Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: You're listening to the Spear, a podcast about the combat experience from the Modern War Institute at West point.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: More than 100 meters outside the village.
You were definitely getting in a firefight.
[00:00:14] Speaker A: My first patrol I took, we had
[00:00:17] Speaker B: a far ambush and then it was just a huge explosion.
The primary threat was RKG3 grenades, like machine guns and AK47s, that kind of thing. Small arms fire, RPG fire, explosively fire, penetrators, suicide bombs.
And then that's about the time that the third IED went off. And that's when another grenade comes spinning over the side of the wall. And it's at that point the IED chain detonates.
[00:00:46] Speaker A: There was enemy in the wire, there's
[00:00:48] Speaker C: all these Humvees on fire.
[00:00:49] Speaker A: It was truly bullets flying from every angle that you could see. I open the door and look outside and all I see is muzzle flashes.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: There's a guy on top with a 240 and the rounds passed right past his head.
[00:01:03] Speaker A: At that point, our instincts kicked in.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: One pilot on the controls, the other
[00:01:06] Speaker A: pilot was using his M4 to engage
[00:01:08] Speaker B: single man targets on the ground. You're shooting at everything.
It was a fight.
[00:01:18] Speaker D: I'm Dr. Charlie Feint, the managing editor of the Modern War Institute at West Point and the host of the spear.
Since its founding, the SPEAR has always been about the lived reality of war, the story of the combat experience told by those who experienced it. But the lessons that help us learn to win tomorrow's wars today are not confined to the battlefield. Across the globe, military leaders are learning important lessons in the areas of competition, deterrence, crisis response and conflict in situations that may never become wars, but will shape the ones that do.
These new and expanded experiences, shaped by forward presence, advisory missions, information operations, strategic signaling and gray zone activities, are redefining how wars are prevented, prepared for, and if necessary, fought. The most consequential lessons of warfighting and future war are often being learned outside of combat, enabling adaptation and innovation under pressure long before the first shots of future conflict.
At the Modern War Institute, we know this as transformation in contact. The idea that militaries adapt not only through war, but through continuous interaction with real world problems across multiple domains, adapting their tactics and strategy to the evolving character of war. And as the character of war evolves, so too must the stories we tell. The SPEAR is therefore evolving to capture this new operational reality, expanding from the story of the combat experience to a podcast that explores modern war. The through the eyes of warfighters across land, sea, air, cyber space, and the information environment While lessons learned in the crucible of combat will continue to be an important part of this podcast series, the SPEAR is also expanding its focus to capture the full spectrum of military operations, from the battlefield to the boardroom to the spaces short of combat, where many of today's most consequential lessons are being learned. That is because understanding war means more than understanding fights.
[00:03:15] Speaker B: It is.
[00:03:15] Speaker D: It means understanding how militaries compete, adapt, and operate every day in the shadow of conflict. And now this is the spear, a podcast that explores modern war through the eyes of warfighters. A production of the Modern War Institute at West Point.
[00:03:30] Speaker C: Welcome back to the the Story of the warfighting experience. I'm Dr. Charlie Feint, your host and today's guest is Lieutenant Colonel Ben Blaine. Ben, welcome to the show.
[00:03:38] Speaker B: Thanks for the invite. It's great to be back here.
[00:03:40] Speaker C: In this episode we're discussing the way indirect fires are evolving on the modern battlefield with greater ranges, increased precision, and more possibilities for cross domain effects than at any time in the history of artillery. I invited Ben to the show because of his deep experience in these areas, which includes being the first commander of the Army's first ever long range fires battalion. But before we go into all that, Ben, can you please give our audience a little bit about your background, such as why you decided to join the army and what your career has consisted of so far.
[00:04:07] Speaker B: Yeah, so I grew up small town, Illinois, Brentville, Illinois, Town of less than a thousand people right outside of Peoria, kind of equidistance between St. Louis and Chicago.
When you ask me like why I joined the army, everything's hindsight. It's hard to get in the mindset of a 17 year old kid from a small town in Illinois. But I think the one thing that was consistent growing up was just this desire to serve. So I had relatives that had served in Vietnam, Kwajalein, Tinian, Saipan, Iwo Jima. Fortunately, they're still with us to share their stories today.
So always this mindset that I wanted to serve. I didn't know a whole lot about the different, different services.
You know, I'd say probably West Point. I know we had someone from a nearby school going to the Naval Academy. So I started looking at some of the, the other academies that were out there, but started out, you know, 2001, right before 9, 11, I think I was still very much in the mindset that I was probably going to do four or five years after, after service, you know, that things change as you get in.
But field artillery, for me it was you know, I remember being this time as a cadet and just talking to a few mentors about the artillery branch. And I like the idea of combat arms.
But the thing I got about field artillery is that the one thing is consistent is that they are changing and evolving. And that has been true for my career. I started out in all airborne units, 119ers, 1niner 8s, all cannon artillery. You know, I started out in Alaska and the reason I picked that was a brand new brigade starting up.
They just got back from the Pacific, doing jumps in Thailand and Australia. I thought awesome opportunity. I talked about those family experiences. But for me to get out in the Pacific and then when I got there in 2005 I got to go two places, Iraq and Afghanistan. So then from there it was, you know, I did a short stint back here at West Point and from there it was really the user PAC Commanding general, General Brown at the time was back here doing a talk with a group. I hadn't really considered where I was going next. And he started talking about this multi domain battle task force that was standing up at joint base Lewis McQuard, piloted by the Field Artillery Brigade out there. That's kind of defined the last eight to nine years of my life is with that, that task force.
[00:06:19] Speaker C: That's a considerable amount of time in an officer's career to be there for nine years. Was that in the same unit or just bounced around different units focused on the same thing?
[00:06:27] Speaker B: We could say it was the same unit. It was kind of an evolving unit. So you had. I was with 17 Field Artillery the day I showed up. I remember walking in. The next day was the start of the first exercise in the pilot program. But I remember seeing a whiteboard and there was like some launchers on it, like shooting at things in the sky and some lightning bolts in there. And it's really kind of this is what we're trying to, to build.
I got done with my, my key developmental time there as a battalion in the brigade Operations officer and then I got asked to stay one more year because we're going to turn this, this multi main task force into a real unit. And then after that first year it was hey, can you stay one more year? Right. And then beyond that the command list came out. I got an opportunity to command that battalion which was still under 17 Field Artillery Brigade but now transition into this long range fires battalion. And so really interesting for me that I kind of got to see this really from just a whiteboard concept into something that's actively campaigned in The Pacific right now.
[00:07:28] Speaker C: Let's talk a little bit more about the long range precision fires battalion. Why did the army create it and what sets it apart from other artillery units?
[00:07:36] Speaker B: So I think the task force, if you really look at why the mdtf, you know, we can talk about a couple things, but it was really one, this shift away from counter insurgency, now we're focused on near peer competitors, namely for the Pacific, that's China. So a lot of the different capabilities that you look out that were merging with, with space and cyber and long range fires, the story you'll hear a lot. I know you had Admiral Harris on your podcast at one point, but at one of the Land Pack events, he kind of threw out the challenge to the Army. He said he needed the army to start sinking ships, shooting down aircraft and missiles, jamming and hacking or jamming and hacking adversary command and control and neutralizing satellites. And that kind of became the initial challenge for the mdtf.
But when you think about that, can't do any of that. From joint base Lewis McChord. So the second part of that, after building that type of task force was actually getting it forward into theater and integrating it. So the fires piece on that piece with, you know, he talks about sinking ships, that was the one task that the army really hadn't thought about for a good 70 years back in the days of coast artillery.
So it's interesting, you look at this timeline between the mid range capability, the Typhon system and the Dark Eagle hypersonic, and now some of the things that are emerging with our Himars capability, you know, we've actually not only got that capability, but the Army's put that forward into a theater where it can actually affect adversary calculus.
[00:09:07] Speaker C: What's the dividing line between regular artillery and long range? Even in my day in the army, we had MLRs, we had HIMARS. What makes something long range compared to normal range?
[00:09:19] Speaker B: I think the name long range like we. So this is like a. In my day to day work, there's a constant argument like where's that line where something's like a mid range or short range or longer range. But I think really when they're talking long range fires, you're talking about things that are going to be relevant for the Joint Force in those initial stages of conflict. So right when you talk about a Taiwan contingency, you're really talking about the initial hours, what's going to be in position looking at those systems. So range in the Pacific is definitely a key factor in that. Generally when we're talking long ranges you're talking ranges 400km and beyond, but really those things that are going to integrate into the same network, the same kill webs that our joint partners are using. But I think in terms of you getting these arguments about the short range systems, it's really about what are those things that can be forward in a time to impact what is essentially a joint island landing campaign for the adversary.
[00:10:16] Speaker C: When you were discussing the different roles and missions that are inherent in your battalion, you described a lot of different things if things from traditional long range fires to things like hacking and jamming and even sinking ships that traditionally the army hasn't spent a lot of time doing.
What was it like to try to set something up with all those disparate capabilities?
[00:10:38] Speaker B: I think if you look at the pilot programs, they're really talking about 2017 until about 2020 there was a lot of stuff going on at the Pentagon level and across the modernization enterprise that we weren't necessarily, we didn't necessarily have visibility on and looking, you know, back in hindsight, I think a lot of that was purposeful. So we were getting, you know, we had the, the field artillery brigade, you had what was called an I2QS detachment, information intelligence, cyber electronic warfare in space. So this group of subject matter experts are really pulled in and look at how you integrate, you know, your non lethal with the lethal and non kinetic with the kinetic. And I say that it was purposeful that we didn't necessarily know all the components of design because a lot of it was like, you know, experimentation, you know, messing around with these new concepts.
[00:11:25] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:11:26] Speaker B: And being able to come back rather than somebody coming to you and saying this is what we want this thing to do. We need you to validate this concept which oftentimes serves as self fulfilling prophecy.
But if you look back at that pilot program time, you'll see maybe 100 different designs of the multi domain task force. It was really our job to try out all these different concepts with the right subject matter experts, in some cases live systems that we were using, but to really inform what this organization was going to look like.
But one thing I always get asked about the task force, did we know this was going to become a real unit? And no, we absolutely did not. So it was actually kind of a, kind of a shock.
And that was one thing we constantly got for after feedback. And I'm sure there's senior leaders that were moving towards building a real thing.
But one thing we consistently got back when we first activated, you hear people say like we never expected this to be a real, real thing. So it's neat to see it actually come to fruition.
[00:12:23] Speaker C: In places like Ukraine, Israel and Iran, we see a lot of drones being used for long range precision fires, drones as ammunition. Did you experiment with any of that in your unit?
[00:12:35] Speaker B: Yeah, for sure. I mean if you look at some of the experimentation done in the Philippines, in Japan, you really look, I talked about part of the problem setup being position for the, the army and you've already got, you know, some permanent forces with Korea, with Japan, with Singapore that are, that are positioned along the first, first island chain. We had the rotational forces that, you know, are consistently going out there for your big exercises in those, those areas during, during kind of those key windows.
What we're kind of missing is some of these big experimentation type of events a little bit more dynamic or something that you've maybe tested in a limited sense in the continental United States and then bringing out and then seeing if it actually works. So the first time we were in the Philippines, we were bringing some of those drone systems between high altitude balloons, between like your, your long endurance solar gliders, not used in the same way. But really looking at how do those systems connect with their, you know, intelligent surveillance capabilities and then feed back into our, our fire systems. But the key to all of that, it really, you know, we're not talking about discrete systems. Like we were really building that network, that ecosystem for all those systems to be able to work, work together.
I think that's an important part when we're talking about long range fires because, you know, even, even in Ukraine and Israel, you're not seeing drones completely replacing what we think of as like conventional artillery. What we're seeing more and more is how do those systems operate alongside a lot of sense of like, if you're firing multiple munitions, how do those munitions, you know, drones collaborate, provide data with those other. What we would think about is conventional rockets, missiles, things of that nature. And that's really kind of the ecosystem that we're trying to build out on the first island chain.
[00:14:26] Speaker C: Earlier in our conversation you mentioned Admiral Harry Harris and as you described, we hosted him here for episode of Five Questions for a General. It was interesting to me that he was advocating for the army to shoot ships. Shooting ships is traditionally a Navy role and everyone likes to protect their own little rice bowl. What do you think the motivation was for him to reach across the aisle, for lack of a better term, to ask the army to contribute to what has essentially been a Navy mission since the existence of the Navy?
[00:14:56] Speaker B: Yeah, I Mean everything gets back to that concept of anti access area denial, you know, the A2AD network. And really you look at China's had a 30 year head start from us in the Pacific.
So when we talk about land forces, really what is that role that they're playing? So that network that we talked about, essentially China's built this big umbrella over the Pacific and that network is very heavily focused on keeping the military power, which is really through our air power, through our naval power out of that area, preventing that initial response to a contingency operation for the Army. What we offer in there is that persistence in being able to be forward in these distributed networks or distributed cells networked with one another. And so I can talk that with some of the live systems that we have there and so that we're mobile, we're responsive, and we can react to that immediate outset. But not in the sense that MDTFs were never meant to be the complete end all, be all for deterrence. They never meant to take on the Chinese horde by themselves. They're really looking at the response and initial outse. But to be able to reduce the risk for bringing your high flying aircraft, your capital craft in the Navy, inside that weapons engagement zone, reducing risk, but then allowing them to do what they do do best. And so he really saw that vision of the new systems, the long range fires, the space capabilities, cyber capabilities, air defense capabilities that were in development at the time and really putting up the demand signal to get those forward faster than initially, initially planned.
[00:16:30] Speaker C: Was your battalion a joint organization or was it just straight army?
[00:16:34] Speaker B: We were all army, some exceptions with the way that we would employ. So we would have some people that were embedded. We're working closely with the Marines, working closely with the Air Force.
There would always be a level of L and O exchange. There'd always be a level of some people coming out because they want to partner. The Marine littoral regiment is a great example that was kind of with us developing some of these concepts. So everybody in that formation is an army by design. I think we've actually got some of the Air Force staff weather officers on our team, but other than that it's all army by design.
But I mean look at like similar formations in theater with like the 94th AMDC. I would argue that's one of the most joint capabilities that we have in the theater. But everybody in that formation is wearing an army army uniform.
[00:17:24] Speaker C: In addition to the joint fight, there's often fights inside of the army for different roles and responsibilities.
So for example, the Electronic warfare, jamming, that type of thing has traditionally been an MI mission. Did you have MI people embedded in your units or is that field artillerymen doing that as well?
[00:17:43] Speaker B: Yeah, so the task force, you know, on its own, I mean, I think we've got almost every single branch of the military that's represented there. You've got, you have huge really all domain, all source intelligence team in that, in that headquarters. You've got an operational data team that's up there, you've got space, you've got cyber, you've got information experts that are on the staff level and then that downtrace. So my sister battalions is the effects battalion or sorry, it was my sister battalion to the long range fires battalion. You had the effects battalion, which was those pieces with intel space, extended range sensing companies, things of that nature. You had an air defense battalion that was there and then you had a support battalion. So the way that those elements deployed, you know, you have got this like pretty robust planning capability up at the task force level. Task force is still about half the size of a brigade combat team, but then your downtracing unit, you've got these smaller teams that you could then put in different areas in the, in the Pacific. And we almost kind of came together in these different areas. So if you went out to the mid range capability out there in the Philippines at any given day, you might see some of those cyber soldiers, you might see some of those electronic attack soldiers, you might see some of those intel soldiers that are there in that same location kind of working on that more localized regional problem set.
But it's a mix and diversity of those different skill sets.
[00:19:05] Speaker C: So did you in your battalion ever take Admiral Harris up on his request and actually sink a ship?
[00:19:10] Speaker B: So sinking a ship is a very hard challenge. Right. So you'll hear this, the language sink a ship often got us in trouble with the Navy early days of the task force, it was really hit a ship. We did that successfully a few times. 2018 to 2020.
I think you look at the tests that they did last year with the SM6 where they hit that ship down in Australia.
But I will tell you, with that standard missile 6 capability using in the mode that they are, I mean that will give you a kill on a, on a ship.
All those top level ships that we see out there around in theater, that is the capability that, that can actually affect those systems. When you're talking really like completely sinking a ship, as in putting a bottom in the, of the ocean, and you're working against some of these Chinese destroyers and like those tier one targets, that's really a joint solution and really the army is one part of that solution. We might get that initial volley out, we might focus on that adversary. It's really a mission kill. Focus on some of their long range surface to air systems, focus on some of their weapon systems, their C2 systems, but really trying to make it a prime target for the Navy and Air Force, who's been doing sync exercises and this type of task for quite some time in the Pacific.
[00:20:31] Speaker C: Ben, in 2024 you deployed the Typhon missile system, which was then called a mid range capability. You deployed it forward into the Indo Pacific theater for the first time ever. What was that like?
[00:20:42] Speaker B: Yeah, so I think the story on that and kind of what that felt like, I kind of got to back up a little bit when the task force was first stood up, really heavy focused in the second island chain, Guam, Tingyuan, Saipan and the exercises that went out there. But really initial exercises that we supported, I always equate them to an infantry stick slain. But now you're doing on a wider scale with the Navy and the Air Force primarily those being the training audiences.
There's a period of one of those where we came out of that exercise and the opposition forces commander was looking at the battle damage assessment and looked at how he was losing ships, he was losing aircraft before the Air Force and the Navy was in position. And when he looked at that battle damage assessment report, he made the comment what the hell is an mdtf?
And so initially this was testing the concepts.
We got an acceleration to bring more of the live capabilities out.
General Flannel, as I know, has also been on the podcast, his last or one of his last steps when he was the Army G357 was really accelerating the timeline for us to get some of these capabilities out. And so that timeline back then in 2020, 2021, we were looking about three years to get some of these capabilities out. We accelerated to about an 8 to 10 month period. Now he's in, in the seat as the user pack commander and messaging these capabilities that are, that are going to be coming out into the theater. Problem was is like what we felt at the time and I told, I said this from the start but one of the issues about the positioning and so we're doing a lot of this stuff in the, in the second island chain, but we're continually in that guidance to go out and compete, go out and be able to affect this adversaries plan, go out, be able to contribute, deterrence and we were not doing that in the second island chain.
That created a quick pivot from. I think the last exercise we did in Guam was about September 2021.
And now we are taking all these different events that we were going to experiment with in the continental United States and trying to get them out into the Philippines by April of 2022. So it's a lightning fast timeline and that includes some of your high Mars systems. At the time we still hadn't filled the mid range, included some.
The drones that I was talking about include some space capabilities, include some network capabilities.
And we had some successes and obviously some failures with our, with our experimentation. But the point was, is that it wasn't just about validating concepts. Equally important was invalidating some of these concepts that weren't going to work for that theater. And in parallel to that, you were trying to build this network, that ecosystem I was talking about.
We got to the end of the standard bala canon exercise window. And if you think about the previous paradigm for army exercise in the Pacific, you go out there, you build a network, you have a few accomplishments and you tear everything down. You go back to home station. We realized if we were going to continue following the senior leader guidance at the time to actually build a capability, there was some capability that we need to stay there.
So we extended our time. We were supposed to get back on a boat and go back to Guam. We missed that boat.
We stayed there under an agreement from the Armed Force of the Philippines to stay with some capabilities and do a subject matter expertise exchange.
And as we were going through that, we had a day where the chief of staff of the Philippine army and some of his staff just came by to see what we were checking in on us and see what we were doing.
And we were able to show them some of the actually the live drills that we were running through, some of the live ISR that we collected with some army systems.
And one of those was some imagery of a Chinese Lu Yang Chinese destroyer. And he asked questions about what that system could do, what we could do in return.
He asked that question for location. He said, is this inside my economic exclusionary zone? We said service is about 50 miles off the coast. And so from there he turned back to his staff and he said, we need to figure out a way to keep this capability here a little longer.
So that was 2022.
From there, the MBTF has capabilities that have never left that center. Kind of evolved into a combined information effects fusion center. They use that term, but really partners from not just land Forces, but the armed forces of Philippine Navy, their Coast Guard, all the different services are represented in there.
And so when I talk about General Flynn messaging, the capability, you can put capability out in theater, but if we had not done the network work up ahead of time, deployed some of these other capabilities, the real value of that system is not just that we put a static display in position.
The real value was if the Chinese had looked behind the curtain a little bit to see what was actually going on with that system, they would have seen a fielded system that soldiers had actually trained and certified on. We had soldiers that had live fired every single munition system out of that in our ammo supply point back at home station, we had the actual munitions that were fielded that was completely networked. If you went over to Pac Fleet and looked at their panels or, you know, looked at their C2 systems, you could see they were sending data directly to us. And so everything behind the curtain was a real combat credible capability.
You know, not to say that all that work that was done ahead of time was the end of the work, but a lot of the stuff that was being done forward to make sure that system got up and got operational, really a battery commander, some lieutenants and non commissioned officers, non commissioned officers that we had sent through naval training programs that were actually serving as a master gunner that were on the phone every single day with counterparts from, from 7th Fleet, from 3rd Fleet to ensure that they were in that network.
And I don't want to. You know, I also got to give credit to the acquisition community who didn't just build a system and test it at White Sands Missile Range and tell us to have fun. They were out there with us too, to make sure that that was set up. And by the time that they left, we could operate that on their, their own.
And then the really hard part was ensuring that, you know, that system stayed there. We didn't lose that capability. And so since that time, I mean, that system hasn't left. It's moved around a few times in the, in the Philippines, all under the request of the Filipino government, the Filipino Armed forces.
If you go out there probably today, you'll probably see some Filipino partners that are getting some cross training on the system, but you've got a live capability that the army did not have a few years ago.
[00:27:20] Speaker C: Seems like the joint and combined cooperation is an inherent part of the success of that organization. Was that something that was built in and deliberate, or are those relationships something that you and your team had to build over time?
[00:27:35] Speaker B: This is always a Sense that first off with the Indo Pacific, everybody says this is an air and maritime theater. And that's far from the truth. I mean it is a, a joint theater. It is a multinational theater. Any solution you're going to provide to a problem needs to be joint and multinational. There are different levels of like how we built that relationship. I will tell you at like the senior level being able to brief this to some seniors in the other services, they were on board with the army, being an active contributor to those joint kill webs that we talked about, really helping to solve that problem.
A lot of the relationships, certainly there was a senior leader relationships with the armed forces of the Philippines and some other countries we were working with.
But we naturally had to find kind of like that, that partner with the Armed forces the Philippines that we were working with with day to day.
So we were building relationships with the Philippines have their own rocket force as their building capabilities.
They have their own Marines that are down in some of the same areas that were kind of natural partner, natural partners. And then I was talking about that combined information effects fusion center. You know, we're sitting there with all the different services. So everything since they, the first day that we arrived in the country, in the country, it's that we didn't just show up with a value proposition elevator pitch. We had to demonstrate that capability to the partners. So there's a little bit of the senior leader messaging, obviously hugely important, but then a lot of actually being able to pull off what you say you're going to be able to do.
[00:29:04] Speaker C: Being able to demonstrate success is a great way to get partners on board. It sounds like that's something you accomplished with the Philippines and I'm glad to hear that that relationship is enduring out there.
So when you were deploying the Typhon, when you were doing all this experimentation, did you feel under any type of pressure, given how much visibility the exercises had, not just in the army, but definitely in places like Beijing, given that the CCP strongly condemned that deployment.
[00:29:30] Speaker B: I think the majority of the pressure that we felt was really in those lead up moments. You know, there's all sorts of things open source about. You're under that constant surveillance, both from ground systems that have been uncovered up there, drones that we've seen out there that were, you know, participants in our training, uninvited participants and of course like space based sensing. And they're watching for us not to highlight our successes. They're watching for us to do something wrong or misstep. So I think that's a huge Comment to the soldiers that have been out there kind of running these concepts and getting these things up and operational.
I kind of think it's like my constant oversight wasn't always necessary because we had some other people that were watching. But I think once we got that system on the ground, there was a lot of trust in the soldiers, from what we had seen them do back in the continental United States to be able to contribute forward. And so people always asked, did you know you were going to get the reaction? Did you know that this was going to be a big deal?
And maybe I didn't know for certain, but we had been told this for the last two years, so it wasn't a shock.
There was that type of reaction. But the goodness to all of that is that the partners that are out there have continued to ask us to stay and support their training.
[00:30:51] Speaker C: So you gave me a couple of vignettes about how well it worked. As the commander, how do you think it performed overall? Were you happy with it?
Were you content with where you were or did you have to go back to the drawing board?
[00:31:04] Speaker B: No. So I was happy. Everything you hear about the mid range capability going forward was a good news story for the acquisition community. The fact that we had the Secretary of the army come to Joint Base Elysium Corps, I think it was December 2020, and he said, you're going to be the first Tomahawk shooters for the Army. And I remember thinking in my head like, okay, great, maybe my grandkids will see this capability someday. But the fact that that system delivered, we did a, you know, all the different new equipment training, all the different certification which I was certifying, the forces that we're deploying for, we weren't relying on external services or external units to come in and do the certification. We were doing that ourselves.
Two great live fire events that performed as expected. All that was done before it got up there. Now that when it's out in theater, it's connected into the network, we're immediately getting communication with USS Abe Lincoln, different ships that are going through the South China Sea. That was a big deal for, for the, for the army to be able to do those.
I think the other part of that was I content. Your soldiers are never going to be content with a system. And I always like to brag when we had senior leaders come out, you know, I had the most candid group of soldiers in the United States Army. But I think when you look at that first deployment that went out there and all the people, the senior leaders, the Folks from the acquisition community hearing and watching the soldiers training, being able to take that lesson back. What, what got lost during that deployment is while that system was deployed, we activated the second mid range capability battery and they went through their new equipment, training and certification, all that in a faster timeline than the one before. And they actually got out to Australia, did the live fire, they got it to, to Japan and their systems were a little bit better than the ones before. And now you've got a battery three that's on the way. It's going to be a little bit better. So I look about it as like the, you know, the iPhone, like we took the iPhone 16 out to the Philippines, now we about have the iPhone 18 that's going to go out for these next deployments. So everything's getting better incrementally and we're getting the updates on these systems here. But all of that is really, you know, I appreciate that the secretary now is talking about these, this soldier centric acquisition because that improvement, he gave the soldiers in that battery a direct line to the acquisition community for the improvements that they, they needed on the systems. And we're already seeing that play out.
[00:33:31] Speaker C: What was morale like for your soldiers in a new unit? They're doing new things is exciting or was it scary?
[00:33:37] Speaker B: So that, that is a better question for the individual soldiers. But I'll tell you some of the feedback that I've, I've gotten from them, I think the, there was a, I remember one senior leader engagement specifically where the guy that was out there on that launcher was a brand new second lieutenant, graduated at the academy. I think he'd been in the unit for like 90 days. Like we got him to a certification program. He was doing some on the job training out there. I think for the soldiers, when you talk to them, what they realize is that the expert for those systems is not someone sitting in the Pentagon. It's not someone sitting in some think tank or whatever. That expert on the system is down there at the launcher right now. And so that kind of, you know, sense of purpose and urgency for them. When you hear these soldiers talk, I mean they love the system, they love giving feedback, they love telling things that are gonna, they can improve the system, but they spend a lot of time thinking about how they're gonna fight. When we talk about that adversary out there, they are watching those, those ships moving out of that area every single day and they're thinking about how like alongside their, their partners out there, how they're going to employ those munitions, how they're Going to protect themselves, how they're doing, reload all those different things. They are in the environment every single day getting familiar with the terrain that they're going to fight on. So I would say when the feedback that I've got from them is more excitement than I don't think anybody would tell you. They were scared about having to take the new job. If they do that quickly goes away.
[00:35:15] Speaker C: When you're doing these types of exercises and you're planning for operations, what kind of dispersion do you have? I know that you have to be close to logistics, you have to be able to communicate, but you also have to survive. So how did you balance survivability with command and control?
[00:35:33] Speaker B: Yeah, so I mean the value of land forces and not that we're not building more bases out in these areas and really trying to occupy, trying to establish positions more further away outside of these basins. Bases that are known positions for, for the adversary right now.
So they were highly dispersed. As a matter of fact, when the mid range first got on the ground, I wasn't even on the site, I was somewhere else. I think we were in about nine different islands at that point in multiple different countries. We were doing high Mars live fires at the same time. Flexible response options with those systems. The hypersonic team was doing recons in different areas.
You had a logistics commander that was all over the place because she's thinking several different exercises ahead.
And then really when you were coming back and looking at this like that was not just an exercise construct that is very realistically how we're going to fight. I always make the example of a lieutenant I had down in a, in an island in the Japanese southwest islands. And for a period of time she was a senior military official on that, on that island. And so she was doing her training plan, she was doing her logistics plan. She was making those relationships we were talking about before with the, the local partners.
But really looking at the positions that we might have to, to fight, what does that mean for a battalion commander? I will tell you like when you are rehearsing these fire mission chains, you know, across the joint force, you've got these command and control and relationship lines that go all over the place.
There's really, for some of these leaders you can look at it as a sense of like isolation but more of a responsibility. Some of the things we thought would probably be like a higher level echelon for authorities are really being put down to lower levels. Talking in terms of things like how do we maneuver, how do we survive in These areas.
What I would ask and then really demand from our leaders was really a, you know, a sense of candor that you probably don't get in a whole lot of, of units giving them feedback on any issues with the systems, any issues with the, with the soldiers, any questions. If they weren't crystal clear in their task and purpose every single day that they were out there, they didn't be asking those questions because it's very realistic that they would be out on the island by themselves and they're not going to get that face to face or direct contact every single single day.
[00:38:01] Speaker C: Sounds like some good opportunities for mission command out there.
[00:38:04] Speaker B: There is some very good mission, you know, and, and that was part of the, the, the pilot program. We were always being asked to do these different types of like mission command discipline initiative exercises.
And then you go like fast forward like five years. It's like this is why we were, we were being told to do these. So it very much is that.
But the thing is, even when, you know, you talk about these systems on like different islands, you're still very much network. Like you've got to have the same level of, of shared understanding, you know, across the board, making sure, like if I'm looking at a, you know, a panel of certain data information that I know someone in another island is looking at the exact same, same thing.
And so that's really important when I know and part of how we rehearse, you know, if I'm seeing something on that panel, right, and being kind of vague, but if I'm seeing something on a panel, I already know that somebody is like doing some type of action and moving to preserve an option for some senior leader. If they call down and say we want this mission fired, they're already ready. I always make the, you know, the, the parallel when in baseball, if you hit a pop fly, like you want every single player on the field moving at once. You know, the previous paradigm is like you had the catcher call him through the shortstop and he like notify the center fielder and you're just not going to be able to match the speed that this next fight's going to demand. Especially when you're pulling in non kinetic effects and the other joint partners.
[00:39:30] Speaker C: Ben, you got your start in the middle of the global war on terror. You commissioned from West Point in the early 2000s and spent some time in Iraq and Afghanistan.
How different, if any, was the combat that you experienced personally in Iraq and Afghanistan different from what you expect to see in a conflict with adversary such as China?
[00:39:52] Speaker B: So I always try to look back and sometimes it takes a lot of thinking to draw some of the parallels. One of the best pieces of guidance I got from a battalion commander I had left Iraq and I think within about 10 months I was in Afghanistan.
And at the time I feel like I know everything about this area. And he said whatever you learned in Iraq, you can't apply that and think it's going to be a one for one exchange of lessons learned over in Afghanistan. And, and that was even true my second time in Iraq. I was in some of the, the same, the same areas.
So I think there's always going to be that piece of, of adaptation. I remember my first time in Iraq even like we were coming in and doing, we did a piece of route clearance and then we'd move missions up to the Fallujah and then we were starting to see the EFP mission. So even we were seeing an adversary that's adapting there, that difference now in the Pacific you're going to see that adaptation way quicker, way more different systems.
One thing I always hear about, like in Iraq I never had to look up right the time I went out and now you've got an adversary that has got really persistent surveillance, persistent contact.
When you think about troops in contact, that has a very distinct meaning for someone that was in early days of Iraq and Afghanistan. But when you're in contact with space based assets, when you're in contact in the electromagnetic spectrum, there's not necessarily a refined battle drill for a response to that troops in contact. It's really not just how you respond, it's if you respond in a lot of cases based on that distribution.
So that was something I would think about every single day when we're out there doing these exercises.
You know, had to instill in, you know, some of the things with even live fires where you're typically your battalion commander or at least a field grade is on the line. I didn't have the luxury of doing that all the time with the way we were, we were distributed, but probably really realistic for the way that we're going to fight this, this future fight.
[00:41:58] Speaker C: So speaking of the future fight, what's the next major evolution for fires?
[00:42:04] Speaker B: Yeah, so I think two things when people ask about the next evolution.
One thing we fires community, we talk a lot about mass and I'm not going to tell you that's still very much going to be a principle. But when you're talking about a adversary like China, we're never going to go one for one with them on mass. And just the magazine depth that they enjoy. Like we are going to get in that space through speed, through convergence, through persistence.
And I've kind of talked this a little bit before about some of the, the, the things that we're doing with establishing a network, making sure everybody's got that same same site picture. But that network that, that army, you know, really United States Army Pacific has been, been leading, they're rehearsing off that network every, every single day. And that's drawing out a lot of different things about how we're going to imply these fire, these fires, how these fires are connected into those joint, joint kill webs.
The second piece of that is really looking at. You were mentioned about drones as munitions before and I think we've got to relook what our munitions look like for the field artillery community. And I'll give an example. With some, with the mid range capability, you look at things like mid range and Tomahawk and a lot of stuff that's over in the Joint force kind of look at them almost like a network enabled munition. And so when they fire out, they've got some ability to communicate to things in other domains, things on the ground help them with their navigation, to help like report back on the status of the munition, to help guide them to that, not just the target, but specific aim points on that, on that target.
I think with our munitions that we're looking at, especially with like drones being had in the mix, especially with some things that are coming to the aviation community, intel community, which when you pull those drones apart, I would argue that their characteristics are more a steerable cruise missile than just a drone.
And so how do those munitions communicate with one another in that same ecosystem? How do you do that?
Cooperative, collaborative behavior between the munitions themselves?
Because if the answer is we're just going to fire 50 missiles at a single target every single time, we're not going to match that mass that the adversary has right now. I hear all that said, there's still a cultural shift going on in the community. I hear all the time that if you fire a missile off and you know, a brigade or division headquarters isn't going to have enough time in the two to three minutes of flight to change flight path or pick a new aim point or pick a new, you know, target set if that's already been destroyed by another missile. And that's true. But with all these developments we have with AI and machine learning, a machine can absolutely do that. And we're seeing some of that stuff in tests that are going on right now.
So really thinking about those missiles is not. It can't be completely fire and forget something else that's inside that ecosystem, but really looking at that missile as the weapon system itself.
[00:45:20] Speaker C: Ben, anything else you want to add about your perspectives on fires or future of warfare before we wrap it up?
[00:45:28] Speaker B: I think just the. And I hit on this a little bit before, but, you know, I talk about what we ask from, for junior leaders, really like any subordinate, be they, you know, officer or enlisted that I have, and it really is being able to provide that candid feedback.
There's a lot of soldiers that are going to be going through these transformation and contact initiatives and they're probably going to be asked to validate a certain piece of equipment.
And I would just tell them to think about there's a very real chance that they might be fighting with that same system. And so they might find themselves on an island by themselves one day with a system that if it's not doing what they want it to, if it's not able to reform in that environment, they are going to find themselves absolutely punished by that technology and they're going to find themselves really like to use the term island of relevancy, you know, sitting out some island, not being able to contribute to the fight. So being able to provide that, that feedback to senior leaders all the time and really help us understand how they see the fights and are going to employ these systems.
[00:46:34] Speaker C: Well, Ben, I really appreciate your time today. And on behalf of Colonel Pat Sullivan, the director of the Modern War Institute, is my pleasure to present you with this rare and coveted Modern War Institute coin. Thank you, Ben.
[00:46:45] Speaker B: Yeah, thank you.
[00:47:00] Speaker A: Thank you for listening to this episode of the Spear. The Spear is produced by the Modern War Institute at West Point. What you hear in each episode are the views of the participants and don't represent the position of West Point, the Army, or the US Government.
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