Cadet leadership course transforming future US Army leaders

Live fire exercises in the Caribbean. What we know about the Marines mission there

Plus, Anduril opens a ghost shark factory. What this new facility down under could mean for the U.S. military

And a low-tech solution to a high-tech problem. How Ukrainians are slowing down the drone threats from Russia

Hello and welcome to Weapons and Warfare. From your morning coffee stop to the dinner table

our goal is to give you the ability to have an informed conversation

about what's happening with our nation's military. For Straight Arrow News, I'm your host, Ryan Robertson

and we start this week with the future leaders of the U.S. Army

the cadets at the U.S. Military Academy. Every summer, for two weeks, the seniors at West Point

head out to the field for an exercise called Cadet Leadership Development Training, or CLDT

It's there where they get their first taste of what it's like to operate in the field

From the day they take the oath of allegiance as freshmen, that I will maintain and defend

the sovereignty of the United States To the day they graduate as commissioned officers

All roads at West Point lead to this

CLDT, Cadet Leadership Development Training, a two-week program that represents the peak of a

cadet's military training. This is where cadets assume leadership positions in realistic situations

to improve and evaluate their tactical leadership and decision-making abilities. It's the last real tactical development you're going to get before you go into the Army

and so it's both kind of a reality check. It's know where you're at physically

mentally, but that's also a good training exercise. This is where cadets begin to build

their skills as warriors and leaders, giving them the opportunity to lead teams, squads

and platoons in scenarios that replicate combat. CLDT is one of the first details where everything

you're doing depends on someone else. Like your grade and how you perform is wholly dependent on

what they're doing. If they're doing their job right, if they're keeping security, if they're

working hard or giving their best performance, everything depends on somebody else. And that's

truly unique because it doesn't really happen often. During the two weeks of CLDT, cadets engage

in an array of activities. So things like land navigation, rifle marksmanship, and first aid, just to name a few

I think for me, the toughest part of CLDT is learning how to navigate all your tasks

with only a few hours of sleep. The physical aspect, you can always train physically, but most of the time you're giving

your body proper rest and nutrition will take all that aspect out and it's a little bit

more difficult to be able to think clearly. The training also serves as a crucial evaluation of a cadet's leadership readiness

assessing their ability to make rapid decisions and convey orders effectively, all while under physical duress

There's a lot of emphasis on kind of the physical aspect of it, of carrying heavy weight and going long distances

But it's really the mental kind of fortitude that you build from those experiences

that really stays with you. So I think that that is what builds our lethality, right

when you're physically degraded, when you're carrying heavy gear, and when you still have to perform a mission set

that you can have the mental clarity to actually succeed and focus on what you have to do

And I think CLDT does that to a T. Every scenario the cadets are put through

is designed to mimic a real-world threat, challenging the cadets' ability to adapt and overcome obstacles

while under stress. Everyone here has been challenged on this detail in ways that we never have before

We've had to find things, mechanisms, other people to help us through it

And so those shared experiences build that bond and it builds that morale over time

For these young men and women CLDT is an essential part of equipping them with the skills necessary to become effective organizational leaders and commissioned officers in the U Army Les Point has put us through a 47 experience of trials and tribulations that have cultivated

to making us better people, better leaders, better people of characters. And this experience has just taught me that I'm capable of whatever I put my mind to

All right, folks, we are joined now by Air Force veteran and super producer Brett Baker

for some headlines you may have missed. Brett, we just said that story about the cadets

going through the leadership training. What's the Air Force equivalent of that

So the Army's is, or the West Point Academy, it's CLDT, at the Air Force Academy, it's CCLD

the Center for Character and Leadership Development. It's not quite as field heavy as the Army's

They've got seminars, they do some shadowing of drill instructors and basic training

and they also get a lot of field experience out at actual Air Force bases with units that are in operation

So it's not quite the same thing, but again, the Army and the Air Force aren't quite the same

Aren't quite the same thing either. So yeah, so they approach it from different angles. That makes sense

All right, let's get to those headlines. Late last month, U.S. Southern Command released a video reportedly showing Marines

during a live fire boat operation in the Caribbean Sea. According to those involved, the Marine presence aims to disrupt illicit drug trafficking

There were at least 10 strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific since early September in a campaign that has raised U.S. tensions with both Venezuela and Colombia

The Pentagon provided little information about any of the strikes, including the quantity of drugs the boats allegedly were carrying and the identities of those killed

Uh, Brett, I've covered this story, uh, quite a bit for straight arrow news, and it's really kind of a legal quagmire. Uh, if the cartels are unlawful combatants and these guys are cartel members, then the strikes are legal. Uh, but there is some uncertainty over whether these guys are in fact cartel members and the Admiral overseeing Southern command is actually retiring at the end of the year. Uh, just, you know, a year into the job. So the optics aren't exactly rosy, let's say

Yeah, it's definitely a weird situation. It's a semi, at least as far as my lifetime, it's unprecedented

I don't, I mean, I know that certain operations get carried out in different parts of the world for different reasons

and we'll probably never hear about many of them. I think the thing that makes this different is when you have leadership blasting it out on social media

you know, black and white video of demolition of a boat. and, as it turns out, some lives

And without clear guidance on who those folks are, where they were coming from, what they had

it is very murky. I don't know that it's a path that the U.S. should be going down

but here we are. Here we are. And there has been some effort in Congress

to kind of rein in these presidential powers. Those efforts thus far have not really gone anywhere

Uh, so until Congress decides to act really, then the president is within his legal rights

uh, according to the laws that they're citing, uh, to do these things

But time will tell to your point, Brett, on whether or not this is the right path for

the U.S. to take. Defense Wunderkind Anderl Industries has opened a new manufacturing facility in Sydney, Australia

to produce their line of undersea drones known as ghost sharks. It's part of an effort to deliver on its $1.1 billion supply contract with Australia's Royal Navy

Now, according to Anderil, the nearly 80,000 square foot facility will ramp up to full-scale manufacturing in 2026

When you combine Australia's defense expertise with Anderil's rapid engineering and innovation model and culture

you create something that is greater than the sum of its parts. Ghost Shark is living proof of that

We must never allow bureaucracy, no matter how well-intentioned, to stand in the way of delivering

capability to the warfighter. Schools of Ghost Sharks will be made in Sydney and could then be

exported to the United States and other nations subject to Australian government approval

Brett, we've covered Ghost Sharks pretty extensively, and when paired with the Copperhead

autonomous underwater vehicle slash torpedo that Anderil also makes. You got quite the packaged deal For sure And it just another sign of Andruil growth We knew this was coming but to have it open and operating

And I think, you know, ultimately it's going to be a huge benefit for everyone who is in AUKUS

Because that's going to get everybody kind of on the same page on those kind of platforms

And it's just, yeah, it's just, Andruil's just doing a lot of amazing things

at the speed of which I don't know that we've probably seen in a defense company since maybe

World War II. Right. Right. And the DOD is trying to also change its procurement process to be able

to purchase and integrate these things quickly and then update them quickly as necessary

And the Ghost Shark, the Copperhead, when we're talking about these things, I'm reminded of

I think it was Navy League that we were at, and they had that sea sentry. I think that was the name of it

Basically, like underwater cell towers, for lack of a better word, to be able to connect all of these things and network all of these things together

because communication underwater doesn't exactly work the same as above the water

But, yeah, to your point, Anderil, really moving fast, creating things that, you know

solutions for problems I didn't even know existed. And finally, a simple solution to a serious problem. This is video out of Ukraine of soldiers

from the 1st Corps of the Ukrainian Armed Forces installing anti-drone nets along a frontline road

near Donetsk, an industrial city in southeastern Ukraine. Now, this is not exactly a necessarily

new tactic, and it's not entirely foolproof, but the idea is to protect vulnerable supply routes

from Russian drone attacks. Brett, these anti-drone nets are sort of the latest 21st century iteration of the Coke

cage and really displays the dominance of drones on modern battlefields. I don't know what's the saying

A necessity is the mother of invention. And, you know, it's just another kind of example of low-dollar means of addressing a low-dollar

problem, like in terms of hardware, but obviously a high-dollar problem when it comes to

equipment and lives and troop movements. Yeah, it's just kind of wild, the stuff that you're seeing out of Ukraine

And I know these things, the Russians have found a way around some of them, but the fact

that they have to spend time dealing with it in the first place is obviously to the Ukrainians

advantage. but yeah Ukrainians never cease to surprise when it comes to fighting an answer to a problem

right, right and it's, you know, both sides are learning from each other

so as one side finds a solution the other side is quick to copy that

we've seen this with not just the these nets but also the fiber optic cable drones

those prove to be, you know, unjambable pretty effective and now the solution sometimes is to just run along behind it and cut it with scissors

We've seen that. Yeah, so the cat and mouse game continues. Hopefully this war ends sooner than later

And you and I have kind of joked, a little bit of gallows humor, but the money to be made when the war is over of gathering all of those fiber optic cables

strewn about in fields all over Ukraine. Add netting to that list as well

Right. All right, Brett, I really appreciate you joining us this week

We'll see you next time. See you next time. Practice as you play, train as you fight, whatever idiom you want to use

Training for real world scenario is absolutely critical to stopping enemy drones, UGVs, enemy forces from coming in at you

Whatever the case may be, you need to practice first. And right here I have a Browning machine gun set up with an Oculus system to help train Ukrainian fighters how to take down Shehet drones

So let's go ahead and try it out. All right. So I see a field

See some trees. Are you ready? I'm ready. Let's go. All right

So I got two down. Oh, I'm not gonna get it! I'm not gonna get it

Oh no, I missed one. Oh no. Is that it? Oh man

There was four? I only saw three. Well that was pretty fun and it just kind of goes to show you how hard it really is to shoot a Shahed drone out of the sky All right folks for Comp Check this week we are getting an update on the Scorpion mobile mortar system

Got it all out. Here to talk more about that is Peter Hernandez with Global Ordnance

Peter, thank you so much for joining us today. Absolutely. Thanks for joining us. So we kind of talked about the Scorpion earlier this year at SoftWeek

We have the Scorpion again. This one's a little bit different. Can you talk about this system and how it compares to what we've talked about earlier

Yeah, absolutely. So this is our 120-millimeter more system. It's got the 81, as you saw, it's soft-weak

It's slightly different, obviously, bigger round, bigger barrel, but mainly the biggest difference is just bigger

The other difference is this is pneumatically powered instead of the manual one you saw before just because it's a heavier load

but same system altogether, same idea, goes on any vehicle, whatever you need, whatever size

And that vehicle agnostic part is really important. Recently you just did the test fire up at Quantico

There's the Transformation in Contact 2.0 coming up at the Army. Walk me through how that live fire went, and then what are we learning

or what do we hope to learn from the Transformation in Contact exercise

Yeah, so the Quantico live fire went very well. It was a great opportunity to show off the vehicle's capabilities

the shoot and scoot ability to stow, drop, fire, and then get out of there as quickly as possible

With the TIC 2.0, we're hoping to see just get into the hands of a lot of soldiers, get their experience on it

Hopefully they'll be able to learn the system. Hopefully they'll like it. We've had good feedback so far, so I want to keep that going

And how important is it to have, you know, the soldier feedback? Because like you said, you know, you had your own guys operating the system, demonstrating the system

but when you have actual end users being able to get their hands on the thing and do the thing

how important is that from a company perspective? Well, that's the most important

They're going to be the ones that end up using it. If they don't like it, they're going to have a rough time

and they're not going to want to use it. So we want to make sure that the system is going to work exactly how they want it

and always open to feedback on how we can make it better, how they'd like it better. So that's the most important part of the whole project, really

All right, man. Peter, really appreciate your time. Thanks for joining us today. Thank you. All opinions expressed in this segment are solely the opinions of the contributors

Alright folks, this episode of Weapons and Warfare is almost at its end

but before we dip out, I wanted to spend a few minutes talking about mental health in the veterans community

So let me walk you through my thought process just a little bit before I make my point

Last week was Veterans Day. My social media was filled with posts from people thanking the men and women in their lives who served

Great to see. Also last week, Netflix released a new documentary called In Waves and War

which follows the journeys four former U.S. service members are taking to find help dealing with the mental and emotional trauma they suffered while serving

These men could not get the help they needed through normal means, though

and turned to psychedelic treatments in Mexico instead, specifically Ibogaine and DMT

While watching the documentary, which I encourage you all to do, I was reminded of the conversation I had with Matt Wiz Buckley a while back

Wiz is a former naval aviator who is now spearheading a movement to get psychedelic treatments

like Ibogaine approved for veterans here in the United States. He says Ibogaine saved his life and it's done the same for dozens of other veterans he knows

So on the one hand, my social media feed was full of folks expressing gratitude to veterans

On the other hand, there's yet another compelling piece of evidence that America is failing those very same people to whom we're giving that thanks and gratitude

When I talked to Wiz, he was extremely critical of then-President Biden

and his administration for failing to deliver on this. We're almost a year into a new presidency, and the life-saving psychedelic treatments still aren't being implemented in the United States

If we want to show our veterans just how grateful we are to have them

we need to press our elected leaders to give those veterans access to any treatment that could improve their mental health, making life livable

We owe them that because of what they paid for us. That's going to do it for us this week on Weapons and Warfare

As always, if you like what we are putting out, go ahead and follow us on social media and download the Straight Arrow News app today

For senior producer Brett Baker, video editor Brian Spencer, and motion artist Dakota Patio, I'm Ryan Robertson for Straight Arrow News, signing off