Army’s new compact electronic warfare kit goes on everything from backpacks to balloons

FORT BELVOIR, Va. — The first two combat brigades to get the Army’s long-awaited backpack-portable electronic warfare kit are already experimenting with new tactics, officers and NCOs told reporters here on Tuesday.

Formally known as the TLS-BCT (Terrestrial Layer System — Brigade Combat Team) Manpack, the system fills a longtime gap in the Army’s digital arsenal: It gives frontline troops on foot the ability to detect enemy radio transmissions, pinpoint their sources for precision strike and, in some configurations, jam the signal. Such electronic warfare capabilities are more critical than ever on battlefields dominated by radio-controlled drones.

“I think that some of the soldiers were surprised by how they were able to use it at JRTC [the Joint Readiness Training Center] to identify enemy drones and things like that,” said Lt. Col. John Cross, the Army’s product manager for the system. “It kind of has opened the minds of the commanders as to what’s possible.”

“One of the units was able to actually take one of these systems [and] put it up on an aerostat” — that is, a tethered balloon — to expand its field of view beyond what they could scan from ground level, Cross continued. “That’s not something that we necessarily told them to do, that’s something that they came up with. … We take that feedback and then we share it across the Army.”

That approach embodies the Army’s new emphasis on what it calls “transformation in contact”: issuing new kit to combat units early on, often while it’s still in development, and incorporating real soldiers’ feedback on how it works in field conditions, or doesn’t, so improvements can be made. “We’re using this user feedback to inform our tactics, techniques and procedures … to understand how we need to drive new software development … [and] to drive our new requirements” for future systems, Cross said.

Based on such soldier feedback, the TLS-Manpack program is already streamlining how it distributes software updates. Rapid updates are important for any modern weapons system, but especially so for electronic warfare: Combat experience in Ukraine has shown that a new technique can emerge, be employed to devastating effect against enemy drones or other radio-dependent systems, and then be countered, all within a matter of weeks.

“The evolving nature of the threat … is going to require agility and flexibility we haven’t seen,” said Brig. Gen. Ed Barker, the Army’s program executive officer for Intelligence, Electronic Warfare, and Sensors (PEO-IEW&S). “Whatever kit we’re providing to [units] now, it can’t be the same in two or three years. … We have to constantly evolve, based on all this feedback.”

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But traditionally, the Army has distributed software updates for sensitive equipment by periodically sending compact discs full of new code to unit headquarters, with soldiers or contractors then bringing in each item to update it.

The TLS-Manpack program started with that “older model [of] let’s ship a CD,” Cross said, but “we moved away from that.” Soldiers can now download software updates from an online portal, using the military’s secure but unclassified NIPR network, he said, then load the updates onto removable media to take back to their units. The service is even looking at the possibility of distributing updates “over the air,” via wireless networks, the way commercial companies like Apple and Tesla do, although the military needs greater security for its software.

“We’re moving toward the Tesla model,” Cross said. “We’re not there yet.”

Meanwhile, as the program continues to evolve, production is kicking into higher gear. The first set of six TLS-Manpack systems went to a brigade of 10th Mountain Division in August, followed by a second set to a brigade of the 101st Airborne by the end of October. “Now,” Cross said, “we are on pace to field one brigade a month in FY [fiscal year] 25 and two brigades a month in FY26.”

A Rapid Renaissance For EW?

After years of experiments with different electronic-warfare systems and small-scale, ad hoc deployments abroad, the Army launched a formal competition in early 2023 and picked CACI Mastodon to build a prototype TLS Manpack with a $1.5 million award last September, followed by a $99.99 million award this July to begin production. “In just under 18 months, we were able to buy a commercial off-the-shelf solution developed by CACI Mastodon and begin to field that,” Cross said, using streamlined processes such as Middle Tier Acquisition and Other Transaction Authority.

The TLS-Manpack was designed, as its name implies, to be operated by a single soldier wearing it like a backpack. But the system is flexible and configurable enough to be used in other ways, explained assistant product manager Capt. Austin Knighton. Soldiers can strip it down to just the basic sensors — able to detect enemy transmissions but not to actively jam them — and get a handheld configuration weighing less than five pounds. They can also add additional sensors, extra batteries and electronic attack capabilities, with the maxed-out configuration weighing over 30 pounds — best suited for use at a static observation post or on a vehicle (or, apparently, in some cases, from a balloon).

In a typical configuration, one Army sergeant told reporters, TLS-Manpack can operate for 72 hours without going back to base for more batteries, while being “easily half the weight” of the portable systems the service has tried out in the past.

A single system can operate on its own, but it can also share data over Army tactical networks. That lets multiple Manpacks work together to triangulate the precise coordinates of an enemy transmitter; future upgrades should let it share data and even take temporary control of other Army EW systems as a well. The Manpack’s data can also flow back over the network to Army command posts, populating digital map displays — such as the widely-used Tactical Assault Kit (TAK) — with real-time intelligence on hostile, neutral, and friendly signals.

“It integrates very well with the TAK family of software, [so] this is very easy for the commander to understand,” instead of the data only being intelligence to EW specialists, the sergeant said. “We’re getting a lot of capability out of this.”

Manpack, in turn, is just one piece of a much larger renaissance in US Army electronic warfare. The Terrestrial Layer System, which combines EW and signals intelligence capabilities, is also being developed in much larger, vehicle-mounted versions: TLS-BCT for Brigade Combat Teams and the even more powerful TLS-EAB for divisions, corps, and other “echelons above brigade.” Meanwhile, the much-delayed airborne Multi-Function Electronic Warfare (MFEW) system is set to enter service as a pod for Grey Eagle drones in 2026.

Electronic warfare “requires a layered approach,” said Brig Gen. Barker. “There’s not just a single silver bullet to solve the problem.”