Joint fires, services combine to make history at Fort Sill

Story and photos by Spc. Matt Meadows/the Cannoneer

FORT SILL, Okla. (TRADOC News Service, May 19, 2004) – Rockets, cannons, 1,000-pound bombs and paratroopers met on the same piece of real estate to make history May 2-6 at Fort Sill in a week-long, four-branch, Joint close-air-support exercise.

Almost 60 paratroopers from Fort Bragg jumped onto Fort Sill May 2, jump-starting the exercise. Operation Joint Thunder culminated May 6 with field-artillery cannon and rocket fires on the same target simultaneously, with eight 1,000-pound live bombs dropped from Navy F-18s and Air Force F-16s onto the newly validated Fort Sill CAS training ranges.

The exercise included massive firepower on simulated enemy targets as Marine Corps forward observers and Air Force combat air controllers coordinated to call for fires from Army Multiple Launch Rockets Systems and M-119 105mm and M-198 155mm howitzers.

“This is the first time we’ve integrated cannons, rockets and aviation-dropped munitions all at the same time and all on the same impact area,” said Col. Al Schneider, commander, 212th Field Artillery Brigade, Fort Sill. “It’s meant to train the core warfighting skills our Soldiers have to use every day.”

Schneider said the JCAS exercise is the largest exercise of its type held at Fort Sill in many years.

Operation Joint Thunder represented 13 units from nine military installations and four branches of the armed forces. The exercise included Soldiers from Fort Sill and Fort Bragg, N.C.; airmen based at Fort Hood, Texas, and Fort Riley, Kan.; pilots from Fort Worth, Texas; Marines from Oklahoma City, Okla., aircrews from Altus Air Force Base, Okla.; an aircrew from Barksdale AFB, La.; and an aircrew from Warner-Robins AFB, Ga.

The 212th FA Bde. practiced for Joint Thunder with computer simulations for a week, mainly to ensure the brigade had trained properly to deconflict airspace between aircraft and artillery fires.

Goals going into the exercise included mapping the effects of cannon, rocket and CAS fires impacting the same target simultaneously; testing command-and-control equipment; and incorporating XVIII Airborne Corps field-artillery Soldiers from Fort Bragg.

Focusing training on Jointness

Maj. John R. Watson said the exercise proved the field artillery and Fort Sill are walking down the Army’s desired path and aren’t leaving other branches behind. Watson is the operations officer, S-3, 212th FA Brigade.

“The Army won’t go it alone, Air Force won’t go it alone, neither (will) the Marine Corps or the Navy. It’s a Joint effort,” Watson said. “We develop Soldiers, and (we do so) with our Warrior Ethos taking the fight to the enemy, maintaining our edge and training the entire team.

“I think this exercise shows our commitment to the chief of staff of the Army’s focus areas, how we remain relevant and ready. We’re developing a Joint and expeditionary mindset, and we’re focusing our training and our content on Jointness,” Watson said.

The exercise demonstrated that interdependence among all armed services is crucial to achieving a true Joint fires and integration of weapons systems in the different services, officials said.

“Every person from any place on the ground should be able to call on any available resource he has,” said Col. John Haithcock, head of the Joint and Combined Integration Directorate at the U.S. Army Field Artillery Center, Fort Sill. “At any time a ship, a plane or artillery fire ought to be available to him when faced with heavy enemy fire.”

To achieve interdependence, the Army is introducing a three-week long Joint Fires Course, which will build common approaches to fire support from all services and include rules of engagement, international law, time-sensitive Joint and combined target acquisition, and air-support requests.

The course is open to senior enlisted, sergeant first class and above, and officers, captain through colonel. Any service members from any career branch can attend the course if they are going to be assigned to a fire-support job in a Joint environment.

Portents of future

Building on Operation Joint Thunder and the Joint Fires Course, officials said similar Joint exercises could increase here as word of Fort Sill’s success spreads.

“I think the Joint community is learning what a national treasure Fort Sill is as a training location where you have the airspace, the range facilities and the tactical units located here,” said Maj. Gen. Kenneth James Quinlan, commandant, Joint Forces Staff College, Norfolk, Va. “So this is portents of yet what is to come … because when people find out about the advantages to all our nation’s services to train here, to do it Jointly, I think they’ll make this an event that occurs more often.”

Quinlan was invited to observe the capstone JCAS event at Thompson Hill.

Joint Thunder’s battlefield realism of “Joint partners” synchronizing fires impacting on the same target made the exercise exciting and offered participants practice in using warfighting skills not commonly experienced during training, Quinlan said.

The most important result of these types of Joint exercises is for service members to realize military practices and equipment work.

“It’s more important for me that the Soldiers and other service members who are involved in the exercise get some satisfaction that our doctrine works, that our training works, that our weapons systems work, and they get a level of confidence working together,” said Quinlan. “And that translates to combat power on the battlefield, because warriors who work together develop confidence they can do this in a synchronized way. And that makes the sum of the parts greater that the whole.”

Firepower

The Fort Bragg Soldiers, who were from 1st Battalion, 321st (Airborne) Field Artillery and 3rd-319th (Abn.) FA, jump-started the live phase of Operation Joint Thunder by parachuting onto Fort Sill’s Snow Ridge. Two M-198 155mm towed howitzers were “heavy dropped,” and the airborne artillery paratroopers performed live-fire missions with the cannons from the drop zone.

After landing at Fort Sill, the Fort Bragg field artillerymen continued JCAS missions, doing what no one else in the Army can, officials said.

“We are the only airborne 155mm (howitzer) battalion in the entire U.S. Army,” said Maj. Basheer Ilyas, operations officer, 1st-321 (Abn.) FA. “Our mission is to deploy on 18 hours’ notice for contingency operations anywhere in the world … for the XVIII Airborne Corps. Subsequently, though, we also provide fires for anybody else who needs them – in the case here, III Corps (Artillery).”

The JCAS missions for 1st-321st (Abn.) FA during Joint Thunder were to fire marking rounds and protective fires for aircraft.

Sgt. Damon Mays, M-198 crew chief, 1st-321st (Abn.) FA, said exercises such as Joint Thunder allowed him and his crew to train for combat situations that require special munitions, and the missions went smoothly except for working with a new charge for the M-198, he said.

“Just because the MAC charge (Modular Artillery Systems Charge) is new to everybody, and we’re the first to shoot the MAC charge,” said Mays. “Everybody (on the crew) has got some hands-on experience with the new powder.”

The MAC charge is an asset facilitated through Fort Sill, said Capt. Joseph O’Callaghan, battery commander, B Battery, 1st-321st (ABN) FA.

“Fort Sill has modernized the tubed artillery with pushing forward that MAC charge,” said O’Callaghan. “It makes it so that our logistics train is up to 40 percent shorter, so we’ve actually gotten smaller in what is our requirement so we can provide lethal fires.

“The M-198 155mm howitzer is unique to airborne and standard ground operations because it can fire various special munitions,” O’Callaghan said. Those munitions include MA25 white phosphorus rounds; a few types of smoke; copperheads, laser-seeking projectiles; and SADA, a search-and-destroy remote armor system recently fired in Iraq.

MLRS

MLRS missions for 6th Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery, 212th FA Bde., during the JCAS exercise included firing rockets on enemy air-defense-artillery positions, said Capt. Ryan Zachry, commander, C Battery, 6th-32nd FA. These suppressive fires occurred just prior to and following Air Force Reserve F-16s and Navy Reserve F-18s engaging other targets, he said.

“That’s why it’s a great exercise (for) getting that timing down and working with the Air Force (and Navy), and, basically, working on the coordination and understanding how each other does business,” said Zachry. “We’re always doing Joint operations in Iraq and Afghanistan … and now we’re getting an opportunity at Fort Sill to train like that.”

The MLRS launcher crews waited in “hide positions” to avoid enemy detection, then moved to firing points, usually about 50 to 100 meters from the hide sites when fire missions were received. It takes about 90 seconds for an MLRS crew to “lay on” a target once they’re in position at a firing point.

Lt. Col. David Liddell, 6th-32nd FA battalion commander, said the JCAS exercise supports the larger effort of the Global War On Terrorism, and he’s happy with Operation Joint Thunder’s success.

“The structure of the training exercise is such that it replicates exactly what we’re doing on the ground, and that’s not just in Iraq,” said Liddell. “The world is a dangerous place with many threats, and we’re prepared to deal with those threats.

“(The exercise) allowed us to add the pieces of the training exercise into one big part, and that’s what we’re getting at with the Joint-and-expeditionary-mindset focus,” Liddell continued. “The benefits of this exercise are that we gain a better appreciation for what each service brings to the fight.”

ADOCS

The JCAS exercise focused on offensive operations May 4-5 and defensive operations May 6. A computerized scenario simulated two battalions from 1st Cavalry Division attacking toward three areas to support Fort Sill’s main cantonment area May 4-5, and the computer had the same elements defending against an invading company-sized unit May 6.

The Automated Deep Operational Coordination System allowed battalion Soldiers in 6th-32nd FA’s tactical-operations center to track simulation activities of friendly and enemy units and link with the Army Field Artillery Tactical Data System, said Warrant Officer Jeffrey Pierce, targeting officer, 6th-32nd FA.

“What this does is link together with the AFATADS, which is fed from higher corps or brigade levels, and it keeps all the units and templated enemy positions up to date as much as possible,” said Pierce. “It does the coordination piece by itself. It has all the coordination features built into it, so once you try to process the fire mission, for example, if it violates a restricted fire area or something like that, it will tell you. And it’s not going to let you process the mission.”

ADOCS has many features including unmanned aerial vehicle tracks and several mapping functions, including satellite imagery capable of one-meter resolution, Pierce said.

“The Air Force uses it; the Navy, the Marine Corps, everybody uses it,” said Pierce. “It allows everybody to interface together on one system.”

Sill as integration center

“I think the success of this exercise proves that Fort Sill is the Joint fires-and-effects integration center for the U.S. Army – that we can successfully accomplish that here,” said Watson. “This exercise proves you can do Joint fires and effects here at Sill. It’s easy. It’s been done.”

Being in the middle of the United States provides easy access for units at other installations to train here, said Watson. The pilots from Fort Worth often have had to fly to Utah to drop live ordnance, and that’s about a 3 ½-hour flight one way, he said.

On the other hand, Fort Sill is just a 15-minute flight from Fort Worth, offering many training advantages including shorter flight times, savings on fuel costs, multiple dry attack runs and more time on station to work with enlisted terminal attack controllers and forward observers, Watson said.

Staff Sgt. Robert Taylor lases a target down range using an FSC Fire-Support Sensor System. Taylor is with Headquarters, Headquarters Battery, 212th Field Artillery Brigade, Fort Sill.

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Staff Sgt. Michael Chastain moves his M270 Multiple Launch Rocket System into place during the exercise. Chastain is with A Battery, 6th Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery.

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Smoke and dust rise from the explosion of eight 1,000-pound bombs dropped at Fort Sill’s Thompson Hill. The bombs were dropped by Naval reserve pilots flying F-18s based out of the Fighter Attack Squadron, VFA-201, Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base, Fort Worth, Texas.

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An aircrew from the 58th Airlift Squadron, Altus Air Force Base, Okla., drop an M-198 155mm towed howitzer from a C-17 Globemaster III.

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An F-18 flies over the target at Fort Sill’s Thompson Hill. The Naval Reserve pilots dropped eight 1,000-pound bombs from their F-18s based out of the Fighter Attack Squadron, VFA-201, Naval Air Station Joint Reserve Base, Fort Worth, Texas.

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