A recent Army exercise in Europe revealed a generational gap with drones. Soldiers in the field are picking up new frontline tech within hours, while leaders at higher headquarters are still figuring out what their future battlefields will look like.

“This younger generation of soldiers and leaders, they have a lot of these skill sets already just from coming from their STEM-focused schools throughout their education,” Col. Donald Neal Jr., commander of the Grafenwoehr, Germany-based 2nd Cavalry Regiment, said on a call with reporters Wednesday. “We may have a rifleman that pulled the trigger, but they may have a hidden talent of building drones or may have a data science degree.”

Those lessons, Neal said, emerged during Project Flytrap, an ongoing series of exercises the Army began host

See Full Page