American Forces Press Service
WASHINGTON, June 15, 2012 –
Representatives from every military service and their counterparts from 11
other nations are wrapping up an exercise designed to improve their ability to
work together to more effectively engage targets while minimizing the risk of
friendly fire.
About 440 participants in Bold Quest
12-1 converged on the Camp Atterbury Joint Maneuver Training Center and
Muscatatuck Urban Training Center and other venues in Indiana earlier this
month for the Joint Staff-led exercise to assess how they gather and share
combat identification information, John Miller, operational manager for the
exercise, told reporters yesterday.
During 10 days of exercises and data
collection, participants are putting to the test, not only their different
technologies, but also their tactics, techniques and procedures to ensure
they’re interoperable.
The premise, Miller explained, is that
coalition members that operate together need to develop and test their
capabilities together before they employ them on the battlefield.
The scenarios for this year’s Bold Quest
center largely on how coalition members provide close-air-support to
warfighters on the ground, Miller explained.
“You have combat effectiveness and
fratricide avoidance as big elements of what we are trying to achieve here,” he
said. “And we are trying to [address that] with technologies and with
procedures.”
The results can have an immediate impact
on warfighters. For example, a new combat identification server demonstrated
last September during Bold Quest 11 proved so effective that it was deployed to
Afghanistan within months after the exercise. The system collects and maintains
the locations of U.S. and coalition forces in a single server that air crews
can access as they provide close-air support.
Joint terminal attack controllers -
those on the ground who direct close area attacks - have also used the Bold
Quest exercises to certify the equipment they use to communicate with air crews
before deploying to Afghanistan, a coalition participant reported.
Air Force, Navy and Indiana National
Guard air assets are providing close-air support for the exercise, with joint
terminal attack controllers from several countries directing these operations
on the ground. In addition, Army and Marine ground forces are using unmanned
aerial systems to support their intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance
operations. Special operators are testing techniques and tactics for Special
Operations Command.
The annual Bold Quest exercises have
evolved since the first operational demonstration in 2003, Miller said. The
original focus was highly technical -- identifying the best combat
identification technologies for sorting friendly ground forces from enemies
within the designated battle space. Subsequent exercises focused on improving
friendly forces’ ability to identify each other -- armor units and both mounted
and dismounted ground elements.
While continuing to validate the
technologies involved, the Bold Quest series has expanded to also address how
coalition members share combat identification information.
Joint doctrine isn’t enough to ensure
seamless operations in a joint environment, said Marine Capt. Michelle
Augustine of the Marine Air Combat and Control Experimental Squadron. “The crux
of the problem really lies in interoperability, and how people come together to
execute that doctrine in a way that helps support those forces on the ground
without their safety being compromised,” she said.
The broad range of technical systems
participants bring to the mission adds another complication. So as part of Bold
Quest, evaluators are ensuring these technologies adhere to a set of broad user
guidelines referred to as standards and stricter and more specific profiles,
said Navy Lt. Cmdr. Mike Hall from the Joint Staff’s Joint Deployable Analysis
Team.
“The purpose is to make sure they are
interoperable with each other,” he said. “We would like to be able to exchange
targeting and sensor position indication information between aircraft and
JTACs, regardless of what nation or service they come from.”
Interoperability problems identified at
Bold Quest often can be fixed on the spot, Hall said.
Miller called Bold Quest a rare
opportunity for U.S. and allied warfighters, technicians and analysts to come
together in one venue. “It’s a rare opportunity for them to exchange
information, identify issues on site and fix some of those things, in
progress,” he said.
The exercises, he added, ensure that the
highly technical standards that U.S. and coalition forces craft actually work
in an operational setting.
“Until you put people together,
face-to-face to do that, you just don’t have that high assurance,” Miller said.
“You may have a very voluminous
technical standard written,” he added, but that may not be enough to ensure
that it “is being implemented effectively and works in a scenario.”
“That is why these groups need to come
together,” he said.
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