US Army and British Army Conduct Live Fire Exercise Together, Thousands of Miles Apart

GRAFENWOHR, BY, GERMANY

11.13.2020

Story by Spc. Ryan Barnes 

41st Field Artillery Brigade

GRAFENWOEHR, Germany – Imagine our Soldiers training with NATO partners and allies overseas for live fire training and still being able to come home to their family shortly after. No quarantine, no travel time, just working with our international allies in real time while firing live rounds thousands of miles apart at the same target.

The U.K. 101st Regiment Royal Artillery worked with 41st Field Artillery Brigade to test out a system called Synthetic Wrap, or SCOPIC for short, that allowed them to do just that during Rail Gunner Lightning at Grafenwoehr Training Area, October 19 to 28, 2020.

“SCOPIC is a virtual simulation system that digitally depicts the scenario,” said Chief Warrant Officer 2 Stephen Muzychka, the Lethal Effects Training Officer of 41st Field Artillery Brigade. “We feed it intel and it will then populate enemy vehicles and facilities which we can then work off of as far as Intel collection, targeting, fire mission processing, and all other functions of our Tactical Operation Center.”

Maj. Eyton Parker, Allied Liaison Officer for the 101st RRA, is the only soldier from the British Army that was physically in the Tactical Operations Center with the 41st FAB in the Grafenwoehr Training Area during the exercise.

“SCOPIC enables soldiers back in the U.K. to work with information to continue their mission,” says Parker. “This allows us to be in Rail Gunner Lighting here in Grafenwoehr.”

SCOPIC empowers the U.S. Army and enables them to train with other units across the world without the need to send every soldier involved.

“There was the actual 101st U.K. Royal Artillery actually out in their training area in the U.K.,” said Muzychka, “They were responding to the fire missions we were sending to the simulator operators.”

This system and training could save time, money and impact on life not only for the individual Soldier but the U.S. Army as a whole. It can even increase the amount of training and bring Soldiers together more often to tackle dynamic, complicated issues and build relationships with real people while taking down real and virtual targets according to both Muzychka and Parker. In addition, with COVID-19 still being an issue, SCOPIC may provide a solution for training during a pandemic.

“It plays out in a multispectral, and there is a lot of interest to make it work,” said Parker. “Training gunners while in the Isolation Facility, they get to do their job without ever leaving.”

“The advantage is its very low bandwidth, it’s very low resources required, it’s portable, it’s easy to use, it’s extremely simple. Simply put a target, build a scenario to the target, react to the target and to me that’s the best part: it’s easy to use,” says Muzychka. “We put together a whole fire mission execution plan with nothing given to us. Normally it’s extremely time intensive and takes a lot of planning and moderating a lot of paperwork. Here it’s just ‘Hey, let’s put a target here and let’s just react to it.’”

SCOPIC may very well be the cost-effective training solution in a world that presents new, dynamic obstacles nearly daily. While deployment style training will remain relevant, SCOPIC can be used to increase the amount of times Soldiers train in the field with NATO partners and allies.

• Date Taken: 11.13.2020
• Date Posted: 12.01.2020 04:35
• Story ID: 383978
• Location: GRAFENWOHR, BY, DE