FORT BELVOIR, Va. — The Defense Threat Reduction Agency provided scientific and technical subject matter expertise, cutting-edge radiological and nuclear detection capabilities, and advanced communication equipment to support the Army’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal Team of the Year Competition at Fort A.P. Hill, Virginia, April 23, 2026.

The Army’s EOD TOY is an annual event that brings together the top-performing EOD teams from across the Army to compete through a week of rigorous evaluation events to assess their physical fitness, technical proficiency, and tactical acumen.

This year, one of the assessments involved a nuclear weapon incident where teams had to locate, identify, and measure a nuclear threat. DTRA personnel across the Combat Support, Research and Development, Nuclear Enterprise, and Global Threat Directorates, as well as the Defense Nuclear Weapons School, contributed to the event.

“One of the big take aways here is through coordination from the NE-led EOD Steering Group for Nuclear and Radiological Response, we were able to build a “whole of DTRA” effort by leveraging all the different EOD centric entities that are working at DTRA to have direct impact on the EOD warfighter because that is what current and former members of the joint EOD community have a passion for and that is what we are supposed to do as a combat support agency,” expressed Cameron McDaniel, an EOD policy analyst and subject matter expert in the Nuclear Enterprise Directorate at DTRA.

The device introduced by the DTRA team, the Spectral Radiation Monitor or SRM-50, streamlines the detection and identification of a material of concern by combining the functions of the Handheld Radiation Monitor and indentiFINDER 2 that the Army EOD teams typically use. Additionally, it adds the capability to broadcast the collected data directly to a tactical operations center in real time via the DTRA-created Android Tactical Assault Kit CBRN monitoring app instead of someone having to relay the information over a radio after the collection process.

“The capability of combining two tools into one where you can achieve multiple things on one approach keeps us safer and makes our job more efficient,” explained Sgt. Jedidiah Rankin representing the 761st EOD Company, 79th EOD Battalion and the 71st Ordnance Group EOD.

While the Navy and some special forces units already utilize the SRM-50, this was the first time the Army EOD community has had a chance to have hands-on experience with the equipment to assess if this is a capability the Army may want to pursue as a modernization effort. Distinguished visitors such as U.S. Army Brig. Gen. W Bochat, commanding general of 20th Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, Explosive Command, U.S. Army Col. Bradley Waite, Army EOD Commandant, and other senior Army leaders and congressional aides were able to observe the equipment in use during the assessment.

“We are happy for DTRA to bring out some new equipment to test that we normally wouldn’t get to utilize or advance on, show us what is going to be new in the field, and improve on our capabilities as we continue to deal with emerging and real threats,” shared 1st Sgt. Clay Collins assigned to the 18th Ordnance Company (EOD) at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

For more information about the 2026 Army EOD Team of the Year Competition: Fort Stewart, Georgia EOD company takes top honors in all-Army competition