56th Artillery Command Led Fires in Europe

Photo By Casey Slusser | Soldiers assigned to the 1-7 Field Artillery Regiment from Fort Riley Kansas, load and fire a M109A7 Paladin during exercise Dynamic Front 23, at the 7th ATC's Grafenwoehr training area. Exercise Dynamic Front 23 is a U.S. Army Europe and Africa directed, 56th Artillery Command led, multinational exercise designed to improve allied and partner nation's ability to execute multi-echelon fires, and test interoperability of both tactical and theater-level fires systems in a live environment.  

GERMANY

04.01.2023

Story by Casey Slusser 

56th Artillery Command

GRAFENWÖHR, Germany— U.S. Army Soldiers, along with 17 European allies and partner nations, integrated joint fires and tested interoperability during exercise Dynamic Front 23, at the latter half of March.

Exercise Dynamic Front 23 is a U.S. Army Europe and Africa directed, 56th Artillery Command led, multinational exercise designed to improve Allied and partner nations’ ability to execute multi-echelon fires while testing interoperability of tactical to theater-level fires systems in a live environment. Though Dynamic Front began in 2015, this was the second iteration of Dynamic Front conducted by the 56th Artillery Command.

This year’s integrated exercise focused on fires interoperability with NATO Allies and partner nations’ artillery and fire support systems working together with a program called Artillery Systems Cooperation Activities.

Since its launch in 2015, planners say the exercise has progressively built upon previous successes, increasing in both scope and scale over the last eight years. This year’s simulation and live fire exercise stressed logistics, fires, and communications over space and time, taking seven months to plan and execute.

“U.S. Army units always benefit greatly when training alongside our NATO allies and our partners,” said Maj. Gen. Stephen Maranian, Commanding General of the 56th Artillery Command. “During exercises like Dynamic Front, the NATO Alliance is able to increase interoperability across all domains, improve our readiness, and demonstrate our resolve."

For the first time in Dynamic Front, two separate corps headquarters operated simultaneously from two separated command nodes, with units arrayed from the Black Sea to the North Sea. Maranian said that this year’s exercise occurred in Oksböl, Denmark, Grafenwöhr, Germany, and included the 8th Missile Brigade operating in Romania.

This iteration of Dynamic Front utilized the Mission Partner Environment (MPE) network. Use of MPE during Dynamic Front provides allies and partners the ability to share fire mission data and execute mission command in a multinational environment across the various fire control systems each nation brings to the fight. This is a big step forward in fulfilling the 56th Artillery Command mission as the force field artillery headquarters and senior fire support coordination element for the combined forces land component command in Europe. This digital expansion and connection allows more nations to participate, providing greater training opportunities than could be executed at a single training area without travel.

“It’s an incredible opportunity—we’re training with the world’s artillery experts across all the nations, regardless of the country,” said Master Sgt. J. Hudeck, from 13th Artillery Regiment, Czech Republic.

Hudeck said it was important to be able to come together in a partnership to experience and see how we [allies and partners] can work as one to control joint fire capabilities. Hudeck has trained in the Dynamic Front exercise for two iterations.

To learn more about the 56th Artillery Command, visit: https://www.facebook.com/USArmy56AC

• Date Taken: 04.01.2023
• Date Posted: 04.04.2023 09:00
• Story ID: 441920
• Location: DE