Joint Warfighting Assessment wraps up assessment in Germany

GERMANY

05.08.2018

Story by Staff Sgt. Michael Crawford 

326th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment

HOHFENFELS, Germany – U.S. Soldiers tested 27 concepts and capabilities alongside U.S. allies and partners during the Joint Warfighting Assessment (JWA) 18 at the Grafenwoehr and Hohenfels training areas from April 20 to May 7.

“What a concept does is it looks at new ways of fighting,” said Roger Lemons, planning group chief for the Joint Modernization Command. “There’s no other place where you put these large concepts in the hands of Soldiers and leaders and assess feedback, and that’s one of the unique attributes of the JWA.”

In total, the JWA encompassed six 3-star headquarters, and more than 4,800 participants from 10 partner nations. The assessment includes brigade headquarters from United Kingdom, Canada, France, and Germany, one battalion headquarters from Denmark, and participants from Italy, Australia, New Zealand, and Spain. United States Air Force Europe, 3rd Fleet and U. S. Army Special Operations Command also provided mission command elements for the exercise.

“The planning consideration for an exercise like this starts about two years out,” Lemons said. “About 12 months out from the exercise is when we really start to synchronize the specific aspects – how we’re going to fit it together, who the unit participants will be for the exercise – so a lot of detailed planning goes into it over time.”

While conducting battlefield functions, JWA 18 allows the Army to evaluate emerging concepts and integrate new technologies through feedback directly from Soldiers in the field. Examples of the 27 concepts and capabilities being assessed include the Non-Dedicated Combined Arms for Air Defense C2 (CAFAD C2), Ravenclaw Electronic Warfare System, the Tactical Power Management Concept (TPMC), the Rapid Fabrication via Additive Manufacturing on the Battlefield (R-FAB), and four different water purification systems: the Versa Pak, the TARDEC Small Unit Water Purifier (SUWP), the HydroVolt Aquashield, and the Roving Blue Small Water Purifier.

The reverse osmosis systems present in all the water purification systems provide more than clean drinking water – it can even ensure the Soldiers’ containers stay free of bacteria.

“The ‘cool factor’ is that the reverse osmosis will actually clean the water to the point that when you add that water to your Camelbak, it will even clean out the bacteria that’s already in your Camelbak,” explained Master Sgt. Betheny Jones, an Army Reserve Soldier with Detachment 12, Army Sustainment Command.

Also producing “better-than-the-original” results, the R-FAB, which functions similarly to a 3D printer, enabling rapid production of hard and soft plastic components to maintain equipment in the field.
“The R-FAB gets equipment back into the fight while waiting for proper replacement parts,” said Betheny, a native of Maryland. “We had Soldiers who used the R-FAB to replace Humvee door handles that were better than the actual handles.”

But better than having replacement for broken part is never having the enemy break them in the first place. The Ravenclaw Electronic Warfare System, which can not only disrupt enemy communications, but also track where communications are broadcasting from.

“Simply put, when we identify enemy spectrums and radio waves, we can defeat the communications,” explained Capt. Adam M. Fleming, an Army Reserve Soldier supporting the 407th Army Sustainment Command. “If they can’t talk, they can’t coordinate how to kill us.”

In the inevitable event that the enemy does strike, the CAFAD C2 concept provides an early warning system that allows Soldiers to rapidly aid dedicated air defense systems.

“Long story short, it’s an improvement on situational awareness,” explains Staff Sgt. Brian Colyer, an Army Reserve Soldier with the 407th Army Sustainment Command. “It’s going to provide early warnings to non-dedicated air defense, like STINGER missiles.”

All of these systems require power, which requires a huge logistical effort. With the help of the TMPC, a massive weight can be removed from the shoulders of logistic teams.

“We had a unit that utilized it was able to reduce their fuel consumption from 40 gallons every 8 hours to 25 gallons,” explained Jones. “If you can reduce the impact on the supply chain, it eases logistical requirements.”

JWA gives the Army the ability to improve the equipment in Soldiers’ hands year after year, improving their survivability and lethality.

“It helps us develop tactics, techniques and procedures for employment for the new piece of equipment of the new system and then it also allows us to take what we learned from the Soldiers back to the developers and improve it,” Lemons explained. “You’ll see some of these pieces of equipment come out here year after year, but each time they’re incrementally better so that the warfighter gets a better piece of equipment.”

• Date Taken: 05.08.2018
• Date Posted: 05.08.2018 09:22
• Story ID: 276107
• Location: DE
• Hometown: FORT BLISS, TX, US