Photo By Staff Sgt. LaShic Patterson | U.S. Army Spc. Nathan Strodtbeck (left) and Sgt. William Hyden, information technology...... read more read more
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FORT HOOD, Texas – According to signal corps doctrine in Field Manual 6-02, signal corps Soldiers enable the commander’s ability to accomplish the intent and mission of combat operations. While commanders use a command-and-control system to execute combat operations, they rely on signal corps Soldiers’ use of secured network and information systems, allowing full support of unified land operations.
Lt. Gen. John B. Morrison Jr., the U.S. Army deputy chief of staff for cyber (G-6), expounded on the role of signal corps Soldiers during Warfighter 23-4 at Fort Hood, Texas, April 24, 2023. Morrison and other Army leaders toured the III Armored Corps Warfighter throughout its roughly two-week duration.
“If you buy into this notion of a unified network, it's the ability to rapidly deploy anywhere in the world,” Morrison said while at Fort Hood to see the Warfighter. “Before, the Army treated the network as enterprise and tactical, and well, that's just not going to work in not only large-scale, ground combat operations, but also more importantly, in multi-domain operations.”
Morrison said that Soldiers must think of their commander's scheme of maneuver, a point in combat operations when a commander wants to apply an effect.
“Think cyber, think deep sensing, and think long-range precision fires,” Morrison said. “If you're going to fire something from hundreds of miles away, that is not going to be done solely on a tactical network. We must unify the strategic, operational, and tactical level so that we can operate at speed back to your data component of it. That is central to everything.”
Morrison said Soldiers need the ability to act, see, understand, and assess faster than the adversary’s capabilities.
“Data moving rapidly, seamlessly over this notion of a unified network is absolutely essential to multi-domain operations,” Morrison said. “It's the ability to really apply different effects from a variety of domains. That just gives the adversary so many dilemmas that they don't know how to react.
With new threats emerging every day, signal Soldiers can no longer depend solely on static systems used during counterinsurgency operations and must adapt their training to the new systems of large-scale combat operations. Morrison said that Warfighter 23-4 is a critical exercise to determine the future of the unified network plan.
“This Warfighter exercise is very important in informing where we want to take the unified network in the future,” Morrison said. “Not so much from the network perspective, because we think we have a pretty good handle on that, but from the applications and the warfighting function services that are right on top of that network. This Warfighter is really informing what that path is going to look like, and we'll take those lessons learned.”
Sgt. William Hyden and Spc. Nathan Strodtbeck, both of whom are information technology specialists with the 13th Armored Corps Sustainment Command, III Armored Corps, were integral in keeping one of the corps’ command posts connected throughout the entirety of the Warfighter.
“We do a variety of work from network and system administration to lower-level help desk functions,” Strodtbeck said. “We make sure that all users have services, that all devices are functioning properly, and the network is maintained so that all of our users able to fulfill their job duty.”
Strodtbeck and Hyden have been training for the Warfighter since late January 2023.
“We provide the ability for the commander to command and for units to fulfill the commander's orders,” Strodtbeck said. “Without their devices and their connections, they're not able to fulfill the role of a Warfighter, and we give them that ability. If you lack the ability to communicate with each other, you're dead in the water.”
Hyden gave his overall experience during Warfighter 23-4:
“It's always seems to have little hiccups in the beginning to try to intermingle everybody to work properly,” he said. “With all the requirements and timeliness, it's gone very well. It gets everybody out of their comfort zone. You have to figure out how to communicate with everybody, do it seamlessly, and do it right.”
Whether working with logistics to establish proper communications in the movement of supplies or working with medical personnel to ensure the successful evacuation of an injured Soldier, signal corps Soldiers are one of the many pillars working behind the scenes of successful training missions such as Warfighter 23-4.
| Date Taken: | 04.25.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 05.01.2023 15:36 |
| Story ID: | 443370 |
| Location: | FORT HOOD, TX, US |
| Web Views: | 321 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, III Armored Corps Warfighter helps model Army's future warfighting network integration, by SSG LaShic Patterson, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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