Soldiers on US-Mexico border hunt drones with air defense radars typically used in combat
Soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division are at the U.S.-Mexico border tracking drones with the same kinds of radar systems that the U.S. funded for Ukraine to help the country counter aerial threats from Russia. The presence of these radar systems on the southern border highlights the proliferation of drones and their use by Mexico-based cartels.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials say that the agency's personnel have witnessed reconnaissance drones surveilling border personnel and that the agency 'continues to receive reporting of Mexico-based cartels utilizing armed drones against rival cartels,' a spokesperson for CBP told Task & Purpose.
'Because of this evolving threat, CBP works with the Department [of] Defense to maximize domain awareness for border security and officer safety of all threats, to include armed small unmanned aerial systems (drones). CBP continues to assess that currently, Mexico-based groups utilize drones to fuel intra and inter-cartel violence,' the spokesperson said.
The Department of Defense currently has around 8,500 troops supporting the Joint Task Force — Southern Border mission, providing assistance to Customs and Border personnel for logistics, vehicle maintenance, transportation, intelligence analysis, and aviation aerial reconnaissance.
A small fraction of those, anywhere from 28 to 34 soldiers who are part of a 10th Mountain Division target acquisition platoon, are manning four radars across 2,000 miles of the U.S.-Mexico border to detect a growing number of drones that are suspected to be used by Mexico-based cartels. The commander of U.S. Northern Command told Congress in March that there are likely more than 1,000 drones spotted every month along the border.
'Across the border, drone sightings are in the thousands, so it's not unusual for us to see anywhere from 30 to 50 a day,' Maj. Sean Thomas, the 10th Mountain Division's deputy fire support coordinator and the senior effects operations officer for the Joint Task Force — Southern Border mission, told Task & Purpose.
Thomas said that their role in providing CBP with air domain awareness, like drone detection and tracking, is 'to protect U.S. territorial integrity and JTF-SB personnel.'
Brian Finucane, a senior adviser for the U.S. Program at the International Crisis Group, a non-profit think tank, said deploying combat radar systems is a type of escalation but noted that he's not aware of any drone attacks on U.S. personnel along the border that necessitate sending them as an 'operational necessity.'
'This is a very different sort of scenario than defending U.S. personnel in Iraq and Syria from drone attacks or defending Ukraine from Russian drone attacks. We're talking about a very different environment,' Finucane said. 'It has to be seen in the broader context of the administration trying to cast immigration in military or counterterrorism terms — deploying additional troops and other military assets to the border, sending migrants to Guantanamo Bay, using military aircraft for deportation flights, invoking wartime authorities to deport or rendition migrants. This has to be seen in the broader attempt to sort of cast migrations as some sort of wartime emergency.'
The radar platoon is tracking and detecting small drones along the border and 'developing a pattern of life analysis.' The radar systems help soldiers identify information like the drones' altitude, speed and size, which they send to local CPB units for awareness. The unit is also doing a more thorough analysis of how the drones are being used and where they're going next, Thomas said.
To do this analysis, the platoon is using artillery and air defense radars that have traditionally been used in combat, some of which have even been sent to Ukraine. The radars have long been used to detect enemy artillery, like rockets and mortars, but more recently, the systems are being used in military exercises and training events to track unmanned aerial systems, UAS, or drones.
'The size of the border is unlike anything that a normal division or target acquisition platoon ever looks at and considers, so the variations in terrain and type of operating area is massive and then just the sheer volume,' Thomas said.
The platoon is learning more about terrain masking and how the radars work in a range of environments: green terrain, humidity, 5,000 ft mountain elevations, arid deserts and even near larger cities, like San Diego, California or El Paso, Texas. Doing detection near more populated areas, is teaching them more about radar interference, he said.
'There's significant mountains, there's urban population centers that we're as familiar with fighting in or training in so that's been an increase in what we're allowed to do and see,' Thomas said.
The platoon operates Lockheed Martin's AN/TPQ-53 Quick Reaction Capability Radar, which is used in combat to detect rockets, mortars, and artillery.
'The Q-53 is traditionally counter fire or weapons locating radar, so we use those in a defense role so that if somebody fires a missile or artillery shell at us, we'll see where they shot from and where it's gonna land,' Thomas said.
Upon arriving at the border, the platoon's radar was upgraded for small UAS detection and tracking 'instead of just a ballistic flight path projectile,' he said.
Ukraine received 20 quick reaction radars back in 2015 when Russian-backed separatists began arriving in eastern Ukraine and helped bring down units' casualty rates from 47% to about 18%, Defense News reported in 2019. New contracts for Q-53 radars, $372 million worth, were included in 2023 U.S. military aid packages for Ukraine after its full-scale war with Russia began.
Soldiers are also using the AN/MPQ-64 Sentinel radar system which is used for short-range air defense and can detect hostile planes, helicopters, drones or missiles, according to RTX (formerly Raytheon). The difference between using the Sentinel in combat and at the border, Thomas said, is that they're 'purely using this to find and detect' and not linking it to a Stinger missile or another weapons system meant to engage a threat.
According to RTX, there are 300 Sentinels deployed around the world by U.S. and allied forces. Social media posts show that Ukrainians have even resorted to using mock-up versions of the American Sentinel system as decoys to deceive Russian forces.
The dozens of soldiers who operate the radars hail from field artillery military occupational specialties for the Q-53 quick reaction radar and air defense soldiers on the Q-64 Sentinel. There are also a handful of soldiers who do maintenance and communications support assigned to the platoon.
Before heading down to the border, the soldiers took part in live drone tracking exercises at Fort Huachuca, Arizona. But it wasn't the first time that the soldiers encountered drones.
Some of the soldiers served in combat teams that were deployed to bases in Iraq and Syria, for Operation Inherent Resolve, the U.S. military's ongoing mission against the Islamic State, but found themselves in the crossfire of regional escalations after Israel declared war on Hamas after the Oct. 7 attack, Maj. Rachel Jeffcoat, a spokesperson for the 10th Mountain Division, told Task & Purpose.
For months, American troops came under hundreds of rocket, mortar and drone attacks by Iranian-backed militias, including the Tower 22 drone attack in Jordan, which killed three Reserve soldiers and injured over 100 troops. Three of the division's soldiers were recognized for shooting down at least 28 one-way attack drones during their deployment, with each getting five kills to earn 'ace' status.
The radar platoon at the border had also practiced flying, tracking and shooting drones down and testing the radar systems in a November exercise at their home base at Fort Drum, New York.
'We constantly provide a home station kind of a training download and update across the division every time one of the brigades comes back of 'hey this is what we're seeing this is the new system we use, this is how it worked,' Thomas said.
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