Photo By Sgt. William Hill | French airmen with the air maintenance crew complete communication checks and flight...... read more read more
EDINBURGH, Ind. - During the American Revolutionary War, the U.S. joined with France, Netherlands, Spain and other allied countries to win their independence from Great Britain more than 230 years ago. As time has passed, the development of new technology has altered the face of the battlefield, but the key to victory has stayed the same, communication with forces on the battlefield.
More than 1,000 coalition forces from 12 allied nations and NATO, to include Australia, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Denmark, Finland, France, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden and the United States, gathered at five separate training centers across Indiana to include Camp Atterbury near Edinburgh, Grissom Air Reserve Base near Kokomo, 122nd Fighter Wing, in Fort Wayne, Jefferson Proving Ground near Madison, and Muscatatuck Urban Training Center near Butlerville, to participate in Bold Quest 13.2.
Bold Quest 13.2 is a two-week joint staff lead coalition demonstration involving air-combat assessment, joint fires, maneuvers and system concepts.
German Capt. Martin Vogt, an airborne early warning and control system fighter locator with NATO, said Bold Quest was a demonstration of new communications systems that has real-world applications which allows coalition nations to work together to solve communication issues they might face in the future.
"Basically you are mirroring what you do in an operation," said Vogt. "Your operation is not going to be a single nation. In the future it will always be a multi-nation operation. You are going to have all these different systems that are normally not designed to be compatible and you want them to have certain compatibility so you can exchange data between the different nations. That is why this exercise is really good because you get all the different nations, and you get all the different systems and you can see where you are and what you can do."
The biggest challenge for coalition forces was utilizing different equipment to achieve the same goal, said Vogt.
"It is very interesting because everyone has different equipment; everybody has a different state of knowledge. There is different media you are using and you are trying to get to the same goal with different steps. Trying to unite all those, while we are all working together is very challenging, but that is what is exciting about this exercise," he said.
Vogt said that Bold Quest was a successful mission with all the different coalition forces working together.
"Bold Quest is an exercise where different branches of forces come together and try to get all systems to talk the same language," he said. "Overall I have to say, the whole thing came together very nicely."
Michael Shifflett with command, control, communications, and computers Joint Staff said, the Bold Quest demonstration at Camp Atterbury utilized coalition forces to successfully complete live fire missions while conducting a close air support mission.
"What we attained to do is have a live fire event at Camp Atterbury to demonstrate the ability to digitally transmit a call-for-fire between our systems and coalition systems to a successful end," Shifflett said.
While conducting the live-fire exercise the Norwegians successfully networked their radars to their command and control system. As the American field artillery fired, the Norwegian radar tracked the rounds back to the source. Then the location of the American field artillery was fed to French Mirage 2000D fighters to coordinate counter fire, he said.
The live fire event was a huge success. It brought all the coalition forces together to demonstration a multiple faceted complex mission, said Shifflett.
"It is truly exciting to see how these systems will work together, and that is what we are all about; to make sure system to system digital interoperability is maintained," he said.
The multiple locations played a valuable role in the success of Bold Quest according to assistant adjutant general for the Indiana National Guard and senior mission commander for the Atterbury-Muscatatuck Center for Complex Operations, Maj. Gen. Omer C. Tooley, Jr.
"Initially what we got are positive responses from all the people we support and it's in response to basically what is the core of what we have to offer here," said Tooley. "Essentially our job is to provide to our various customers, both U.S. and foreign, both defense and non-defense, a very realistic 21st century contemporary operating environment."
As technology advances so does the training soldiers receive, said Tooley, and Bold Quest represents the future.
Bold Quest represents the future in the terms of how we interact on the battlefield and prepare ourselves to do so, said Tooley. "So what you see embedded in Bold Quest is this idea of integrating not only coalition forces and services internal to the U.S., but also operating and conducting testing and training and doing so in a collaborating fashion, which is more reflective of the real world reality."
Tooley said he was honored and appreciated the opportunity to support Bold Quest. "We think what they are doing is exactly what we are trying to do in terms of creating the playing field of the future."
| Date Taken: | 09.18.2013 |
| Date Posted: | 09.20.2013 15:07 |
| Story ID: | 114010 |
| Location: | EDINBURGH, IN, US |
| Web Views: | 141 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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