Spc. Jennifer Posy)<\/span>
\n <\/span>
\n VIEW ORIGINAL<\/a>
\n <\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cWe also worked some contested logistics training, training with the Navy that we had not done before, using USVs to move supplies in a contested environment,\u201d Moffett said. \u201cIt was definitely an improvement over previous iterations.\u201d<\/p>\n

The exercise validated the 2d Multi-Domain Task Force\u2019s ability to lead and integrate multi-domain effects for the European theater, Moffett said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe demonstrated the operational use of next-[generation] technologies,\u201d the colonel said. \u201cWe strengthened our readiness by deploying the formation, and we were able to capture a lot of lessons learned to inform the Army 2030 and 2040 modernization pathways. This was our opportunity to train for how we will fight and win in the future with the Army\u2019s multi-domain capabilities.\u201d<\/p>\n

As the teams integrated all the Unmanned platforms across the domains, Colonel Moffett said one of the challenges was merging all the data together.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur biggest challenge as an organization was ensuring we had a good data management process to collect, observe, and ensure the data we were pushing out for our sensor-to-shooter kill chain was correct, valid, and good data,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s the essence of multi-domain operations, the ability to process data faster than our adversaries. From the task force level, it\u2019s one of the major focal points.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lt. Col. Aaron Ritzema, commander, 2nd Multi-Domain Effects Battalion, said the team had to make strategic choices in terms of which technologies they brought into the exercise because of this.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted this not to just be an innovation, an exposition of new tech, but we also wanted this to be a training event,\u201d he said. \u201cWe selected a lot of technology we were already familiar with. The challenge became, \u2018How we can stitch all these together so we can conduct multi-domain operations?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Colonel Ritzema said the team met challenges with interoperability between platforms and payloads and worked through those challenges.<\/p>\n

The exercise also helped Army leadership train on sustainment across continents, stressing mission command and control and how the Army can work as a distributed organization.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s training, and then it\u2019s qualification of crews in a live environment,\u201d General Rafferty said. \u201cWe were qualifying multi-domain teams in a variety of tasks that involved finding targets at depth and then quickly layering kinetic and non-kinetic effects on those targets. That\u2019s how we\u2019ll fight and win. That\u2019s how we\u2019ll set conditions for large-scale combat operations in Europe. I\u2019m so incredibly proud of the team and their spirit of innovation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Andrew Baumgardner, 2nd Multi-Domain Task Force, checks in-flight data of an experimental Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) during the flight, crash and recovery stress-test portion of 2nd Multi-Domain Task Force led exercise Arcane Thunder 25 at a training area near Ustka, Poland, 14 May, 2025. Arcane Thunder 25 promotes innovation, collaboration, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":485250,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-485248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=485248"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":485253,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485248\/revisions\/485253"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/485250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=485248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=485248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=485248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}