FORT INDIANTOWN GAP, Pa. – Pennsylvania National Guard Soldiers focused on locating simulated enemy fighters through various military intelligence methods and directing strikes from unmanned aircraft systems (UAS) during a multidomain exercise conducted Aug. 1-4 as part of their two-week annual training.
Soldiers from the Pennsylvania National Guard’s 556th Military Intelligence Company (MICO), 56th Mobile Brigade Combat Team (MBCT), took part in the exercise, named Operation Iron Synergy.
“What we’re trying to do is get the company used to large-scale multi-domain operations,” said Capt. Justin Glass, commander of the 556th MICO. “We’re trying to exercise every single intelligence discipline through one coordinated exercise.”
During the exercise, the company’s signals intelligence and electronic warfare collection teams intercepted simulated enemy communications. Once the enemy’s location was determined, the coordinates were sent to UAS teams.
The teams then flew a UAS over the coordinates to confirm the enemy’s location before flying a second UAS over the target and dropping munitions.
Soldiers from M Company, 56th MBCT — the brigade’s multifunctional reconnaissance company — operated the UAS.
“We have our collection teams out there conducting direction finding, and all that information is getting fed back here to the BICE [brigade intelligence element],” Glass said. “They’re working it, and then it’s getting sent over to UAS to work positive identification and go through the whole targeting process.”
A team of Soldiers from the National Guard Bureau at Fort Meade, Maryland, supported the exercise by providing signal emitters that transmitted simulated enemy communications.
Warrant Officer 1 Brennan McHugh, a signals intelligence technician with the 556th MICO, was tasked with programming the emitters with simulated enemy communications.
“I am acting in a ‘white cell’ capacity, so I am orchestrating and coordinating various aspects of the exercise,” McHugh said. “I am programming and placing emitters that will simulate enemy communications and pieces of equipment and ensuring that the exercise is conducive for the signals intelligence Soldiers to do their job.”
The exercise provided the company an opportunity to apply the multidomain operations, or MDO, concept, McHugh said.
“We are integrating multiple different capabilities that we have here, to include human intelligence, signals intelligence, all-source fusion, geo-spatial intelligence, and we are also being supported by the multi-functional reconnaissance company’s electronic warfare Soldiers,” McHugh said.
The 556th MICO was activated earlier this year as part of the 56th MBCT’s conversion from a Stryker brigade combat team to an MBCT. Most of the company’s Soldiers were previously part of the 103rd Brigade Engineer Battalion, which was deactivated in March.
This was the company’s first major exercise since its activation, Glass said.
“We’re trying to figure out how we can support the brigade in its new formation as an MBCT,” Glass said. “We’re trying to become more mobile; we’re trying to decrease the time that it takes to emplace and displace from locations and increase our survivability.”
The exercise was the culminating event of the company’s two-week annual training, which Glass said went smoothly.
“I got to see a lot of growth from the Soldiers,” Glass said. “They got a chance to get out in the field and work a lot of different tasks that they haven’t done since Basic Training. It was a good opportunity to get everyone out here working as a team, working through different challenges.”
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