Fort Hood Sentinel:
The 69th Air Defense Artillery Brigade participated in a Joint Air Defense Exercise, a three-day training event focused on increasing the readiness of all air defense assets in the United States Central Command’s area of responsibility, last month.
The JADEX is designed to test the communication between various echelons throughout different military branches. It stresses the commanders’ abilities to assess and react to potential threats they could face in real-world scenarios.
“The JADEX is primarily operated in a simulated environment,” said Capt. Robert Runshe, chief of exercises with the Air Force forces staff in the Combined Air Operations Center. “The exercise stretches across the AOR with the Army Patriot units, Navy ships and command and control Air Force agencies; they are all linked in together into the simulated environment.”
The simulation acts as a massive video game where commanders and air defense units use to face the common threat of enemy tactical ballistic missiles and aircraft. Using programs and existing communication channels, everyone can have access the exercise.
Once a hostile threat is identified, the elements of the Army, Navy and Air Force communicate with each other, processes the information and rely on their standard operating procedures to determine which air defense asset is to engage the given threat.
The JADEX builds relationships across the sister services, stresses their procedures and crosstalk when fighting against air threats.
“Communication is very important both inside and outside the unit,” 1st Lt. David Parks, tactical director for Headquarters and Headquarters Battery, 1st Battalion, 44th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 69th ADA Bde., said. “Effective communication is needed for commanders at all levels to make decisions and mitigate risk for their units.”
Parks is responsible for tracking aircraft and missiles and communicated the information with his battalion and the air defense artillery fire control officer at the brigade. He watches where friendly and hostile air tracks are going and coming from.
When Parks is given a fire mission, he repeats the transmission which is acknowledged back to him. The mission is also communicated to the designated Patriot crew which validates the information back to the ADAFCO prior to firing.
This verification process only takes few seconds upon which the crew can then fire at the incoming threat.
“For the Army’s side of the house, it’s a function of their command and control channels for dealing with TBM fight,” Runshe said. “Between the three days of scenarios, there was better improvement on the last day with the most difficult scenarios….
