Rapidly evolving technology, including new weapons being used on the battlefield in Ukraine, is forcing the Army to move quickly to transform, a panel of experts said.

“We have to move quickly, we have to energize the system,” said Lt. Gen. Joseph Ryan, deputy Army chief of staff for operations, G-3.

Speaking March 25 at the Association of the U.S. Army’s Global Force Symposium and Exposition in Huntsville, Alabama, Ryan said the Army’s transformation in contact initiative, which puts new technology in soldiers’ hands for testing and experimentation, emphasizes action. “It’s about the need to actually do, to actually transform,” he said.

As the Army ramps up for version 2.0, it is preparing to field more than 1,100 unmanned aerial systems, more than 250 electronic warfare systems, more than 2,000 mobility platforms, 1,200 counter-UAS systems and more. “We’re impacting more and more units across the Army with transformation in contact every day,” Ryan said.

In the 1st Cavalry Division, which just completed a rotation in Europe, leaders are working to ensure their formations absorb all the lessons learned, said Brig. Gen. Robert Born, the division’s deputy commanding general for maneuver.

Those lessons include the critical role of division headquarters in the fight, he said. “The role of the division is absolutely important,” he said. “The assets and capabilities required to be successful is not resident or organic in a brigade combat team, and it never will be.”

The 1st Cavalry Division’s 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team is one of the units tapped for transformation in contact 2.0, said its commander, Col. Christopher Dempsey. “Armored brigade combat teams are way behind infantry brigade combat teams and Stryker brigade combat teams,” he said, regarding transformation. “That’s nobody’s fault. There is a lot of talk about transformation in contact 2.0, 1.0, but I’m interested in doing things about it, in experimenting and driving change.”

As the brigade prepares to receive new equipment, “we’re looking at and doing things in the organizational changes, the training aspect, leader development and preparing for the materiel to come,” Dempsey said. “I think the biggest thing, at least from my perspective, transformation in contact provides is the opportunity and freedom to experiment. I’ve been in the Army 25 years, and I don’t know if I’ve ever experienced an environment to experiment and make mistakes and try things.”

Today’s young leaders are ready to transform and adapt, said Brig. Gen. Phillip Kiniery, director of the Soldier Lethality Cross-Functional Team and commandant of the Army Infantry School. “What I’m seeing right now is there is no better time than right now to change, to transform the culture of our young officers,” he said. “They are very much open to it, as well as our younger soldiers.”

As more soldiers and leaders serve in transformation in contact units then rotate into the schoolhouse for their next assignments, “they’re sharing a lot of what they’re doing,” Kiniery said. “We’re starting to force our young leaders to think differently about how to employ the technology we have that’s out there right now, that’s being fielded right now.”

As the Army pushes forward with transformation in contact, Ryan said he’s not worried about taking risk at the tactical level. Brigade commanders like Dempsey are working hard to innovate and transform. “I think where we are taking risk is our inability to unattach ourselves from an archaic acquisition system,” he said.

He used as an example the Shadow unmanned aircraft system. “We canceled the Shadow, and it was an emotional event for a lot of people,” he said. “That platform was not going to survive the first day in combat against a near-peer.”

Some of the transformation in contact was born out of the realization that the Army already was taking immense risk by keeping obsolete or inadequate equipment or programs, he said.

“When are we going to fight? Whenever we do, we don’t know, but when we do, I’m confident [soldiers] will be able to fight and win,” Ryan said. “It’s our job to get them the equipment. … We have more work to do.”