CSM Forum
by Command Sergeant Major Randolph Hollingsworth
Master Sergeant Robert P. Lopez, from the Fort
Huachuca Battle Command Battle Laboratory, will be my guest
writer for this issue of the Military Intelligence Professional
Bulletin. I ask that you keep this issue in a special place for
future reference as this article provides you a view of the
future of our MI Corps.
The Fort Huachuca Battle Command Battle Laboratory
The purpose of this article is to describe the mission of the
Fort Huachuca Battle Command Battle Laboratory. Before getting
into specifics, let us step back a few years and approach this
topic within a historical context.
In 1415, in the middle of a muddy battlefield known as Agincourt,
Henry V led 11,000 English pikemen and archers to victory over
51,000 French soldiers. The English longbow was the decisive
factor in the decimation of the French knights and helped the
English capture Normandy.
In 1588, after braving bad weather along the English Channel, a
massive flotilla of Spanish vessels was destroyed by a small
fleet of maneuverable English ships equipped with cannons. Naval
artillery proved to be the decisive factor in the destruction of
the Spanish Armada and marked the beginning of the end of Spanish
dominance in Europe.
In June 1950, North Korean troops attacked South Korea and
rapidly advanced through the limited maneuver corridors of the
Korean peninsula. The inability of the American and South Korean
troops to stop the Soviet-made T-34 tank proved to be a decisive
factor in the early stages of the Korean War.
Accounts of technologically superior weapons and tactics
defeating numerically superior forces using existing doctrine and
inferior weapons are as old as war itself. The quest for the
'magic bullet' that can defeat a larger, stronger enemy will
continue as long as nations exist. Will the U.S. Army be leading
this search for new weapon systems and technologies with military
applications? That is the charter of Force XXl: to change the
Army to fulfill the needs of the 21st century with the best use
of our quality soldiers, leaders, and new technology. As
described in TRADOC Pamphlet 525-5, Force XXl Operations, this is
a concept for the evolution of full-dimensional operations for
the strategic Army of the early 21st century.
Battle Labs conduct various experiments within their respective
areas of battle dynamics and focus on battlefield capabilities
and priorities. The areas of battle dynamics are
- Battlespace (Battlespace Mounted Fort Knox, Kentucky,
and Battlespace Dismounted Fort Benning, Georgia).
- Battle command (Fort Leavenworth, Kansas; Fort Gordon,
Georgia, and Fort Huachuca, Arizona).
- Combat service support (Fort Lee, Virginia).
- Depth and simultaneous attack (Fort Sill, Oklahoma).
- Early entry lethality and survivability (Fort Monroe,
Virginia).
These Battle Labs conduct studies of battlefield
capabilities and priorities, leveraging horizontal technology
insertion with experimentation to prove new technological
advances and rapidly insert them into the Army Force structure.
The focus of Battle Labs is the changing nature of the
battlefield. The use of Battle Lab Warfighting Experiments
(BLWEs) and Advanced Warfighting Experiments (AWEs) provide the
Battle Lab with the freedom to explore, be creative and
innovative, and take advantage of new technological advances.
Warfighting experiments pertaining to only one battle dynamic are
called BLWEs while those larger experiments centered on several
battle dynamics are called AWEs. Both BLWEs and AWEs may use
constructive, live, and virtual activity to test the technology
or concept.
The current focus of the Battle Command Battle Lab (Huachuca) is
the Task Force XXl AWE to be conducted at the National Training
Center (NTC), Fort Irwin, California, in March 1997. The
integration of enhanced intelligence collection assets into an
improved information support architecture will provide the First
Brigade, 4th Infantry Division (Mechanized) (4th ID (M))
Experimental Force (EXFOR) commander with a "common, relevant
picture of the battlefield" that includes a current enemy
situation overlaid on the Blue Force's (friendly units)
deployment. The digitalization effort of the Task Force XXl
tactical Internet will provide the locations of Blue Force units.
The intelligence community is challenged to deliver timely
intelligence developed from all organic, theater, and national
assets to the brigade commander. In order to accomplish this,
experimentation and validation of these technologies in the field
must first occur. Then, incorporation of the validated
technologies into the Army force structure will guarantee
successful mission accomplishment.
Task Force XXI provides a major test platform for several
Advanced Concept Technology Demonstrations (ACTDs) and the field
testing of several prototype systems. ACTDs are sponsored and
executed jointly by a team comprised of an operational user and a
technology developer, with approval and oversight from the Deputy
Undersecretary of Defense for Advanced Technology. The Advanced
Concept Technology II (ACT II) program enables direct industry
involvement, along with Army combat and materiel developers , in
helping to define technology that will lead the Army to its Force
XXI vision. ACT II supports BLWEs and AWEs through competetive
funding of industry's most advanced technologies, prototypes ans
non-developmental items.
The Battlefield Awareness and Data Dissemination (BADD) ACTD will
deploy and demonstrate an information system to assist the
dissemination of data and deliver a consistent picture of the
battlefield to warfighters. This is accomplished by the
integration of tactical, operational, and national multimedia
information, and provides warfighters the ability to receive,
manipulate, visualize, and use information.
This demonstration will occur under the strenuous combat-like
situation of an NTC rotation. The scenario will be fluid and
intense, requiring the EXFOR to relocate ("jump") their Tactical
Operation Center (TOC) and its supporting intelligence Analysis
Control Team (ACT) several times during the exercise.
Another technological demonstration will be the Semiautomated
IMINT (imagery intelligence) Processing (SAIP) System. This
technology enables positive identification of moving target
indicators and stationary images acquired by reconnaissance and
surveillance platforms through automatic target recognition and
interactive target recognition technologies.
The Common Ground Station Prototype (also called CGS-P) will
allow the deployed brigade TOC to receive a direct feed from such
collection, reconnaissance, and surveillance platforms as the
Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint STARS), the
Guardrail Common Sensor (GRCS), the TR-1 (U-2) and other theater-
and national-level assets. The CGS-P then provides this
information to the ACT where a small intelligence element using
the prototype All-Source Analysis System Remote Work Station
(ASAS-RWS) will respond to the brigade commander's critical
intelligence requirements. As the situation fluctuates, the ACT
will be able to provide the Task Force commander with an
unparalleled view of the enemy and his deployed equipment.
The Battle Command Battle Lab (Huachuca), in conjunction with the
U.S. Army Intelligence Center and Fort Huachuca, has trained 4 ID
(M) intelligence soldiers on these prototype systems. Together,
they developed tactics, training, and procedures for the
employment of these systems. The lessons learned from Task Force
XXl will be incorporated into the Division XXl AWE currently
planned for November 1997. As commercial technology continues to
introduce new software and hardware innovations, it is imperative
that the U.S. Army assimilates the best of these technologies and
maintains the edge over all potential adversaries.
ALWAYS OUT FRONT!
Master Sergeant Lopez is an Intelligence Analyst
currently assigned to the Operations Section of the Battle
Command Battle Lab (Huachuca). His previous assignments include:
Department of the Army, Military Intelligence Information
Management; the Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk,
Louisiana; 1st Battlefield Coordination Detachment, Fort Bragg,
North Carolina; and many other Ml brigade and battalion
assignments. He has a bachelor's degree in History from the
University of Arizona. Readers can contact him at (520) 533-l888,
DSN 821-l888, and through E-mail at lopezr(@ huachuca-emh30.army.
mil.