700 Alaska Paratroopers Conduct First Company Live-Fire With Drone Integration at Night

More than 700 paratroopers assigned to the 2nd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 11th Airborne Division conducted a historic company live-fire exercise at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska on May 11, 2026.

The exercise involved the full brigade combat team complement of 700 soldiers executing coordinated direct and indirect fire while integrating drone reconnaissance and targeting data during night conditions. Per the U.S. Department of Defense release, the drill marked the first time an Army company has combined these elements at this scale in Alaska.

The prior state restricted such integration to platoon or smaller elements or daylight-only operations. The new state validates company-level tactics, techniques and procedures for drone-enabled night live fire, effective immediately upon successful completion of the exercise. The 11th Airborne Division will now incorporate the validated procedures into its training curriculum.

Downstream, the Army’s infantry brigade combat teams gain a certified template to replicate the integration at other installations, which triggers updates to doctrinal manuals and procurement requirements for additional small unmanned aircraft systems.

Training commands must now schedule equivalent company exercises for the remaining brigades in the 11th Airborne Division within the current fiscal year. The validated night-drone tactics also feed directly into U.S. Indo-Pacific Command planning calendars for joint exercises that require synchronized ground and aerial fires after dark.

This exercise builds on the 11th Airborne Division’s activation in 2022 as the Army’s Arctic-focused formation. It represents the latest in a series of doctrinal tests conducted by the division to adapt light infantry capabilities to high-latitude, limited-visibility environments where drone reliance increases.