FORT SILL, Okla. (Dec. 4, 2014) -- When there is major military crisis happening in the world, the U.S. president can send Patriot missile units to a host or Coalition nation to show that the United States is dedicated to protecting them. Those deployed units with their air defense artillery officers design missile defense plans to protect the region. The ADA tacticians design courses of actions for the mission commander.
The Army sends its air missile defense tactical officers, mission planners, and trainers to the ADA School's Patriot Top Gun Course, which now in its 10th year, at Fort Sill.
The six-week, graduate-level course covers everything from radar theory to understanding anti-ballistic missile systems to joint and combined integrated missile defense operations.
"The whole intent of the course is to educate those (ADA) leaders and planners to make correct assessments, and to provide their commanders with the right information to make good decisions that will save lives," said Chief Warrant Officer 5 Stacy McNeil, Patriot Top Gun Course manager.
COURSE ORIGINS
The need for a top gun course came about after two Patriot missile friendly fire, or fratricide accidents in 2003, during Operation Iraqi Freedom, McNeil said.
Subsequent investigations revealed that anti-ballistic missile operators needed to be better trained on the workings of their weapons systems, as well as how to better plan defense designs for the Patriot, he said.
Only the most accomplished 1 percent of Army air defenders qualify to attend the Top Gun Course, which is in its 10th year, according to a Northrop Grumman news release. The course is open to promotable first lieutenants, CWO2 and above, and captains. Occasionally majors attend, McNeil said.
"It's not like any other course within the air defense community. All tests and the board are closed book. It takes 90 percent minimum to pass on every test," said McNeil, who was the Top Gun Course distinguished honor graduate in July 2006. "We're at a 47 percent graduation rate."
TOPICS
The course covers not only the Patriot weapon system, but is moving into an integrated missile and air defense system, that includes Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missiles for destroying missiles in space, the Navy's Aegis ballistic missile defense system and the Air Force Airborne Warning and Control System, McNeil said.
These defenses cover threats such as unmanned aerial vehicles, aircraft, Scud-type missiles, cruise missiles, ballistic missiles in space, and the air defenders are able to operate under different regional air defense centers including maritime, McNeil said.
In addition to Army instructors, the course brings in subject matter experts (SMEs) from the other armed forces and the defense industry to teach about their engineering systems, capabilities and operations, McNeil said.
Current Top Gun Course student 1st. Lt. John Moriarity, 4th Battalion, 3rd ADA here, said he took the class to gain a better understanding of the Patriot weapons system, and to go to the next level of planning and execution of missions.He said the academics were rigorous.
"It's probably the most challenging thing I've ever done in my life," said Moriarity, a social sciences major. "I wish I had taken more math classes (at Murray [Ky.] State University)."
Students attended class weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. at Monti Hall. Because much of the coursework was classified, secure study halls were available in the evenings and Saturdays.
Everyone took advantage of the study halls, said student CWO2 Lewis Richardson, 4-3rd ADA tactical director.
FINAL PROJECT
In the fifth week, students worked in pairs to build a missile defense design, McNeil said. The area of operation was determined by the course administrator, and it could be based on a real-world scenario. Designs from the past have included the Middle East, Pacific and European theaters and homeland security.
The students use all the academics they received though the course, as well as their experience from deployments to come up with their design, McNeil said. "They have to take everything in account -- from the intelligence preparation, the environment, the threat analysis."
"The students have a range of freedom to build their defenses however they want, but the biggest key is they have to apply all the principles they've learned," McNeil said.
After the defense is designed, as individuals the Soldier must explain his or her course of action to an expert panel -- similiar to a thesis defense.
The two- to four-hour grueling oral brief is performed before a four-member voting panel of SMEs in tactics, data links and the dynamics of the region. The brief is designed to make the air warrior critically think their way through a difficult problem.
"The students have to be able to think on their feet," McNeil said. "Sometimes we take them off their brief to determine if they really understand what they're trying to brief."
If the panel is split on their votes of a student passing the final, McNeil, who oversees the panel as its president, will make the fifth and deciding vote.
If students do not pass the design project, they are considered attendees of the course, but not graduates, McNeil said. Still, that is an invaluable experience because of the academics learned that the attendees will take back to their units.
TESTIMONIAL
To be the Top Gun Course manager, a Soldier must be a graduate of the course. CWO3 Anthony McCord, graduated from the course in 2010, and he will take over as the course manager in January.
After McCord completed the course as the standardization officer at 3rd Battalion, 2nd Air Defense Artillery here, the unit participated in a successful Standardized Patriot Evaluation and Assessment Reporting. SPEAR is an outside command's evaluation of a unit's air defense abilities. He attributed the unit's high SPEAR scores to the skills that he learned in the Top Gun Course.
"We posted the best results of any SPEAR in over eight years," McCord said. "The next year we topped that."
TOP GUNS RECOGNIZED
Richardson was recognized as the Patriot Top Gun Class No. 001-15 distinguished honor graduate Dec. 2 at Snow Hall. It was the 17th graduating class.
The honor graduate was 1st Lt. Richard Eriksson, 94th Army and Air Missile Defense Command, Fort Shafter, Hawaii, where he is an ADA fire control officer.
In addition to Richardson, Eriksson and Moriarity, the other graduates were 1st Lt. Samuel Korom and CWO3 Noel Del Real.
The Patriot Top Gun attendees were first lieutenants Keagan Callanan, Jon Peterson and Justin Sappington and CWO2 Richard Burton.
Retired ADA Col. Rob Jassey, now a Northrop Grumman missile defense director, was the speaker at the graduation. While he was active duty, Jassey initiated the concept of the Patriot Top Gun Course.
Jassey gave a detailed explanation of why the Top Gun course was created. He was emphatic about how important the defense designer's role is in advising mission commanders. And, despite all the software, hardware and electronics involved in air defense the most important piece of the element is the Soldier.
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