A smoke machine attached to a TRV-150 unmanned aircraft is tested during a training scenario March 5, 2026, at Fort Hood, Texas. (Rose L. Thayer/Stars and Stripes)
FORT HOOD, Texas — Clearing the path to the front lines of combat only has about a 50% survivability rate for Army combat engineers.
Challenged to improve that, Fort Hood’s 36th Engineer Brigade trained Thursday in breaching operations using more than a dozen pieces of new technology to find the right mix that will make sure all soldiers survive.
“We are executing in concert with a maneuver formation to remove soldiers from the breach and get the armored formation through,” said Maj. Michael Caddigan, operations officer for the 36th Engineer Brigade. “One of the most complex things we do is breaching a complex obstacle.”
The efforts of the engineer brigade began last year on the periphery of the Army’s Transformation in Contact initiative that pushes the service to rapidly field new technology, Caddigan said. It’s all about saving lives and being ready for what the next war will look like.
“We would put 150 soldiers against this problem set behind us. We would expect to lose about 75 of them with the old ways of doing things,” he said. “Now, using our [machine assisted] capability, our expectation is that we keep those 150 soldiers alive for the next fight.”
Pfc. Marquel Jenkins, a combat engineer with the 36th Engineer Brigade, flies a TRV-150 unmanned aircraft capable of moving up to 150 pounds during a training scenario March 5, 2026, at Fort Hood, Texas. (Rose L. Thayer/Stars and Stripes)
Soldiers from the 36th Engineer Brigade carry a TRV-150 unmanned aircraft capable of moving up to 150 pounds during a training scenario March 5, 2026, at Fort Hood, Texas. (Rose L. Thayer/Stars and Stripes)
To do that, the brigade re-created a historical obstacle line seen in World War II and Desert Storm and incorporated elements of the ongoing battlefield seen in Ukraine war against Russia. A line of barriers known as “dragon’s teeth” stretched across a swath of dusty Texas training ground as members of the Army, Marine Corps and Air Force watched from a nearby cliff.
The brigade then brought in 16 new technologies — some of which the Army is considering for purchase, said Lt. Col. Nick Rinaldi, from the Army Applications Laboratory, part of the Transformation and Training Command.
“If we wait to practice until we’ve acquired a final product, we won’t have enough repetitions,” Rinaldi said. “We have to stay relevant and on the edge of capability, but the only way to do that is if we’re training with our equipment.”
Thursday’s scenario included the TRV-150 unmanned aircraft capable of carrying up to 150 pounds — for this it carried a smoke machine to provide cover — and remotely operated track vehicles and bulldozers.
One autonomous vehicle, known as the M5 RACER, came to the brigade last year through a retired Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency program. The unit took ownership of the green, rubber-tracked vehicle, which pulls a trailer with a mine clearing line charge that soldiers remotely detonate.
Some of the additional equipment tested was not available to be discussed or photographed publicly.
The 36th Engineer Brigade at Fort Hood, Texas, received two M5 RACER unmanned vehicles to breach obstacles without soldiers directly on the line from a retired Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency program. The vehicles were used in training March 5, 2026. (Rose L. Thayer/Stars and Stripes)
An Abrams tank travels through an obstacle after an M5 RACER, right, cleared its path during a training scenario March 5, 2026, at Fort Hood, Texas. (Rose L. Thayer/Stars and Stripes)
The closest soldiers got to the dragon’s teeth obstacle during breach operations was about 500 meters, Caddigan said. The goal is to move that back to 3 kilometers or farther.
Spc. James Clubb, a combat engineer, operated the RACER using a laptop and a modified video game controller. It took him just a couple hours to learn, he said.
“I absolutely love the fact that I can sit down, do my job, and make sure that not only I’m safe, but my teammate is safe, and the mission is still getting executed,” he said.
Typically, Clubb said he works as part of a team to breach an obstacle. His job is to get out of the Bradley about 100 meters out, set the explosives and ignite them from a safe distance.
“Mind you, all this is while we’re being shot at by the enemy forces,” Clubb said. “I have approximately eight seconds of survival while on the breach.”
The brigade will next take selected technologies from this home-station training to a 2027 rotation at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., alongside 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Caddigan said. Then, to a future deployment to Europe.
Spc. James Clubb, a combat engineer with the 36th Engineer Brigade, operates an M5 RACER unmanned vehicle to breach an obstacle during a training scenario March 5, 2026. (Rose L. Thayer/Stars and Stripes)
Smoke pours from a smoke machine carried in the air by a TRV-150 unmanned aircraft during a training scenario March 5, 2026, at Fort Hood, Texas. ( Rose L. Thayer/Stars and Stripes)
Soldiers from the 36th Engineer Brigade carry a TRV-150 unmanned aircraft capable of moving up to 150 pounds during a training scenario March 5, 2026, at Fort Hood, Texas. (Rose L. Thayer/Stars and Stripes)
