Training takes center stage at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, where Soldiers fire more artillery rounds than all other Army units combined.
While the schoolhouses for artillery and air defense focus on preparing Soldiers, behind the scenes, a team of U.S. Army Aviation and Missile Command professionals ensures the training equipment is always ready for that mission.
“We are an AMCOM team – 154 strong – taking care of the Fires Center of Excellence,” said Norberto Osbourne, the division chief for the AMCOM’s Aviation Center Logistics Command’s Missiles and Fires Division at Fort Sill. The team ensures the training equipment is safe and reliable so Fort Sill can focus on generating the Army’s future force.
The Missile and Fires Division is one of AMCOM’s six Fleet Management Expansion, or FMX sites. Each team is as unique as the training mission it supports. What began as a pilot program 18 years ago, now has lifecycle management commands like AMCOM providing maintenance and logistical support for Training and Doctrine Units across the Army.
AMCOM’s footprint at Fort Sill includes nine facilities throughout the sprawling 94,000-acre installation. The Missile and Fires Division includes teams that support maintenance, quality standardization, logistics and support operations. Several shops line up under the banners of field artillery and air defense artillery to focus on everything from missile and artillery maintenance to the vehicles that haul them.
“AMCOM provides the necessary support to allow Fort Sill to keep its focus on what it does best – training Soldiers,” Osbourne said.
The FMX concept dates back to 2002, when a pilot program realigned the training equipment maintenance mission from the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command to the Army Materiel Command. The goal was to shift maintenance functions to AMC as the Army’s recognized expert for performing maintenance.
Fort Sill’s FMX site was established in 2005 under AMC’s Tank-automotive and Armaments Command, but fully transitioned to AMCOM in 2016.
Besides supporting large systems like the Patriot, Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD), and self-propelled howitzers, the Missiles and Fires Division supports all the associated equipment, like power generation and communication gear. The division even provides maintenance for the Army band and military police, as they serve in support of the installation’s Fires Center of Excellence.
ACLC Commander Col. Rich Martin said AMCOM’s support to training missions like the one at Fort Sill often flies under the radar.
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