CAMP GUERNSEY, Wyo. – Iowa National Guard infantry and aviation units traveled west by ground convoy and air to conduct annual training at the Camp Guernsey Joint Training Center in Wyoming at the end of May.

Wyoming’s elevation and expansive landscape offered a different training environment for the Midwest Soldiers.

“We’re spoiled in Iowa,” said Chief Warrant Officer 2 Ryan Hill, a training officer and UH-60 Black Hawk pilot with Company C, 2nd Battalion, 147th Assault Helicopter Battalion. The state sits about 1,100 feet above sea level. “We have power for days. Whereas [in Wyoming], you’re starting at about 5,000 feet, which is going to change aircraft performance. That’ll be good training for aircrew members when they go to high altitude.”

Several aircraft crew chiefs qualified on door gunnery skills, shooting an M240 machine gun out of the window of a Black Hawk as it flew over targets.

“My favorite part was definitely going up high and then seeing the tracers hit the little buildings and all the humvees,” said Spc. Julia Adkins, a Black Hawk mechanic with the 2-147th AHB. “It was a great experience because I’m brand new to flying.”

The 1st Battalion, 168th Infantry Regiment (“Lethal Battalion”), took advantage of the expansive weapon qualification ranges and rugged terrain to practice squad-level maneuvers. Soldiers spent several days in tents in the field.

“It’s just a massive training area,” said Capt. Jeremy White, executive officer with the 1-168th Infantry. “You can drive it for hours one side to the other. If you think you can put all your gear on and run around conducting operations like normal, you’re wrong. You can’t dodge higher elevation and this is a completely different terrain.”

White described it as collective training to test how well Soldiers move as a team toward objectives using communication and hand signals. Companies took turns rotating through physically taxing live-fire exercises, moving swiftly up and down steep slopes through tall grass and dodging environmental obstacles.

“We grow as a team as we’re out there,” said Spc. Valery Gonzalez, with the 1-168th Infantry. “We obviously have to trust each other so nobody gets hurt.”

In addition to completing unit-level tasks, the two infantry and aviation elements joined together to conduct realistic operational training. Ground force commanders with the 1-168th Infantry sent up orders to the 2-147th AHB, imitating what would happen if infantry Soldiers needed aircraft assistance in a real-world scenario – whether they needed people, supplies or equipment transported.

“One of the big takeaways for us is that we’re a customer-based service,” said Hill. “We have a lot of young aviators who have been focused on getting good at flying the aircraft. Now, they’re going to be able to execute planning processes, and they’ll have passengers that need things with real-life factors playing into it.”

The training is also valuable for Soldiers in the 1-168th Infantry. White said many Soldiers in the Iowa Guard train with real aircraft only a few times in their careers. The 2-147th AHB offered familiarization with aircraft safety procedures, air assault movements, supply drops and sling load operations.

The 1-168th Infantry trained on their new M3A1 Carl Gustaf Multi-roll, Anti-Armor, Anti-Personnel Weapons System (MAAWS). The recoilless rifle is capable of firing numerous types of rounds suited for targets that range from humvees to armored tanks. It can also illuminate the battlefield and provide smokescreens.

Staff Sgt. Chris Nieman, an infantryman assigned to Company A, said the weapon’s improved optics system eliminates much of the guesswork in aiming at targets.

“I really enjoy being in the field and training Soldiers,” said Nieman. “It’s loud, it blows up. Soldiers enjoy that. On a tactical level, it just increases our lethality. It’s a force multiplier on its own.”

Members of the 1-168th Infantry also broke in some new M110 A1 squad-designated marksman rifles with scopes, ambidextrous controls and suppressors. Even with all the new features, it wasn’t much heavier than the traditional M4 carbine rifle most Army Soldiers use.

“It’s a dream to shoot,” said Staff Sgt. Gabriel Morey, an infantryman with Company C. “I’ve seen nothing but smiles coming off of our range here at Camp Guernsey, so we have pretty positive rave reviews so far.”

By SSG Tawny Kruse, Joint Force Headquarters – Iowa National Guard

The 75th Innovation Command (IC), based in Houston, Texas, employs reservist Soldiers who have been recruited from the civilian world because of their sought-after technical skills and expertise.

The 75th IC team also bring decades of combined military experience with countless deployments under their belts.

“We are here because we are engineers, we are scientists, we all have STEM degrees and backgrounds, so it’s easy for us to talk the talk with these developers and innovators,” explained Chief Warrant Officer 3 Steven Dixon, an innovation technician with the 75th IC.

“I can see where these technologies could be applied on the battlefield, because we have been there. All of us,” added Dixon, who has been deployed six times.

Lt. Col. Martin Plumlee, officer in charge for 75th IC from the Huntsville Innovation Detachment said, “That’s sort of the beauty and secret sauce of the 75th. We are looking for those people who have those unique skills and abilities who can help the Army when they are wearing this suit [Army uniform] and still help the Army when they are wearing a different suit.”

So, who better to provide Soldier feedback during the aviation-centric Experimentation Demonstration Gateway Event, better known as EDGE, that took place at Yuma Proving Ground (YPG) in late April through mid-May than the 75th IC?

The three-week event brought Army Futures Command’s Future Vertical Lift (FVL) Cross-Functional Team and industry and international partners to the Yuma desert to work through network connectivity, frequency communication and flying maneuvers. The event culminated with a live capabilities demonstration for senior leaders and members of Congress.

“Our job here is to integrate and to be embedded with FVL to support all levels of their mission,” Plumlee explained.

That meant boots on the ground at YPG for the duration of the exercise to assess the technology and provide feedback. The 75th IC Soldier feedback in some instances provided the missing link to get a system just right.

Capt. Eric McClure, an Innovation Officer with the 75th and UH-60 Blackhawk pilot by trade, said there were several moments with technology creators where the collaboration led them to think, “Oh, I never really thought about this” or “The feedback you just provided will help us go back and fix a software error or bug we saw, or potentially help improve a system to make it more user friendly.”

EDGE provided the unique ability to gather creators, engineers and software developers with Soldiers for their instant assessment and recommendations.

“Failure is a gift” is a term McClure said someone coined during EDGE. He went on to explain, “It’s a great learning moment, so they can take that back and improve their system. You can see there is care in the eyes of these industry partners to fix those problems, and some have been doing that rapidly on the fly. They have their engineers and their software coders on site. They experience a problem one day, they immediately go back and try to fix it.”

EDGE’s location in the hot Arizona desert made for a perfect training ground. Yuma Test Center at YPG provides unrestricted airspace to allow for air and ground testing.

“You can design something, but if you don’t know how it’s integrated, if the person who is putting in the equipment, or the crew members landing, don’t interact on true missions, or mock missions where they are actually flying the aircraft in the dust with sweaty hands using the equipment, it makes a huge difference,” explained Chief Warrant Officer 4 Gerrit Jenniskens, a tech scout with the 75th IC.

“You see where the failure points are here in a test experimental environment. So, when they get out in the desert or mountain or wherever they are going to be operational, those variable points are reduced. Let’s get it right in the experimental phase,” Jenniskens added.

And that’s ultimately the goal of EDGE — looking to see if the presented systems will be effective solutions and useful for the Army of the future.

“We want to win and bring all our men and women home,” remarked Plumlee.

By Ana Henderson

CAMP MAGSAYSAY, Philippines — As one of Army Futures Command’s first forays into in-theater persistent experimentation, a team of observers/assessors were in the Philippines looking at the 1st Multi-Domain Task Force’s capabilities in the Pacific.

This Joint Warfighting Assessment, or JWA, team observed the 1st MDTF’s concepts and capabilities during Balikatan 23, a Marine-led exercise. The JWA23 team is led by the U.S. Army Joint Modernization Command and includes experts from various capability development integration divisions. The assessment is meant to build on the lessons learned during past Joint Warfighting Assessments and Project Convergence capstone events. With persistent experimentation, regular assessments like this throughout each year will allow Army modernization and transformation efforts to maintain momentum and speed.

Brig. Gen. Bernard Harrington, commander of the 1st MDTF, underscored the significance of initiatives like JWA23 in shaping the future of the Army in the Indo-Pacific.

“JWA23 is an opportunity to get multiple teams together to figure out how we get the Joint force into position in the Indo-Pacific” Harrington said. “Over the last two years, [U.S. Army Pacific] has steadily increased investments in the first island chain, placing combat-credible forces on key terrain to build interoperability with key partners. JWA23 is one feedback mechanism to evaluate how we prevent conflict and prevail in competition.”

The MDTF is the newest formation in the Army and is at the forefront of Army experimentation. Many of the new capabilities the Army is looking to in the future would come from the MDTF. During JWA 23, the JMC-led team assessed the 1st MDTF’s ability to integrate with joint partners and allies, joint sensor-to-shooter efforts, joint networking and joint force protection. As part of preparing for future conflict, the MDTF is being asked to do things the Army has never done before.

Balikatan is the largest annual bilateral exercise conducted between the Philippines and the United States. This year’s exercise, which took place in late April, was the largest to date, with more than 17,600 participants. Balikatan advances combined military modernization and capability development efforts by providing realistic rehearsals of concept, as well as numerous subject matter expertise exchanges.

From the beginning, the build of the MDTF was designed to be a joint force enabler. Looking specifically at the Pacific, adversaries have spent the past 20 years designing a network to keep out the Army’s joint force partners, focusing on high-flying aircraft and large maritime vessels, said Lt. Col. Ben Blane of the 1st MDTF.

“When we talk about the Balikatan exercise, we do have this relationship with the partners here in the Philippines,” Blane said. “But we’re also bringing in our partners from the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. Marines. We’re connected with our partners afloat in the Pacific and also in our main operations center at Joint Base Lewis-McChord who are helping us with some of these concepts. It’s that partnership, and then together, really building those capabilities forward in the Pacific. So, if we do rise to the point of conflict, we have some survivable positions here that can support the joint force.”

The Joint Modernization Command and its Joint Warfighting Assessments have been important to the MDTF’s experimentation and development from the start, Blane said. And as part of AFC’s persistent experimentation efforts, JWAs continue to be an integral part of developing the right capabilities with the right people for the future of competition and warfare.

“To take you all the way back to JWA19, the assessors saw the value in filling some of these gaps that we were talking about,” he said. “There was a quote in the final document that said the Army needs to immediately prioritize this formation and get into both PACOM and EUCOM as fast as possible. You saw the activation of the MDTF soon after.

“Bringing in this team here during JWA23, we refine these ideas, talk about these concepts, talk about the things we’re learning, and then get it through that other lens where we’re bringing in experts with the JMC team and all of the Army Modernization Enterprise,” Blane said. “We’re really honing in on what we’re doing here, why it’s important and then taking that refined message and then being able to push that back out to the rest of the force. That’s huge. And I’ll tell you what, the Soldiers are super excited about what they’re doing.”

MDTF experimentation is critical to getting the formations and capabilities of future warfare correct. Joint and Combined multidomain operations are key to the future, and the MDTF is at the cutting edge of that concept.

By Jonathan Koester

ROMANIA — U.S. Army air defenders from Charlie Battery, 5th Battalion, 4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment completed sling load training at their forward-deployed site near the Black Sea on Jan. 25, 2023. They are deployed in support of NATO’s enhanced Forward Presence Battle Group in Romania.

“Having our Soldiers train on sling load operations not only provides the commander some flexible employment options, but tactically it allows us to conduct some deep maneuver and air assault operations with the units that we are supporting,” said Capt. Nathan Jackson, the commander of Charlie Battery, 5th Battalion, 4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment.

The unit practiced sling loading both the Avenger and the Sentinel A3 radar variant, which is one of the first times this has been done with the Sentinel in theater.

The Avenger weapon system is an all-terrain, all-weather air and missile defense system that is capable against rotary-wing, fixed-wing, unmanned aircraft and cruise missiles while the Sentinel A3 provides early warning detection and identification of aerial threats.

Just days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, Avenger short-range air defense Soldiers and equipment from 5th Battalion, 4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment deployed to Romania to help assure our NATO allies that we are committed to our obligations under Article 5, and to deter any potential acts of aggression against NATO by providing short-range air defense of allied forces. Elements of 5th Battalion, 4th Air Defense Artillery Regiment have maintained deployments in Romania, Slovakia and Poland since early 2022.

“I think it’s a great opportunity for air defense Soldiers to see this side of air assault operations, to be able to build and expand their toolkits with these capabilities. I received a lot of positive feedback from the Soldiers as this is something they don’t get to do every day, to help build these capabilities for our future operations,” said Jackson.

Charlie Battery was supported by a Chinook helicopter crew from Bravo Company, 2-501, Combat Aviation Brigade, 1st Armored Division, who are also deployed to Romania as part of Operation Atlantic Resolve.

U.S. Army Europe and Africa has led the Department of Defense’s Atlantic Resolve land efforts by rotating units from CONUS to Europe since April 2014. There are four types of U.S. Army Atlantic Resolve rotations — armored, aviation, sustainment task force, and division headquarters. Rotational units conduct bilateral, joint and multinational training events across more than a dozen countries. Atlantic Resolve is funded by the European Deterrence Initiative, which enables the U.S. to enhance deterrence, increase readiness and support NATO.

By MAJ Robert Fellingham