Fort Riley, Kansas - - Readiness is every Soldier's priority. The Army must be able to deploy and then transition rapidly to the battlefield environment.
For the Military Intelligence team of the 1st Infantry Division, that readiness requires the ability to use the Distributed Common Ground System-Army (DCGS-A), the flagship system to manage intelligence requirements and disseminate actionable intelligence through all echelons. Developing and maintaining that skill requires training and practice.
When the Army announced the fall 2016 deployment of 1st Infantry Division headquarters to Iraq in support of Operation Inherent Resolve to assume the role of Combined Joint Forces Land Component Command-Iraq, the G-2 team was ready and confident in its use of DCGS-A to meet the demands of situational awareness for leaders in the theater. In that role, the division headquarters will provide command and control of coalition troops training, advising and assisting Iraqi Security Forces.
Lt. Col. Gregory L. Holden, the 1st Infantry Division's G-2, said, "I pushed the use of DCGS-A from day one when I arrived as the G-2. Of course, there were a lot of growing pains particularly with the junior leaders who weren't comfortable with the system." But, Holden said, the division headquarters was heading into the Warfighter 16-4 exercise at the Mission Training Complex and the Victory Village training site at Fort Riley this past April and he intended to use that opportunity to hone his Soldiers' proficiency with the system. "All our intelligence tasks were going to be conducted on DCGS-A." The Warfighter exercise was accomplished using virtual training systems to simulate battlefield conditions.
During that exercise, according to Holden, use of the DCGS-A system enabled his team to quickly and accurately create shared understanding of the battlefield. For example, the division was able to deliver artillery rounds in a decisive action environment in only about a minute from the time the G-2 team obtained sensor data about the target.
In another example, he described how a young specialist used this program of record to correct a misperception in situational awareness during the exercise. "We're in the middle of Warfighter, all sitting side-by-side in one big tent. This young specialist overhears my conversation as I am giving an intelligence briefing to a senior leader. She says, 'Sir, I respectfully disagree with your assessment. I've correlated the data and came up with an alternate course of action.' Turned out she was right," he said.
"It's an exceptional tool," Holden explained, "for our Soldiers to conduct their analysis and provide visualization of the threats and other relevant aspects of the operational environment in time and space. DCGS-A's multi-function work station creates shared understanding for all the intelligence analysts."
The release of new capabilities this summer by the DCGS-A Project Management Office provided the opportunity to generate an even greater actionable intelligence capability. "I pushed up the fielding of the system's Release 2 capabilities to us because of the pending deployment," Holden said. As key leaders transition in and out of the intelligence units, the fielding of the new DCGS-A capabilities provided by Release 2 allowed an excellent opportunity for units to reset the force. "It gives us the opportunity to go back to the 'Old School Army' when NCOs and warrant officers teach Soldiers. The new equipment training allows us to move our proficiencies collectively forward.
The Big Red One intelligence team also utilized the new DCGS-A capabilities during its capstone exercise for its new equipment training and fielding in September. "We uploaded operational data and information from Operation Inherent Resolve as part of the culmination of our training. We held an intelligence exercise to certify leaders and teams on the mission and command modes as we would in theater. We uploaded 60 days of real intelligence data from theater. We used it to facilitate situational understanding in time and space and to provide relevant information that the commander requires to understand, visualize, and describe the operational environment we are going to find ourselves in theater." This experience will be critical to the 1st Infantry Division Headquarters as the G-2 builds the DCGS-A architecture in Iraq.
In addition to practicing with this intelligence family of systems, the 1st Infantry team is collaborating with the 1st Armored Division through a Secret Internet Protocol Router (SIPR) network SharePoint site. "We're sharing lessons learned, leveraging the enterprise, and assuring that we aren't duplicating efforts." The 1st Armored Division Headquarters will follow the 1st Infantry Division Headquarters in its deployment to Iraq. "We are going to set the 1st Armored intel team up for success by sharing OIR data." Two 1st Armored Division intelligence analysts will rotate into the 1st Infantry Division's team during this deployment in order for them to maintain situational understanding of the environment.
Chief Warrant Officer 3 Andrew M. Roche, Collection Management & Dissemination Chief at the 1st Infantry Division Headquarters, described DCGS-A as a "tool set that enables analysis." He said it helps give intelligence Soldiers the fundamental tools for intelligence tasking, processing, exploitation and dissemination. "They don't have to worry about constructing tools to create situational awareness. Instead, they just focus on the analysis." He said the DCGS-A family of systems will significantly aid his young intelligence professionals as they support the significant actionable intelligence demands of ground commanders at all echelons who must make decisions rapidly and accurately.
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