US Army to begin forming second expeditionary cyber battalion — Defense News

In the United States, the Army will begin actively forming a second battalion to train and deploy expeditionary teams in cyberspace and electromagnetic warfare over the next several months. The new unit will be an exact copy of the 11th Cyber Warfare Battalion, known as the Leviathans, Defense News reports.

Formation timeline

Army Cyber Command commander Lt. Gen. Christopher Eubank announced these plans at the Association of the United States Army conference in Washington. According to him, active formation of the new unit will begin “over the next several months.”

The battalion is expected to achieve initial operational capability within the next year. After that, the unit will move toward full operational capability.

More current news is available on the UA.News Telegram channel Telegram.

Experience of the 11th Battalion

The 11th Cyber Warfare Battalion was activated on October 16, 2022, as the first scalable expeditionary capability for carrying out the current and future cyberspace missions of the US Army. It was created to employ nonlethal and non-kinetic means, including cyber and electronic capabilities.

The unit's predecessor, the 915th Cyber Warfare Battalion, was activated on June 6, 2018, and was later redesignated when the 11th Battalion was established. At the time the 11th Battalion was formed, the US Army planned to have 12 deployable expeditionary teams within it by September 2027.

Developers of the 11th Cyber Command worked with the 780th Military Intelligence Brigade's cyber solutions development unit on drone technologies as part of the Transforming in Contact initiative. It provides for delivering new drone technologies to military personnel and collecting feedback while they are used in field conditions.