Photo By Spc. Kevin Brown | U.S. and NATO senior military leaders pose for a group photo during the European...... read more read more
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TORUN, Poland – The 4th Infantry Division (4th Inf. Div.) attended the European Artillery Rocket Summit with senior U.S. and NATO leaders, and displayed their mobile command post (MCP) during the event from April 17 – 19, 2023.
This summit is the first installment of the European HIMARS Initiative (EHI), which is a V-Corps led effort focused on building alliance lethality, interoperability and field artillery expertise across NATO divisions and corps.
Lt. Gen. John Kolasheski, the V-Corps Commander, stated that this summit is “setting the foundation for precision long-range fires” and provides a holistic approach to sensor to shooter capabilities for our NATO partners. He believes that our ability to “federate our mission networks to conduct email, digital and analog communication” helps us to effectively “fight with joint fires in support of large scale combat operations.”
The presentation of the division's command post at the rocket summit was an opportunity to demonstrate fires technical and procedural interoperability at the division level between U.S. and NATO allies.
“Integrated into the division level operations is their [NATO] understanding of how to fight deep. Where’s the division fight and where’s the brigade fight? And if we’re going to talk division fight, and we’re fighting deep, then HIMARs is a key component of that because of the range and its ability to be part of a multi-domain effects system,” said Col. Damon Wells, the 4th Infantry Division Artillery Brigade Commander.
The HIMARs rocket system shown to the military leaders at the summit helped shape their understanding of how the destruction of enemy forces in the division deep fight results from the synchronization, integration and convergence of division fire’s assets.
During the summit the Ivy Division demonstrated how their swift targeting ability at the division level is based largely on the structure and setup of the command post system. This system helps aid digital collaboration, and encourages fast communication between peer and subordinate units to quickly acquire targets and conduct strikes on the enemy.
By demonstrating this capability to the NATO partners visiting the rocket summit, the 4th Inf. Div. helped encourage collaboration and trust with other nations. Maj. Gen. Cristian-Daniel Dan, Deputy Chief of Romanian Land Force said that “I think we’ve brought interoperability to the next level,” here at the rocket summit, and “it’s amazing, it’s fantastic working together as a team, [how] we are able to make it happen.”
According to Col. Will Hsu, the 75th Fires Artillery Brigade Commander, the most important thing to highlight about the summit is that “our rocket artillery is a critical system and not a single capability. From sensor to shooter to sustainer, if we are able to do that, I think we will be a stronger alliance and a coalition that can deter and fight and win.”
The future development of NATO battle groups and the advancement of division level long-range fires in the Baltics is based on the collective teamwork and mutual trust that originates from events like the European Rocket Artillery Summit.
| Date Taken: | 04.19.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 04.20.2023 02:48 |
| Story ID: | 442869 |
| Location: | TORUN, PL |
| Web Views: | 142 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Ivy Division demonstrates joint fires integration at the NATO European Rocket Artillery Summit, by MAJ Brian Sutherland, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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