C-UAS/SUAS(1): The Counter-Unmanned Aircraft System & Drone Warfare SMARTbook is new for 2026. At 320-pgs, chapters and topics include the strategic environment (DoD C-UAS, operational environment, multidomain operations, force structure transformation initiative); the unmanned aircraft system (UAS) threat (China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, Hybrid, Homeland); air & missile defense (SHORAD/HIMAD); planning & preparing (roles, AMD, asset protection); layered defense (passive and active defense measures); engagement operations & techniques (ADA & non-dedicated assets, AD warnings & controls); integrating sUAS into operations; and equipment (ADA/C-UAS systems and capabilities).

Download a free PDF sample and learn more at: https://www.thelightningpress.com/smartbooks/c-uas-suas1-counter-unmanned-aircraft-system-drone-warfare-smartbook/

Chap 1: Strategic Environment

From the Middle East to Ukraine and across the globe – including in the U.S. homeland – unmanned systems are reshaping tactics, techniques, and procedures; challenging established operational principles; and condensing military innovation cycles. At the operational level, these systems are making it more difficult for forces to hide, concentrate, communicate, and maneuver. The relatively low-cost, widely available nature of these systems has, in effect, democratized precision strike.

Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) have reshaped the character of conflict by enabling persistent sensing, low-risk strike, and novel methods of information and influence. Adversary employment of UAS across the five domains forces joint forces to adapt doctrine, sensors, and defenses. Understanding the physical, information, and human dimensions of the operational environment is essential to anticipate how adversaries employ capabilities—including UAS—to achieve multi-dimensional effects. UAS are thus not merely tools of tactical advantage but instruments that bridge physical action, informational influence, and human will in contemporary warfare.

Chap 2: Unmanned Aircraft System (UAS) Threat

Since 2022, the rapid spread of small tactical unmanned aerial systems (UAS) and first-person-view (FPV) drones has revolutionized modern warfare, as evidenced in Ukraine. What began as limited experimentation with commercial drones has evolved into a vital component of ground combat operations. By 2025, small drones had become indispensable for reconnaissance, artillery adjustment, and precision strikes, fundamentally transforming tactics and procedures across the front. Front-line units now possess organic intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) capabilities once reserved for higher headquarters, allowing them to identify, track, and engage enemy targets with unprecedented speed and accuracy.

In recent decades, unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) have been fielded in every military service, ranging from handheld micro-UAS to medium-sized tactical systems to full-grown remotely piloted aircraft (RPA). Globally, nations such as China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran have accelerated drone innovation, producing systems rivaling Western models and reshaping the modern battlefield.

Chap 3: Air & Missile Defense (AMD)

Integrating air defense artillery (ADA) assets is essential to effective counter–unmanned aircraft system (C-UAS) operations, providing a layered defense-in-depth structure against aerial threats. ADA units, as the Army’s air and missile defense (AMD) force, enable coordination of sensors, weapons, and command systems to detect, track, identify, and defeat hostile UAS. Short-range air defense (SHORAD) systems protect maneuvering and fixed forces from low-altitude threats, while high-to-medium altitude air defense (HIMAD) systems counter longer-range air and missile attacks, creating a cohesive, multidomain C-UAS network.

Chap 4: C-UAS Planning & Preparing

Countering unmanned aircraft system (UAS) threats requires an integrated approach combining Soldier actions, survivability measures, and systems ranging from handheld electromagnetic warfare (EW) tools to advanced detection and defeat technologies. Because many units lack specialized C-UAS equipment, efforts often emphasize mitigating UAS effects rather than destroying them. Effective planning synchronizes all warfighting functions within a holistic protection framework, using complementary active and passive defenses to reduce vulnerability, increase survivability, and maintain mission effectiveness against evolving aerial threats.

Protection planning is a continuous process that must include an understanding of the threats and hazards that may affect operations from the deep area back to the strategic support area. Protection capabilities are aligned to protect critical capabilities, areas, and information and mitigate effects from threats and hazards.

Chap 5: Layered Defense (Passive/Active)

Effective counter–unmanned aircraft system (C-UAS) operations require defense in depth, built through layered capabilities that overlap area and local defenses to eliminate coverage gaps. A layered approach strengthens protection by combining individual awareness, survivability measures, and collective defensive techniques to safeguard personnel and critical assets from UAS threats.

Commanders must integrate both passive and active measures within C-UAS planning to ensure redundancy, mutual support, and complementary coverage. Active measures deny enemy initiative, while passive measures reduce vulnerability and mitigate effects. Layered defenses increase in density as UAS threats approach protected areas, requiring coordination and co-location of sensors, weapons, and systems to close dead spaces.

Chap 6: Engagement Operations & Techniques (Execution)

Ground and aerial sensors provide airspace surveillance and early warning, feeding vertically and horizontally integrated kill chains. Engagement authorities select the “best shooter” to achieve keep-out ranges and altitudes, coordinating AMD C2 to defeat threats while minimizing fratricide. ADA defends ballistic and cruise missiles, hypersonics, manned aircraft and UAS. Non-ADA units must supplement defenses with organic weapons and C-sUAS; engagements, lethal or non-lethal, use the best system per ROE, enabled by detection. ADA defends ballistic and cruise missiles, hypersonics, manned aircraft and UAS. Non-ADA units must supplement defenses with organic weapons and C-sUAS; engagements, lethal or non-lethal, use the best system per ROE, enabled by detection.

Chap 7: Integrating sUAS into Operations

Over the last decade, OEs worldwide experienced a remarkable surge in the number, capability, and significance of sUAS supporting ground combat formations. sUAS are now employed by units and maneuver forces in huge numbers in a wide range of roles, fundamentally altering the conduct of military ground operations. The U.S. Army is acquiring a family of small uncrewed aircraft systems (sUAS) for ground maneuver elements at the battalion level and below to provide real-time reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition capabilities. sUAS missions are reconnaissance (SRR, MRR, LRR) with varying altitudes, ranges, and deconfliction needs, and attack/strike (launched effects) including loitering munitions and one-way attacks.

Chap 8: Equipment (ADA/C-UAS Systems & Capabilities)

Air defense artillery (ADA) systems are arrayed throughout a theater. Composite ADA systems are generically referred to as high-to medium-altitude air defense (HIMAD), and singular systems typically in the context of short-range air defense (SHORAD).

Countering the threat requires the employment of equipment and systems ranging from organic weapons, to specialized handheld electromagnetic (EW) and lethal devices, to complex systems designed specifically to detect, identify, and defeat UAS.

This article is an extract from "C-UAS/SUAS(1): The Counter-Unmanned Aircraft System & Drone Warfare SMARTbook (Planning & Conducting C-UAS/sUAS Operations)" by The Lightning Press. Download a free PDF sample and learn more at:  C-UAS/SUAS(1): The Counter-Unmanned Aircraft System & Drone Warfare SMARTbook (Planning & Conducting C-UAS/sUAS Operations).

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