FORT DRUM, N.Y. -- Nearly 300 Soldiers from throughout 1st Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (LI), learned how to call for fire using various lethal assets to effectively take out targets during the brigade fire support coordination exercise April 16-27 in a Fort Drum training area.
"This allows members of the brigade combat team to employ as many fire support assets as possible," said Maj. Stephen Wuensche, 1st BCT fire support officer.
Each Soldier was given a scenario and properly called in fire from various weapon systems.
F-16 fighter jets and AH-64 Apache and OH-58 Kiowa Warrior helicopters provided close-air support and close-combat support. Soldiers with 3rd Battalion, 6th Field Artillery Regiment fired 120 mm rounds from their M-119A2 howitzers, and 1st BCT mortar men fired 80 mm and 60 mm hand-held mortars.
"The purpose of bringing in folks who aren't normally going to conduct fire support is to get them familiar with the weapons systems and the effects they provide on the battlefield as well as the skills necessary to communicate with them," Wuensche said.
Within the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force, there is a shortage of qualified forward observers and joint terminal attack controllers, so Sgt. Steven McGee, a joint forward observer with 1st BCT's Combat Observation and Lasing Team, said he believes fire support knowledge is essential for every Soldier.
"In future deployments, the odds are there will not be enough forward observers, so we are teaching everyone how to do it in case a situation comes where they need to call for fire," McGee said. "Everyone needs to be familiar with this."
Although for many this was their first time calling fires, the Soldiers took to the training well.
"We got a lot of positive responses from people who came out," Wuensche said. "Even folks who have done it before in combat on multiple occasions are giving us positive feedback that the training is well integrated in terms of bringing together the close-air support, the attack helicopters and the indirect fire."
Not only did this training benefit the Soldiers who participated, but members of the 1st BCT COLT were able to hone their skills as well.
"It's all perishable skills," Wuensche said. "If you don't come out here and you don't exercise it, your skills can become rusty. So this has also been a good training event for our (forward observers) who do this fulltime. ... They get to sharpen their skill set, because we brought in close-air support and attack aviation that they don't normally get a chance to train on."
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