Why Naval Forces Need a Training Architecture Before the Next Counter-Drone Device
The Red Sea changed the conversation.
When U.S. Navy surface combatants began engaging Houthi one-way attack munitions in sustained operations beginning in late 2023, something became clear that no acquisition program had formally prepared for: American sailors were executing counter-unmanned aircraft system (C-UAS) operations at operational pace, against real threats, on a timeline that no training pipeline had specifically anticipated. The systems were aboard. The operators were capable. The training architecture that should have preceded both was not in place.
That gap — between a fielded capability and the formal training program that makes that capability operationally reliable — is not a failure of individual preparation. It is a structural condition that affects the entire Naval Service. And understanding it matters now, before the next generation of counter-drone systems reaches the fleet.
What a Training Architecture Actually Is
The phrase “training architecture” can sound abstract. It is not. A training architecture is a specific set of four documents that together make military training evaluable, transferable, and coherent:
A validated task list that assigns specific, observable, measurable tasks to the right echelon — individual operator, crew, or collective unit. A proficiency standard that defines the minimum acceptable performance for each task in terms that allow consistent assessment across the force. A governance assignment that identifies which authority trains, certifies, and resources each echelon. And TADSS requirements — the specifications for training aids, devices, simulators, and simulations — derived from those tasks and standards, not from the capabilities of systems already purchased.
Without all four, something important breaks: you cannot evaluate whether your training is working. A training device that was specified before the task was defined cannot be proven effective, because there is no standard to prove it against. An operator certified on a system without defined proficiency standards may be highly proficient or barely adequate — and without the architecture, neither the operator nor the command can know which.
This is precisely where the Naval Service currently stands on C-UAS.
The Sequence That Got Inverted
In October 2024, the Marine Corps ran its L-MADIS counter-drone system through a Weapons and Tactics Instructor course for the first time. Officials described the purpose explicitly: to begin building doctrine and tactics for the system. L-MADIS had been operationally employed since 2019. Five years of operational use preceded the first formal attempt at codifying training tasks and tactics.
That sequence — system fielded, then doctrine and tactics developed, training architecture to follow — is the norm in urgent operational need environments. When a threat appears and a system is available, you field the system. The training catches up. No one is at fault for this. The pace of operational demand makes it inevitable.
What is not inevitable is allowing that pattern to persist into the next acquisition cycle. The Navy is currently integrating new C-UAS capabilities aboard surface combatants in direct response to Red Sea experience. The Marine Corps has established MADIS as a program of record with live-fire training underway. The December 2024 Department of Defense Strategy for Countering Unmanned Systems commits to institutionalizing C-UAS across doctrine, organization, training, materiel, leadership, personnel, facilities, and policy. Congress has directed a report on DoD C-UAS training efforts in the FY2025 National Defense Authorization Act.
The policy environment has caught up to the operational reality. The training architecture has not.
The Effects Chain Is the Training Requirement
Understanding what the training architecture must contain requires understanding what C-UAS operators actually do. And what they do, from the moment a sensor contact appears to the moment an engagement is assessed, is execute an effects chain.
.](https://gts.crucibleinsight.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/05/ChatGPT-Image-May-24-2026-09_02_37-PM-1024x683.png)
The military calls it F2T2EA: Find, Fix, Track, Target, Engage, Assess. Every C-UAS engagement, from a sailor on a destroyer tracking a sea-skimming drone to a Marine Corps Low Altitude Air Defense crew managing a coordinated swarm attack, follows this chain. The operator detects the contact (Find). Sensor cueing confirms and locates it (Fix). Track management maintains the contact through maneuver (Track). ROE application and engagement authority produce a targeting decision (Target). Kinetic or electronic warfare defeat is executed (Engage). Post-engagement assessment determines whether the threat is neutralized and whether re-engagement is required (Assess).
Each link in that chain is a trainable task. Each link requires a proficiency standard. And each link can be trained — right now — using systems that exist today.
The Observed Fire Trainer teaches the Find-and-Fix links: an operator detects a target location through simulated observation and translates that into an actionable mission. The Call For Fire Trainer teaches the Target link: fire direction, mission type selection, and effects solution development. The Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System closes the Engage and Assess links, executing the engagement and scoring the result as immediate battle damage assessment. The Engagement Skills Trainer develops individual proficiency at the moment of execution.
These systems were built for the indirect fire domain. But the chain they train — sensor contact to effects delivery to assessment — is the same chain C-UAS operators must close. The tasks are different. The chain structure is identical. And this is where experienced training support organizations have something to offer that software developers and hardware integrators do not.
Two Missions, One Architecture Problem
The naval C-UAS training problem is not one problem. It is two distinct problems with a shared architectural gap.
The Navy shipboard mission — surface combatants executing C-UAS in the maritime IAMD environment — requires crew-level proficiency in tracking Group 1 through Group 3 UAS contacts on ship’s sensors, integrating that tracking into the Aegis combat system, applying engagement authorities delegated from the area air defense commander, and executing defeat measures as part of the ship’s layered defense.
The Marine Corps LORAD and stand-in force mission — MADIS and L-MADIS crews operating in contested, communications-degraded environments inside adversary weapons engagement zones — requires proficiency in both kinetic defeat and electronic warfare jamming, integration with MAGTF command and control, and the ability to manage C-UAS operations under the electromagnetic constraints of the stand-in force environment.
These are not variations on the same training problem. They are different missions with different task sets, different proficiency requirements, and different governance structures. A training architecture that conflates them produces training that fits neither. The naval C-UAS training architecture must address both — separately, deliberately, and before the next TADSS investment decision locks in devices that cannot be evaluated against standards that do not yet exist.
The Commitment Point
The argument is not that no TADSS development should happen before a training architecture is complete. Pre-development, market research, and prototyping can proceed concurrently with architecture work. What cannot happen coherently — without the architecture in place — is the commitment point: the moment when investment decisions lock in specific training devices to specific training purposes.
A C-UAS simulation device specified before the task list is complete cannot be proven to train the right tasks. A crew trainer built before proficiency standards are set cannot be evaluated against those standards. A simulation acquired before governance is assigned cannot be validated by the authority responsible for certification.
The commitment point requires an architecture. The architecture requires, in order: a doctrinal definition of the mission, a task list derived from that definition, proficiency standards derived from those tasks, and governance assignment determining who trains and certifies. That sequence is not optional. It is the difference between a training investment and a training expenditure.
What GTS Brings to This Problem
Gemini Tech Services operates in the institutional space between fielded systems and operationally proficient crews. At Fort Hood, GTS sustains more than 2,140 training devices for the Army enterprise — from MILES laser engagement systems to robotic surveillance platforms to engagement simulators — delivering effects chain training through OFT, CFFT, EST, and MILES operations every day. GTS develops programs of instruction, certifies instructors, supports exercises from Remagen Ready to eXportable Combat Training Capability rotations, and provides 24-hour field technical support when training meets operational tempo.
That is precisely the institutional layer the Naval Service’s C-UAS training architecture requires. Not the technology. Not the system. The training infrastructure — the task developers, the proficiency certifiers, the program of instruction architects, the simulation sustainers — that converts a fielded capability into a trained force.
When USSOCOM’s ANCHOR Initiative moves C-UAS prototypes from development to production, and when the Navy’s shipboard C-UAS program of record expands, and when the Marine Corps’ MADIS and L-MADIS systems reach full operational capability across the force, the question every one of those programs will face is the same: who builds the training pipeline?
The architecture comes first. The device follows. And the training support organization that understands both the chain and the commitment point is the one that makes the investment pay off.
Gemini Tech Services delivers TADSS lifecycle support, effects chain training programs, and training infrastructure solutions across the Army and Navy enterprise. Contact Timothy Crawley at tcrawley@geminitechservices.com to discuss C-UAS training architecture support.
