Photo By Staff Sgt. James Avery | A view of the Tactical Operations Center for Operations the Iron Strike exercise being...... read more read more
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FORT BLISS, Texas – One of the greatest assets on the modern battlefield is the ability to communicate between ground and aerial forces. Mission success or failure can, and has, depended on communication lines carrying battle plans and orders.
What if those lines of communication are garbled or compromised? What if our forces did not have a standard way to talk to each other through radios? And what if the communication standard operating procedure is not being followed to the letter? The mistakes and shortcuts of communications on the battlefield can be costly in terms of human life and equipment lost, to say nothing of mission success.
The 1st Armored Division held a seminar here at the Mission Command Training Center to address battlefield communication and how it can be improved. The seminar would serve to reiterate the standards put in place by Armed Forces leadership.
The 1AD Fires Seminar stimulated discussion with key leaders across both the Army and Fires communities, to enhance knowledge and demonstrate the abilities of the 1AD Division Artillery. The seminar also addressed synchronization of artillery with key Army, Fires and 1AD leadership. Maj. Gen. Stephen M. Twitty, 1AD and Fort Bliss commander, said that the seminar was about synchronizing our forces both on the ground as well as in the air.
“I can’t say it enough ladies and gentlemen,” Twitty said during his opening remarks. “The foremost thing I want in your minds today is the synchronization of our forces on the battlefield. We need to communicate better from the ground to the air and vice versa.”
After watching a video illustrating poor communication between an artillery team and the Army platoon who had called on them for assistance, Col. Heyward G. Hutson III, the DIVARTY commander, spoke of the necessity to have one standard for communication across all units on the battlefield.
“That was pretty scary, wasn’t it?” Hutson asked of the group at the MCTC. “Poor communication nearly cost us a Soldier’s life, and that is unacceptable.”
Multiple commands from Fort Bliss, as well as the Marines, Air Force and the 39th Royal Artillery Regiment from the United Kingdom were in attendance at the seminar, all with valuable ideas on the ways communication can be improved.
The seminar, which was an all-day event, ended with a tour of the Tactical Operations Center outside the MCTC, where leaders got to know the systems that link all communication for the Iron Strike exercise currently being held here.
Leadership from attending commands left that evening with a more stable view of on-going battlefield operations and communication structures that will, hopefully, lead to mission success for commanders in the air and on the ground, as well as bring every service member home.
| Date Taken: | 12.02.2014 |
| Date Posted: | 12.04.2014 15:19 |
| Story ID: | 149404 |
| Location: | FORT BLISS, TX, US |
| Web Views: | 83 |
| Downloads: | 2 |
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