Fort Carson, Colo. -- Readiness for ground combat is the Army's number one priority, and actionable intelligence is an integral part of that readiness equation.
As a regionally-aligned force to the European theater, the intelligence mission of the 4th Infantry Division has a conventional warfare focus which must provide its commanders situational awareness of a technologically-advanced battlefield and complex threat.
To meet that mission, the 4th Infantry Division's G-2 team uses the Distributed Common Ground System-Army (DCGS-A) as its intelligence analysis and fusion tool. DCGS is the Army's intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance family of systems for the processing, exploitation, and dissemination of information and intelligence data across echelons.
Chief Warrant Officer Three Angelina Oliva, the targeting warrant officer for the divisions' Analysis and Control Element, said DCGS-A is critical to the 4th ID in creating the common intelligence picture with the 66th Military Intelligence Brigade and share data with that staff. The 66th Military Intelligence Brigade produces predictive all-source intelligence in support of U.S. Army Europe and serves as the backbone USAEUR's intelligence corps. She said "DCGS-A helps us shape and grow our data management. We can share our workflows with divisional elements forward and with the 66th."
The G-2 team's use of DCGS-A has been an ongoing evolution through recent exercises. During a warfighter exercise in January 2016 at Fort Carson, the 4th ID G-2 team used the full suite of DCGS-A tools to establish the entity management process for the high volume of data received during the Decisive Action training event. An entity is any characteristic you wish to track in the database such as equipment, vehicle, place or person. The G-2 team would take the entity data generated during messaging and would export the data into other useable formats for DCGS-A. This data transformation allowed them to manage the volumes of data created through messaging.
The lessons learned and enhanced intelligence methodologies that the 4th Infantry refined during that warfighter exercise led to use of DCGS-A at the large international exercise in Poland this summer called Anakonda 2016. Anakonda is one of U.S. Army Europe's premier multinational training events and one in which Polish forces integrate their forces into an allied, joint, and multinational environment. The 4th Infantry Division Headquarters led the U.S. Army's training in live fire, command post, field training, cyber and electronic warfare exercises.
"We made DCGS-A part of our mission requirements during the Anakonda exercise. There was no better place to test capabilities and validate the effort that has gone into our use of DCGS-A," explained Oliva.
The 4th'Infantry's Mission Command Element (MCE) took on the role of using DCGS-A for the tactical intelligence over watch of the regional activities throughout the Anakonda 2016 exercise. The G-2 Fusion Section of the MCE collaborated with the 66th Military Intelligence Brigade and developed the intelligence products which provided the situational awareness of the adversarial activities surrounding the exercise.
Staff Sgt. Michael J. Wilkinson, senior all-source analyst, served as the non-commissioned officer in charge of the Analysis and Control Element Forward. "We leveraged DCGS-A and were very methodical in its use. It's how our common intelligence picture got produced."
Specialist Austin D. Lee, targeting analyst, said the system cut down the amount of time completing tasks utilizing the Threat Characteristics Work Center. "It was able to ingest large amounts of data for the enemy order of battle and share them as well."
One drawback was that DCGS-A couldn't be used as part of the exercise because the family of systems needs further security approvals for connections with the Polish Mission Network, according to Wilkinson and would like to see this family of systems compatible with NATO systems one day. But, he said, DCGS-A does allow him to validate all his reporting to USAEUR.
The G-2 team also uses the system to create data bases for continuity's sake because there is always a lot of turnover at the tactical level. "The server can create multiple data bases so we can essentially create a local copy." Sometimes, he says, conflicting information finds its way into the data base so partitioning data cuts down on corrupted information for us."
Oliva says the 4th Infantry Division's success with DCGS-A and its intelligence weapon system of choice is based on three key elements. "First, she said, "we have a leadership emphasis that makes it our priority. DCGS-A is our system of record not just at the division but at brigade and battalion as well. Second, we have ownership… analysts, technicians, and maintainers are all incorporating DCGS-A into our way of doing business. And finally, there is training. We continuously train on the systems and tools to ensure the team is well resourced to accomplish the intelligence tasks in support of our mission."
The primary desire for new DCGS-A capabilities for the 4th Infantry Division's Intelligence team is that of its use at the battalion level. Those improvements they seek revolve around bandwidth and network access. "Units forward need to put their pieces of information into the bottom-up reporting process for an accurate refinement of the common intelligence picture," emphasized Wilkinson.
Col. Robert Collins, the DCGS-A Project Manager, said his staff at Aberdeen Proving Ground, Md., has the solutions for battalion-level users as top priorities. The DCGS-A program team is currently assessing non-developmental, commercial-off-the-shelf technologies to improve usability, bandwidth and enhanced expeditionary operations within the coming year.
-end-
Social Sharing