Stay on target: joint GMLRS live-fire at Fort Bliss

Photo By Abigail Meyer | Lance Cpl. Nickolas Sanders, Battery K, 2nd Battalion, 14th Marine Regiment looks out the hatch of a High-Mobility Artillery Rocket System, mounted on a truck, during exercise Iron Rage at McGregor Range, N.M. Saturday. Photo by Abigail Waldrop/Fort Bliss Public Affairs  

EL PASO, TX, UNITED STATES

06.04.2016

Story by Abigail Meyer 

Fort Bliss Public Affairs Office

MCGREGOR RANGE, N.M. – Dust billowed, a smoke plume climbed high into the sky and a guided multiple launch rocket system rocket headed toward its target about 30 kilometers away as 1st Armored Division and Marine Reserve elements fused resources during exercise Iron Rage. The expansive Fort Bliss training areas allow for training on everything from handguns to missiles. The missile part was executed here Saturday at the joint live-fire exercise.
“Being able to work effectively in our business, which is fire support, to combine how the Marines do business and how we do business, a lot of the principles are the same,” said Col. Andrew Rendon, commander, Division Artillery, 1st Armored Division. “The nuances of working together to put the missile on the target is a challenge and it’s one of the successes of Iron Rage.”
This was the first time a Guided Multiple-Launch Rocket System munition was successfully fired on an Army installation, other than White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico, or the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California. Because of the distance the rocket travels, plenty of room is needed to conduct a live launch.
“It’s a guided multiple launch rocket system live-fire – those are few and far between just due to the cost of the munitions,” said Lt. Col. John Lehane, inspector instructor, 2nd Battalion, 14th Marine Regiment. “It’s great training, especially for the folks from Huntsville, (Alabama) their training area is a little more restrictive than the expanses that we have out here.”
DIVARTY, 1st AD, did much of the setup and acted as the command and control for the training. The forward observers from 2nd Battalion, 3rd Field Artillery Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, and Marines assigned to Battery K, out of Huntsville, and El Paso-based Battery D, 2nd Battalion, 14th Marine Regiment, launched the rockets. The Combat Aviation Brigade, 1st Armored Division, cleared the surface danger zone.
“Those of us that are fire supporters are constantly striving to build trust with our supported maneuver units, to hit what we’re aiming at and to be responsive,” Rendon said. “So in this case, we were successful, the 14th Marines did an incredible job, put six guided multiple launch rocket system about 5 meters from the target.”
It was a complex mission – forward observers called in to the DIVARTY operations center; DIVARTY reported it to a force artillery headquarters 800 miles away at Naval Air Station Joint Base Fort Worth, Texas, and they sent the fire mission down to the platoon to fire. For the last three rockets, DIVARTY sent the fire mission to the platoon.
“The most important piece of this is being able to communicate … if you can’t communicate, you can’t get the fire mission,” said Maj. Michael Kozeliski, commander, Btry. D, 2nd Bn., 14th Marine Regt. “Getting the rocket out here and shooting it, that’s kind of the easy part. The communication of the Marines and the Army, that’s really working well.”
The training was unique since it was a joint service exercise, but it also tested the active duty-Reserve ability to work together, adding to the readiness of the total force.
“So the training event proved we can have faith and trust in our weapons systems, we can effectively execute in a joint environment and work together across the services to achieve the desired effects on the battlefield,” Rendon said.

• Date Taken: 06.04.2016
• Date Posted: 06.09.2016 11:51
• Story ID: 200498
• Location: EL PASO, TX, US