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KUMEJIMA, JAPAN— U.S. Marines from III Marine Expeditionary Force Information Group shake up conventional communication in austere environments with a protein shaker bottle.
Marines assigned to 3rd Intelligence Battalion and 5th Air Naval Gunfire Liaison Company, III Marine Expeditionary Force Information Group, completed a routine unit-level training exercise, operating as a light and highly mobile force on Kumejima, Japan from July 9-17, 2023. During the exercise, a small group of Marines formed a task element and exercised their ability to live and operate in an austere environment with limited resources. Simultaneously, they closely monitored and tracked simulated enemy movements.
During the training, the Marines experimented with using unconventional tools to enable continuous communication in the field. Leveraging the limited resources on hand, the Marines transformed a simple protein shaker bottle into a fully functional HF radio antenna.
The idea came from Sgt. Zachary Verrier, a communications chief with 5th ANGLICO, III MIG, who drew upon his personal study of radio operation and equipment.
“I brainstorm a lot of these ideas from studying blogs by expert radio operators and tweak them to suit our mission,” said Verrier. “This capability lowers our radio frequency footprint, increasing survivability when conducting close air support.”
Managing signatures and keeping a low-profile are key concepts for these Marines as III MIG exercises the Stand-in Force concept.
Stand-in Forces are defined as small but lethal, low signature, mobile, relatively simple to maintain and sustain forces designed to operate across the competition continuum within a contested area as the leading edge of a maritime defense-in-depth in order to intentionally disrupt the plans of a potential or actual adversary.
Col. Richard Martin, commanding officer of III MIG, explained that developing field expedient antennas are one of many ways III MIG Marines are training as a Stand-in Force.
“Our Marines must know how to employ HF radio techniques should other forms of communications become degraded or denied,” said Martin. “The ability to improvise with what’s available is an important aspect of operating in austere environments.”
| Date Taken: | 07.26.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 07.26.2023 02:05 |
| Story ID: | 449992 |
| Location: | JP |
| Web Views: | 127 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
This work, III MIG unlocks protein powered communication, by 1LT Tiana Jackson, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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