Testing digitally aided technologies reduces fratricide and enhances combat effectiveness

Photo By Sgt. William Hill | Spc. Craig Craun from Wabash, Ind., an unmanned aerial vehicle operator with Bravo Company, 76th Infantry Brigade Combat Team Shadow Platoon observes a RQ-7 Shadow, an UAV, flight operations during Bold Quest 12-1, June 13 at Camp Atterbury Joint Maneuver Training Center. Twelve nations are participating in or observing in Bold Quest 12-1, a two-week Joint Staff sponsored coalition air-combat assessment exercise utilizing multiple training venues across Indiana including Muscatatuck Urban Training Center and Fort Wayne, Ind. Bold Quest 2012, part of the Coalition Capabilities Demonstration and Assessment Series, focuses on testing Digitally Aided Close Air Support technologies, which will help reduce friendly fire incidents, enhance combat effectiveness, and increase situational awareness.  

CAMP ATTERBURY, IN, UNITED STATES

06.15.2012

Story by Sgt. William Hill 

Bold Quest

EDINBURGH, Ind.- In July 1943, U.S. paratroopers lost their lives to fratricide when allied anti-aircraft gunners shot them down as a result of tragic friendly-fire incidents during World War II. Unfortunately, other accounts of such hardships still occur today during combat operations overseas to include coalition forces and innocent civilians casualties; however, new technologies are being tested to reduce these catastrophes as hundreds of coalition forces from 12 allied nations gather at Camp Atterbury Joint Maneuver Training Center and other training venues across Indiana, to participate in Bold Quest 12-1.

Bold Quest 12-1 is a two-week coalition air-combat assessment exercise led by the Joint Staff that highlights the coalition capabilities demonstration and assessment series which focuses on testing digitally aided close air support technologies to help reduce friendly fire incidents, enhance combat effectiveness, and increase situational awareness. Several coalition forces from the U.S. Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Indiana National Guard and others from Australia, Belgian, Germany, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Great Britain, Finland, France, Italy and Sweden were involved in the exercise here.

Tom Swanson, Bold Quest Systems, Engineering and Integration Working Group Lead, said the exercise has evolved over the years from combat identification technology to include all systems' technology.

"Bold Quest started out as an advanced concept technology demonstration that had to do with combat identification; in other words, being able to separate the bad guys from the good guys. Being able to sort them out is obviously very important to avoid fratricide and be more efficient in combat operations," said Swanson. "Bold Quest has grown since that time to encompass, not just combat [identification] systems but all systems, [that are] all experimental systems.

Swanson said the exercise gives allied nations the opportunity to test new equipment to determine if it solves fratricide and other major problems.

"It is a test bed so they can take the experimental equipment and find out whether it works technically, if it has military utility and actually helps solves some of these problems; efficiency problems, fratricide problems so that we can pass that information on to the decision makers," he said.

"Money decisions, acquisition decisions and find out if their particular nation wants to buy the equipment."

Maj. Tommy Myrvoll, Norwegian Battle Lab and Bold Quest Project Officer said the reason why he is here is to validate his systems and to ensure the systems can communicate with other coalition forces.

"The reason why we are here is to do a validation test for the [Joint Terminal Attack Controller] to make a risk reduction test," Myrvoll said.

"Bold Quest is a unique area for arena testing and validation that our systems are compatible with U.S. systems and also other coalition systems so that we know when we meet in theater we can share the same information and eliminate fratricide."

"Bold Quest is important on several different levels. It represents what we consider to be the required testing of the 21st Century in order to provide relevant capabilities to our young men and women going in harm's way," said Maj. Gen. Omer "Clif" Tooley, Assistant Adjutant General, Indiana Army National Guard. "In a sense, what they are doing is taking these technologies that are present in various services as well as other countries and are actually putting them in a simulated and highly realistic environment to see if they actually work together."

"The Atterbury-Muscatatuck complex is designed and built to specifically support this type of event," said Tooley. "Where you are bringing these high-payoff technologies into a very realistic complex environment and working through the issues as to whether or not they are going to actually function as planned."

He goes on to say that the Indiana organizations supporting this exercise including the 76th Special Troops Battalion from the 76th Infantry Brigade Combat Team and the Indiana Air National's 122nd Fighter Wing out of Fort Wayne are experiencing the value of taking training and embedding it with testing.

"From that the combination of the two is providing them experience that is way beyond what they could do on their own and at the same time taking the testing value way beyond what it could do on its own," said Tooley.

Testing at Muscatatuck consisted of taking commercial, off-the-shelf 4G cellular technologies through what is called Jolted Tactics and putting it in the hands of Soldiers on the ground for use in a tactical military communications network environment.

"The advantage of what we are doing is leveraging commercial technology,"

said Maj. David Hernandez, Deputy Branch Chief, Bold Quest Future Capabilities Assessment Branch. "With the low cost of 4G LTE and hand held devices as compared to a radio, we can provide one to each Soldier."

"Each Soldier can have a common operating picture device or a friendly force tracking device in their hands, they can also do voice and they can also do streaming video, said Hernandez. "This provides that Soldier a key advantage as opposed to our enemies in the battlefield."

Staff Sgt. Warren Sherman, the unmanned aerial system platoon detachment administration and training non-commissioned officer for the 76th STB, said his mission for Bold Quest was to provide intelligence, surveillance and recon by utilizing an unmanned aerial system; RQ-7 Shadow.

"Our purpose here is to provide both, [Integrated Systems Research Program] capabilities and intelligence, surveillance and recon, [to observe ground forces] as well as laser designation operations to designate targets from laser guided ammunitions," Sherman said.

Sherman said he gained insight on how Marines set up their equipment and troubleshoot issues they might have with their RQ-7 Shadows.

"We have learned a lot here from the Marines on their shadow system in regards to how they set up their equipment for operations, to how they troubleshoot issues and [compared our troubleshooting techniques]," he said.
"I feel that we both have learned from each other."

If the technology and the collaboration of the coalition forces now would have been available to the degree they are today during past wars lives lost then due to friendly fire would certainly have been in smaller numbers. The success of this exercise has aided in the quest to minimize or eliminate fratricide altogether, moreover, the sincere dedication and the clear communication between the forces on the ground and in the air continue to strengthen our partnerships at home and abroad.

• Date Taken: 06.15.2012
• Date Posted: 06.15.2012 19:11
• Story ID: 90092
• Location: CAMP ATTERBURY, IN, US