Lieutenant Colonel Vonnie Wright: All right, General Carpenter, if you're ready to go, I'll go ahead and proceed, sir. Good morning. This is Lieutenant Colonel Vonnie Wright from the Army Public Affairs Office. I'll be moderating today's interview. Today we have a wealth of knowledge on this panel for you. On the panel today we have Brigadier General Stephen P. Carpenter, Multidomain Command Europe's Commanding General; Command Sergeant Major Caleb C. Webster, Senior Enlisted Advisor of Multidomain Command Europe; Colonel Jeff Pickler, Second Multidomain Task Force and Deputy Commander of the 56th Multidomain Camp Command Europe. We also have Colonel Jeff Fuller, G3 Operations Chief. We have Sergeant First Class Caleb Ayers, Dynamic Front Exercise Planner. All of these fires professionals are available for questions during this media roundtable.
Let's just start with the ground rules here. Before we get started, just a quick reminder pertaining to this morning's discussion. This interview is established to highlight Dynamic Front as the premier U.S. Army fires and interoperability exercise within Europe. This exercise demonstrates how the exercise supports broader Army and theater transformation efforts. This discussion will also amplify NATO readiness, integration, and deterrence. I'd ask that you please keep your questions focused accordingly. As always, should you have questions beyond the scope of today's discussion, this Army Communications and Outreach Office will be ready to respond to queries after this interview.
We are on the record today with comments attributable to each panel member by name. Feel free to record this discussion, although a transcript will be also made available to all of you. Following General Carpenter's and the panel's remarks, especially General Carpenter's opening remarks, I will be moderating questions and follow-on remarks. You may have one question, and I will ask if you have one follow-up. If time permits, I will circle back for another round of questioning. Please wait to be called upon. I'll just give a reminder when we only have time for one more question, or if something is severely out of scope. Ensure your phone or device is on mute when you are not communicating. We have allotted one hour this morning, so we are scheduled to end at 12 p.m. Eastern or 1800 Central European Time, pending General Carpenter's discretion. Pending any questions, I'll go ahead and turn it over to General Carpenter for his opening statement. Sir, please, the floor is yours.
Brigadier General Steven Carpenter: Ladies and gentlemen, first of all, I just want to say that we really appreciate your time. We know it's valuable. As was mentioned, my name is Steve Carpenter. I'm the Commanding General of the 56th Multidomain Command Europe. That is the senior multidomain fires headquarters in Europe, and we're responsible for integrating and synchronizing all domain fires for the land component here in Europe. That's air, that's land, that's sea, that's cyber, that's space, and that includes the joint force and multinational forces as well. I'll also say that when I say all domain, I mean that's offense and that's defense. That's to stop missiles from coming in, but also to destroy the things that an adversary has within their capability that could destroy us.
Dynamic Front is our all domain capstone fires exercise. What it allows us to do is, one, rehearse the regional plans here in Europe, but also advance initiatives aligned with the Eastern Flank Deterrence Line. It also allows us to rehearse what we call our theater wide all domain kill chain with our NATO allies and partners. Exercises like this are important because if we're going to outpace a peer enemy, if we're going to create dilemmas for a peer enemy, if we're going to create an experience for an enemy that absolutely overwhelms them, we need to be able to do a few things.
First, we need to be able to intercept, defeat 600 to 1200 ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and long range one way attack drones every 24-hour period. At the same time, we need to be able to develop, maintain custody, and pass a minimum of 1,500 targets during that same 24-hour period, so that we can actually partner with a joint force. And again, regardless of theater, but specific to Europe, we can counter multiple A2AD anti-access/area denial bubbles, and then also delay, disrupt, and destroy the enemy maximum momentum advantage that they will have at conflict onset. The way we do this and within this command is we have to have the ability to harvest, to collect information intelligence from space, high altitude, aerial, and terrestrial sensors. We need to be able to transport that information to a common cloud, a cloud where our NATO partners and allies can actually access it. We need to optimize artificial intelligence and machine learning to truly get information from any sensor to the best possible headquarters to shoot that munition. And again, that could be U.S., that could be multinational, that could be the joint force. So we're really looking forward to answering your questions about what I just spoke about, talk about the role of Multidomain Command Europe here in Europe, and obviously talk about what we're doing to advance our capability on the European continent. Pending your questions.
LTCVW: Sir, I appreciate that. We'll begin with our first question from Mr. Dominic Minadeo from Inside Defense. Do you have a question, sir?
Dominic Minadeo: Hey, yeah, thanks for doing this. I wonder if we can go a little bit more specific into how you assess the command and control interoperability aspect of the exercise. It might be helpful if you have a specific example of how you managed fire coordination across distances or borders, you know, taking that data from space. It might be helpful to sort of visualize how you're working that problem set. Thanks.
BGSC: This is General Carpenter. I'll start. So that's a great question. So what was unique about this exercise is it actually involved 23 different NATO nations that were operating across five different countries in nine different training areas and multiple command posts. So when I talk about exercising the network or, you know, as we say in the all-domain fires community, the kill chain or kill web, really what we're talking about is, one, making sure that all nations have access to information, that we have a transport layer. And what I mean by transport layer is whether we're communicating through satellite or constellations and ground stations or very high frequency or high frequency means, or in some cases, units that are in close proximity to each other through direct line-of-sight communications that we're able to effectively communicate.
What was special about this exercise is Multinational Corps Southeast, which is based in Romania, and their subordinate elements, they actually participated in this digital sustainment training or this exercising, rehearsing of the theater-wide kill web during the months prior to this exercise. So they were able to deploy these five different countries, nine different training areas, and establish the fires architecture, the fires network, in a very short period of time. To be specific, in about one-sixth of the time in some of the previous exercises that we've done. And again, I think that points to the unity, the determination of NATO right now. You know, obviously, we're laser-focused on building readiness so that we can defend every single inch of NATO land. And obviously, we need to get the integrated air missile defense and long-range fires fight networked and capable in order to do that. Does that answer your question?
DM: Yeah, that's great. Thanks. And shifting a little bit, I have a quick follow-up. So the release mentioned next year combining Arcane Thunder and Dynamic Front into one exercise. Can you talk a little bit about what that might look like, what the main focus will be there, and sort of the driving reasoning behind, you know, scaling up and integrating those?
BGSC: Yeah, thanks. That's a great question. Yeah, we're going to combine the Dynamic Front and Arcane Thunder exercises. One, it creates efficiencies. You know, obviously, when you're looking at, you know, Secretary Driscoll's key priorities, you know, we're trying to drive down any inefficiencies or any waste we may have. And when we look at our exercise program, in order to get after what I said in my opening comments, in order to get after all domain fires by combining all the, you know, Arcane Thunder and Dynamic Front, one, it will drive down costs in terms of transportation. That's an easy one. But also, instead of just being focused on offensive fires, it allows us to focus on both offensive and defensive fires. That is what I just mentioned, the joint attacks that occur against an adversary, as well as our ability to stop the adversary from impacting us through protection. But it also allows us to include the air component, the maritime component, space, cyber, and obviously information. So, again, by combining those, we can truly rehearse the all-domain fires architecture versus focusing almost exclusively on offensive fires architecture.
DM: All right. Thank you very much.
LTCVW: Ms. Jen Judson from Bloomberg, do you have a question, ma'am?
Jen Judson: I do. First, I wanted to ask, you know, how did Dynamic Front, you know, help you better understand what the U.S. Army needs for artillery capability in Europe? I mean, I know that the Army has been assessing this, but in exercising this with, you know, the other NATO partners--allies and partners, you know, how is that taking shape in terms of what you know you need in the European theater?
BGSC: Yeah. Thanks, Ms. Judson. Well, I think the first thing that we do, and, you know, you can see it play out, you know, coming out of the last NATO conference, the NATO, you know, all 32 nations committing to, you know, the 5% to build capability and infrastructure. What Dynamic Front allows us to do is to look at the differences in capabilities across the NATO corps, across the different national land forces, and then honestly address it through either technology or, you know, just producing, you know, more equipment at scale. But again, I can kind of go back to, you know, the Eastern Flank Deterrence Line and how we're advancing initiatives like that. When we identify capability gaps during exercise like Dynamic Front, we're able to actually feed information or provide feedback to one of our Army's national priorities, which is continuous transformation.
And really, the EFDL, the Eastern Flank Deterrence Line, that's our way of operationalizing this transformation. And we'll do it in a lot of different ways. You know, obviously, with technology and the advances of technology and being able to rapidly scale that technology and get it out to the force at time of need is important, but also to look across NATO and understand, hey, what are the capability gaps that we would have against a peer adversary, and then how do we close those gaps at optimized cost and at maximum scale? So, again, every repetition we get, we can go ahead and evaluate ourselves, you know, and that's in terms of not just kinetic capability, but our ability to collect and maybe some national gaps that exist, but also our infrastructure and how are we able to communicate at speed and scale to ensure that all nations, all cores across the alliance have all the information they need to optimize their warfighting.
JJ: Okay. And just to ask a broader question on the Eastern Flank Deterrence Line, you know, what more have you learned about what's needed for that through this exercise? And you mentioned capability gaps. Can you talk about any of those that you have identified through this effort?
BGSC: I won't talk about specific capability gaps, but you can imagine, you know, as I mentioned, we're seeing it play out in Ukraine, parts of Russia. We're seeing it play out in different parts of the world, even on our southern border. The proliferation of one-way attack drones or surveillance drones, the proliferation of the electromagnetic spectrum, electronic warfare, and the interference that that can occur. You know, ultimately, you know, what we'll do is we'll look to develop more advanced, again, you know, the Western world develops, you know, incredible systems against, you know, collect against kinetic action, you know, non-kinetic action, but to develop a force where we have even more capable unmanned decoys, high altitude and aerial collection platforms, both terrestrial and aerial platforms that can go ahead and affect the electromagnetic spectrum, and then obviously long range interceptors and kinetic strike systems. We'll always look to field, you know, at speed and scale based on the technology that we're seeing out there.
You know, I've heard it referred to by some as it's kind of, you know, if you've seen the movie Moneyball, right? We want to replicate the best capabilities at speed and scale that are going to give us the best opportunities to win in large scale conflict. So, again, that's what exercises like this allow us to do. That's what constant evaluation of, you know, capabilities that are required on the Eastern Flank Deterrence Line. And again, if you don't mind me pointing out, the Eastern Flank Deterrence Line is not a line. It is a layered defense, layered deterrence, all domain deterrence that demonstrates NATO's commitment to defending every inch of NATO, not just the eastern flank.
JJ: Okay. Thank you so much.
LTCVW: Real quick, this is Lieutenant Colonel Wright, just quick housekeeping here. We have from Janes just entered the chat not too long ago, Miss Meredith Roaten. And can I have the 352-317-3647 phone number, please, Identify yourself, please.
Eve Sampson: Hi, yes, my name is Eve Sampson, and I'm from Military Times.
LTCVW: Yes, thank you. I appreciate you for coming, just communicated with you. Now, moving right along, Ms. Meghann Myers from Defense One, do you have a question, ma'am?
Meghann Myers: I do, thank you. I wanted to ask what some of the feedback you're bringing to the Army and to the larger fires enterprise about capabilities that you're going to need going forward and how you want to test those out, either the capabilities or different scenarios next year in this new merged exercise.
BGSC: So in terms of the, you know, again, we're a theater fires command, so we're obviously focused on setting conditions for the NATO corps. So the types of feedback we'd be providing is basically really from the lessons we're learning in Ukraine and other places around the world about the requirement to always look at how can we create munitions that have the electromagnetic hardening required based on what we're seeing in Ukraine, and then getting that out to the defense industrial base to ensure that they can go ahead and create that capability and compete for those contracts. You know, what we've seen in Ukraine is, you know, you've heard of drone dominance. So at our level, while we can expect and have tactical drone forces in battalions and brigades and divisions, you know, for the CFLC, for the multi-core land component command, we're really focused on an operational drone force, looking at, again, delaying, disrupting, and destroying operational reserve forces and strategic forces. So we're looking at longer range, greater capability. And obviously, when you talk about unmanned systems, you know, we're going to look at improved weaponry in terms of net explosive, their ability to affect a target. So again, at our level, we're looking at that.
But, you know, over in Bavaria, Germany, you've got our joint multinational readiness sensor. They're focused on the tactical. What's great about, you know, Europe, what's great about Germany is they allow us to test on things that we probably wouldn't be able to do a lot of places around the world. So we're providing that feedback from the tactical. And then at our level, the operational strategic level on how we can best be capable to affect, again, not just strategic targets, operational targets, and the operational deep, but also the tactical targets. And, you know, one of the things that we try and stress to the Army and to the Department of War is that all of these capabilities that we're developing in Europe, they're exportable anywhere. And if you look at the NATO alliance, and I know there's the Pacific four as well, you know, those are the nations that tend to go into conflict with us when we see that there's a threat to our national interest.
LTCVW: Thank you. All right. Ms. Myers, do you have a follow-up?
MM: I don't. Thank you.
LTCVW: Okay. From Breaking Defense, Ms. Carley Welch, do you have a question?
Carley Welch: Yes, I do. Thank you, General, for being here. So I can imagine that, you know, with all these different NATO countries and partners and allies, integrating the C2 systems with the fires can be kind of challenging, especially if you have different C2 systems. So can you kind of talk about the challenges that you faced in connecting all of these systems and kind of how you plan to move forward so this isn't a problem anymore?
BGSC: I'll start off and then just to give Colonel Jeff Fuller, our operations officer, some time to think. I'll kick it to him and he can kind of talk about the exercise specifically. You know, when I talk to land forces commanders and corps commanders, you know, I always tell them that when it comes to our interoperability, our ability to connect, there is no magic powder. You know, this magic that we're looking for is found in the work that we have not done. And at the end of the day, we have seen incredible success over the last year with the NATO corps that participate in our exercise program, our digital sustainment training. They get repetition. You know, you guys are around the military a lot. You probably heard the term repetition breeds mastery. By getting repetition, identifying the gaps and then rapidly closing gaps, by getting repetition at, you know, if we have different systems, fire support systems, getting repetition of getting the approvals, the ASCA agreements to ensure that we can communicate, you know, that pays large dividends.
And at the end of the day, if we're constantly rehearsing warfighting together, when it becomes time for conflict, they're ready to go and they're able to connect rapidly. So, again, just like there's language barriers, you know, folks are using different operating systems. They have different capabilities in terms of their abilities to access the transport layer, how information receives. But if you get repetition, we can identify what those gaps are and we can close them rapidly. Now, if you don't mind, and I'll take a follow-on if you have it based on what I said. I'd like Colonel Jeff Fuller to talk about some of the successes that we had during Dynamic Front and the reason for those successes.
Colonel Jeff Fuller: Sir, thank you. Team. Colonel Jeff Fuller, the G3 operations officer for the 56th Multidomain Command Europe. When we look at what we accomplished in this year's Dynamic Front execution, we had six different federated mission networks. That means six different national networks all working together to provide the foundation for the kill chain, the kill web that supported the exercise. And as you can imagine, every nation owns their own federated mission network. And along with that comes their, you know, respective cybersecurity rules. For the same reason I couldn't take my laptop into Microsoft headquarters and plug it in and expect it to work right away, there are the same considerations any time we're establishing those network connections across nations. And so it involves a lot of work, sometimes a lot of preplanning, and definitely requires a lot of trust. But we know that always exists.
So one of the accomplishments this year, and General Carpenter alluded to it earlier, is that throughout the year, and especially in the quarter leading up to this exercise, we've been running a digital sustainment training event called Dynamic Quest that allows us to make those connections, establish those networks early and ahead of time, really just as part of the readiness that we need within NATO, within the European theater at any time. But also to make sure we're setting the right conditions for this exercise. And what that allowed us to do, as mentioned, is we cut down the time it took to bring everybody together, establish the network connections, and connect all of our systems. We reduced that time by, you know, we did it in one-sixth of the time it took us in previous exercises. So it really demonstrates not just the commitment to this training event, but I would say the overall commitment of NATO and the allies that make up NATO to having that readiness established all the time, not just for an exercise.
LTCVW: Carley, do you have a follow up by chance?
CW: I do not right now. Thank you.
LTCVW: No problem. Moving on to Mr. Chris Panella from Business Insider. Do you have a question, sir?
Chris Panella: Hey, I do. Thank you all for doing this. I'm wondering if you all can talk more about the AI machine learning component, how it was used with sensors, what capabilities are being worked with, and then kind of what challenges or opportunities with that were examined during Dynamic Front. Thanks.
BGSC: Yeah, you know, we've got our second multi-domain task force commander here, and his team has done phenomenal things developing in-house solutions for artificial intelligence and machine learning. So I'm going to go ahead and kick it to him so we can talk about what his team's up to.
Colonel Jeff Pickler: Hey, Chris, this is Jeff Pickler. Yeah, so you're absolutely right. I mean, AI is the key here, and General Carpenter hit it out front. But, like, if we're looking at a target set in the European theater where we think we're going to need to process upwards of 1,500 targets a day, that's beyond the human scope. The answer to the equation there is AI and automation. And so, you know, what we're looking at is the requirement we see is an ability to discover, develop, prosecute, and assess those 1,500 targets every day during large-scale combat operations. So we've got some projects in-house that we're developing to allow essentially agentic processes and automation to do just that. You know, the modern battlefield, what we're already seeing across the globe, it is swimming in sensors and we are drowning in data. And there is not enough people that we could stuff in a headquarters or a command post that will ever be able to fully process all of that. It's going to take automations.
And so what we're looking to do is develop--we have an in-house system that we're developing that actively consumes that data and then provides solutions at scale. And to go back to one of the previous questions that was asked about the value of combining Arcane Thunder and Dynamic Front is that is going to allow us to do just that. So Arcane Thunder the last few years has been kind of the premier multi-domain task force annual exercise focused on testing, innovating, and experimenting. So now we're going to take that same spirit of exercise, testing, innovating, experimenting, and applying it with the mission rehearsal aspect that is Dynamic Front to then combine those and then test this out. So this is some new systems and processes that we're literally still in beta developing right now. But by the time we kick this exercise off again next year, the intent will be that we are fully automated in a lot of these processes and validating that this system can work. And the beauty of it is as you combine these exercises, innovation is not exclusive to the United States. So as we partner with our allies and start doing this at scale in actual exercises, we're all going to collectively get better. Does that answer your question?
CP: Yeah. Can I ask a quick follow-up?
LTCVW: Absolutely. Go ahead, Chris.
CP: So I'm just curious, how do you train the AI model for this or models? And are there things that come up where you need to sit back down and retrain it, or has it been successful so far?
CJP: Chris, I'm going to be honest, it's actually been pretty successful. But we're still iterating on it. So, I mean, have we had to retool some things? Absolutely. So as we build this out, we've still got a number of steps in the process where humans remain in the loop that kind of do a check on work, right? And so we're trying to get to a point where we get a certain percentage of human concurrence that we think, okay, this model--this program that we're developing is right in line with, if I were to take 100 target sets and push it through the system, it's going to come out with about between 90 to 95% concurrence if I did that same target set and put it in a room with a bunch of analysts. Does that make sense?
CP: Yeah. Thank you so much.
LTCVW: Well, everybody, before we go to Meredith Roaten from Janes, I just want to remind everyone who you just heard from was Colonel Jeff Pickler, the second multi-domain task force and deputy commander of the 56th Multi-Domain Command Europe. And with that being said, Ms. Meredith from Janes, do you have a question, ma'am?
Meredith Roaten: Thank you.
LTCVW: Absolutely.
MR: I wanted to ask about the 3rd Battalion 12th Artillery. So this is a relatively new unit, as I understand it, that was set up. Did this unit have any special role in Dynamic Front? And can you talk about that? And if not, can you talk about kind of how that unit is coming together? Thanks.
BGSC: Yeah, thanks for that question. Yeah, so 3rd Battalion 12th Field Artillery, in terms of manning, is manned at over 90%. And we are getting some of the best and finest soldiers in that formation because it is an exclusive formation. It is the long-range fires battalion for the 56th Multidomain Command Europe. And they will be ATACMS capable, PrSM capable, as well as Tomahawk and hypersonic capable upon their complete fielding. And again, our goal is once they're completely fielded and trained to get them to Europe, either on a rotational basis or permanently.
MR: And I was wondering, since that's not fully fielded yet, kind of what are some of the challenges that you face in sort of waiting for that to come out? And, you know, what will be the significance when that is fully fielded for the entire 56th? Thanks.
BGSC: Well, we have light capability available for the theater. The biggest challenge with 3-12 Field Artillery is that they're across the Atlantic Ocean. But we just have to make sure that we adjust to the time zones and get leadership over to 3-12 Field Artillery. They're very well led. They're very well led. Their battalion commander, Derek Bartlett, is doing a phenomenal job. And honestly, their demographic--you all that have been around the military, their demographic is different. You know, 75% of the formation is coming right out of AIT, basic training and AIT. Where the multi-domain command here in Europe, we have a lot of seasoned individuals, senior non-commissioned officers, senior warrant officers, senior officers that have been exercising within their specialty for years. So, again, it's a unique formation. It's an exciting formation. It's the formation that soldiers are fighting to get into at a basic training and AIT. And we're just excited to start getting them over here.
I'll also say this. You know, I mentioned they're over 90% filled. You know, we had a tactical operations, or I'm sorry, a forward node from 3-12 that participated in Dynamic Front. So they were able to be a part of and exercise this theater-wide kill web I talk about.
MR: Is it possible to say what that node did in the exercise or what their role was?
BGSC: Within the simulation, they commanded and controlled their formations, and they processed surface-to-surface long-range fire missions.
LTCVW: All right. We’ll go to Mr. Matt Beinart from Access Intel, do you have a question, sir?
Matt Beinart: I do, thank you. I wanted to follow up on the C2 question from a few minutes ago. But, you know, as you worked on the integration piece of Dynamic Front with the other countries, was there any aspect of the kind of ongoing Next Gen Command and Control effort that obviously the prototyping is kind of going on right now in nascent stages? Was any aspect of that, you know, was there an intent to kind of work on that with Dynamic Front? And if not, you know, were there any, you know, gaps or things that you kind of discovered that you'd still want to work on that could be fed back in to NGC2? Thank you.
BGSC: So you were all probably tracking, 4th Infantry Division is the lead for the United States Army in terms of Next Generation C2. Well, we definitely inform that as well as, you know, industry. You know, we're more focused on, as I mentioned, you know, the fires architecture, this theater-wide kill web, and understanding the different capabilities of the NATO corps and the 32 independent nations that make up NATO so that we can close those gaps. And again, some nations, more developed nations, they're able to access satellite constellations all the way to line of sight and everything in between, very high frequency, high frequency. And they have more advanced systems. Some do not. So how do we close those gaps? But I'd say in terms of Next Generation C2, we are not the lead on that for the Army, but we definitely inform and are in contact with 4th Infantry Division and their commanding general, Pat Ellis.
MB: Appreciate that. So just as a quick follow-up then, does that mean like there's a formal, you know, post-Dynamic Front sort of engagement, you know, with General Ellis and 4th ID more broadly to kind of feed in some of those lessons learned? Like, is there a kind of formal aspect to that?
BGSC: I'm not sure exactly what you mean by formal. Maybe you mean like a conference or like a formalized discussion?
MB: Yeah.
BGSC: You know, I would just say that, you know, we inform the Army. We do that a lot of ways from General Donohue having direct discussions with the chief of staff to the deputy commanding generals, you know, communicating on different lessons learned and things that have worked. We do forums, warfighting forums, everything from aviation, maneuver, fires. In this case, mission command warfighting forums. And during those times, that's when we share with the Army our lessons learned. But there's a much more rapid, I don't want to call it formal, but informal process that allows us to inform industry. And you've probably seen, you know, there at the Pentagon and then across all major commands, you know, we've now stood up this, you know, data teams. I think about every Army service component. Excuse me. Every Army service component has a chief technical officer that has a staff to make sure that, you know, that collaboration is consistent and real time.
MB: Got it. Thank you.
LTCVW: Okay. Moving on to Stars and Stripes. Ms. Shatyra Cox, do you have a question, ma'am? Ms. Cox, can you--do you have a question, ma'am, from Stars and Stripes?
Shatyra Cox: I’m sorry. Can you hear me?
LTCVW: I can hear you now. Do you have a question, ma'am? Go ahead.
SC: No question. Thank you.
LTCVW: Okay. No problem, ma'am.Moving on to Mr. Luis Martinez from ABC. Do you have a question, sir?
Luis Martinez: Yes, I have two. First, if I could follow up to the capabilities of the 3-12. You mentioned there that it's going to be Tomahawk capable. What kind of launcher are they going to be training on? Is it going to be the Marines old LRF or is it going to be the MCR?
BGSC: It's going to be the mid-range capability.
LM: That's right, the MRC. Sorry. So do you have that capability in theater right now?
BGSC: I completely understand your question, but what I'm not going to do is, I just can't talk about specific capabilities and where they exist globally.
LM: Understood. My initial question was going to be about this. How does this all fit into NATO's Eastern Sentry? Because some of the nations, obviously I'm pretty certain that all the nations that participated in this exercise make up a part of Eastern Sentry, which has been described as being a holistic, comprehensive defense system. How does this inform that and how does Eastern Sentry inform what you did?
BGSC: So, our headquarters is not the lead headquarters that runs Eastern Sentry, but really Eastern Sentry's organization is aligned with the Eastern Flank Deterrence Line. That's to rehearse using multiple sensors, layered sensors, that's passive, that's active. And then one-way attack interceptors. And again, a lot of that learning from what we're seeing in Ukraine and trying to employ those types of technologies, both in terms of sensors, passive and active, as well as interceptors. And right now, Eastern Sentry is oriented predominantly on defensive fires. But as I mentioned, we are merging the offensive and defensive fires kill chain. So we're learning from Eastern Sentry and understanding how can we better integrate the offensive and defensive fires kill chains.
I'll also say Eastern Sentry is more of a tactical defense. But within the EFDL, we'll talk tactical. So interceptors of one-way attack drones, potentially up to cruise missiles. But also operational defense and offense, which is the realm that we operate in within this command, in terms of intercepting short-range ballistic missiles, intermediate-range ballistic missiles, and higher. Well, higher would be strategic. And then obviously long-range systems, surface-to-surface and joint systems to impact the operational need.
LM: Thank you. And if I could ask one more. In your opening remarks, you mentioned the capability of bringing down 600 to 1200 incoming attack fires and on the offensive side, being able to target 1500. Can you tell us how you get to those numbers? Is that something historical? Is that your top-line capability? Why those specific numbers?
BGSC: So the 600 to 1200 is what we have seen play out in Ukraine. Just the capability of, in this case, Russia, one of our peer adversaries. But the current threat in Eastern Europe. So we understand that there is a capability to surge that. We also understand that we need to look at not transforming to parity, but we want to transform to dominance. And that's important here. The reason we're setting goals like 1500 targets a day, on top of what we're already doing, right? Already approved air attack plans and ground targets. But by transforming to dominance, we want to build a capability within the United States, within NATO, that if a peer adversary decides to aggress into NATO territory or the territory of another ally or the United States, that the repercussions will be so extreme, create an experience for them that is so unrelenting, that no nation ever considers doing that again.
LM: Thank you.
LTCVW: Moving on to Military Times, Eve Sampson. Do you have a question, ma'am?
Eve Sampson: Hi, yes. My question is, did this exercise include any new long-range fire systems or other capabilities being introduced to Europe for the first time?
BGSC: I'll kick that one to Operations Officer. I would say in terms of new capabilities or capabilities, this wasn't one of the exercises that we experiment in. Jeff Pickler mentioned Arcane Thunder and Neptune Eagle. During those, we do a lot of experimentation. And then at the tactical level at the Joint Multinational Ready Center, we do a lot of experimentation. I will say this, and I'll let Jeff Fuller to expound on it as much as he wants to. While there's no new capabilities introduced, there were nations that were firing or utilizing capabilities, and again, that could be collection sensors, that could be command and control equipment, or it could be surface-to-surface shooters. There were nations that utilized that equipment for the first time live during this exercise. I'll kick it to Colonel Jeff Fuller.
CJF: Yes, ma'am. Colonel Jeff Fuller, G3. Again, as General Carpenter mentioned, there's not a lot of new capabilities to the feeder that were brought into this. But in terms of new capabilities to some of our allies, we got to see some of the first operational use during this training event--Poland with their HIMARS. We saw France and Romania both bring in some new sensor capabilities that they hadn't previously utilized in Dynamic Front before. Again, one of the reasons we're merging Arcane Thunder with Dynamic Front in the future is Arcane Thunder is really the cutting-edge capability and experimentation exercise. And so, we understand the need to combine that with the warfighting training that goes on during Dynamic Front. But typically, Dynamic Front has all been about current state of readiness and training to be better, more efficient with the capabilities that we have now so we're ready at a moment's notice as we continue to work on and experiment with those new capabilities, if that answers your question.
ES: Yeah, that was great. Thank you.
LTCVW: Ms. Eve, do you have a follow-up?
ES: You answered this a little bit, but if there's anything else you can add, what was operationally different this year compared to previous iterations?
BGSC: Ma'am, are you talking just specifically about Dynamic Front?
ES: Yes.
BGSC: If I could speak, you know, generally, one, I'd say commitment, unity, competence. And again, I know that those aren't specifics, but those are critical intangibles. The commitment of the NATO corps, in this case, Multinational Corps Southeast, ahead of the exercise to fully prepare itself and to drive readiness within all the subordinate organizations they were going to command during this exercise was unprecedented. And again, I think we've gotten better every year since February 2022, and there's a great reason for that, because, you know, you have a unified NATO that understands that there is a real threat out there in Europe and really NATO as a whole globally. But I'd say that right there, just the fact that we're unified, the commitment, and then obviously the level of confidence that the NATO formations came in with was higher than in past years. I'm going to kick it to Jeff Fuller again. He is probably one of our most seasoned leaders. He's actually been here for the last four Dynamic Fronts. He can provide more detail. But just to remind everybody, we had soldiers from 23 different nations scattered all across Europe for this exercise. And again, their ability to establish their fires architecture in the time that they did, it was unprecedented from what we've seen in past exercises. Jeff, I'll kick it to you.
CJF: Yes, sir. Right on the nose there, in terms of the realism of this Dynamic Front compared to previous, in terms of command and control structure that were used and trained during this event, starting with NATO LANDCOM in Izmir, Turkey, to Multinational Corps Southeast in Sibiu, Romania, along with Multinational Division Southeast, and then three regionally aligned fires brigades to include the 8th Romanian Field Artillery Brigade, the 69th Romanian Field Artillery Regiment, and then our U.S. Rotational Unit, the 3rd Infantry Division, Division Artillery Headquarters, all participated and they utilized a current regional plan to conduct this training. And when you look at that compared to past iterations of Dynamic Front over these past four years, we've never had a more accurate, more relevant plan and team structure than what we saw this year, if that answers the question.
ES: Yes, thank you.
LTCVW: All right, team. We've got about one more question here. I'm just gonna shift it back around and keep it fair to Dominic Minadeo from Inside Defense. Do you have one more question, sir?
DM: Yeah, sure, thanks. This is sort of similar to one of the previous questions, but you mentioned the Polish HIMARS being tested. Obviously, part of this is about learning from partner nations and capabilities. So could you point to other specific fires platforms that other partner countries brought in and tested that stood out to you as working particularly well at this exercise? Thanks.
BGSC: So we're obviously very excited about future decisions that are gonna be made by the Army and the Joint Force, and I'm talking the United States, and I'm talking across NATO. I really don't wanna comment on the capability or what worked better than another platform. While we inform the defense industrial base, I don't make decisions for nations, 32 free-thinking independent nations, and I definitely don't make decisions on acquisition priorities for the larger United States Department of War. So again, I understand your question. I guess I'm saying I'm not willing to answer it because it falls outside my expertise and really my authority to comment on.
LTCVW: Do you potentially have a follow-up or another question, Mr. Mendejo?
DM: That's all for me, thanks.
LTCVW: Okay. Due to that question, I'll actually, last question is from Bloomberg. Jen Judson, do you have a question? Jen Judson from Bloomberg, can you hear me? Okay, Meghann Myers, do you have a question, ma'am? Last question.
MM: Sure, I wanted to ask a little bit more about the way you're using drones since drone dominance is such a big theme in the Army and the whole department right now. How are you integrating first-person view drones and then also counter-drone systems into scouting and targeting and deploying fires?
BGSC: So, I’ll start. So the first-person view drones that are being utilized are being tested and utilized not only at our Joint Multinational Readiness Center over in Hohenfels, but also all across Europe, specifically along the eastern flank with a lot of development occurring in the high north, the Baltics, Poland, down into the Balkans. But the first-person view is largely--those systems you're speaking of are largely tactical. So again, we have formations in Europe and again, not just U.S., but multinational formations that have this capability. They train with this capability and they're providing reconnaissance in what would be the brigade deep, the division deep, and in some cases, even the corps deep. For us, we're looking at fielding longer range, not only aerial, but also high-altitude capability and then also incorporating our ability to utilize space as a more developed military, a more developed nation.
I think the key is, is that whether it's a tactical or it's an operational drone force, to develop the most modern, with all the tech advantage, the most modern long range unmanned decoys, right? Things that we want them to hit so they don't hit either our surveillance platforms, our sensors, or kinetic platforms, high altitude, and as I mentioned, aerial platforms that are able to not only do electronic attack, but electromagnetic sensing. So understanding the electromagnetic spectrum, be able to do surveillance, be able to sense targets or just critical vulnerabilities, as well as the kinetic strike systems from a, you know, talking all domain, we're talking about preventing things from coming in, whether that's ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, long range one-way attack drones, our ability to have tactical, so interceptors, you know, maybe directed energy systems, so additional UAS that will fly and intercept long range one-way attack drones or other means. I mentioned directed energy systems that are able to do--take down long range systems to have an integrated air and missile defense system that is effective all across NATO to address cruise missiles and ballistic missiles that could potentially--and I'm not just talking Europe, this is anywhere globally, you know, we're advancing rapidly. And again, I won't go into specific capabilities, but, you know, we are using the Eastern Flank Deterrence Line. And again, that is not a line. That is our commitment to defending every single inch of NATO and the layered defense that we'll use to do that.
This capability that we have, it is exportable anywhere. So again, we're not just learning lessons from Ukraine and trying to understand how we're going to utilize this stuff on NATO territory, but also from a U.S. perspective, we're thinking about how can we utilize this capability, all domain capability globally, wherever we're needed.
LTCVW: All right. Okay. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. We're just about out of time here, but I did want to make sure to offer Brigadier General Carpenter an opportunity to provide any closing comments. Sir, do you have a closing comment, sir, that you'd like to make from you and the team?
BGSC: Sure, I absolutely can. First off, I already mentioned, I really appreciate your time. I know it's valuable and to be honest with you, these are great questions. And I just want you to know that you can always reach out to the U.S. Army Public Affairs team. And we're at your service in the future if ever you want to talk about anything. We love to, as best as we can, to talk about what we're bringing to the fight, not only in Europe, but what we can bring to the fight globally and how we're supporting not only U.S. Army Europe and Africa, but LANDCOM, NATO. And as you can probably guess, these are really exciting times. And we're really looking forward to future Army decisions to bring additional multidomain capability to Europe. Again, we love to have it in Europe. There's a present threat, but we also know that we can train with it in Europe so we can deploy it anywhere in the world.
You know, I think General Cavoli used to say that large-scale combat operation takes echelons and architecture. And outside of what we've talked about today, we see it as our responsibility to develop leaders, to optimize structure. That's not just a physical structure, but that is the fire structure architecture. That is command and control fire structure. That is sustainment structure and architecture. And to establish this, that we can employ these new technologies rapidly and equally as important decisively during competition or if necessary in conflict, Europe is a great continent to modernize, transform, and train. And I know that Army senior leaders, Department of War senior leaders, have seen that during their visits out here.
And I can't stress enough that the training, the capability that we're developing here from the tactical operation strategic level, it is exportable anywhere in the world. This is the best training laboratory that exists in the world. And just the fact that we can export it should make our adversaries very concerned. I'll close with that. And again, just thank you all for your time.
LTCVW: All right, thank you, sir. A couple of shameless plugs here for the team and the media. Media colleagues thank you for coming. Please remember to visit their page as well as their DVIDs page. They are updating all their content, videos, photos, everything you'll need for any visuals for your story or anything that you need going on. It can be found on their DVIDs page, so please reach back out for that as well as on their actual army.mil page. Everything was sent to you in the invite. If you need anything, please feel free to reach out to me here at ACO. And again, a transcript will be available for you before the end of the day to help out the media colleagues as well. Thank you for coming, and I appreciate your time. Have a good day, everyone.
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