Coalition exercise focused on improving combat identification

  • Published
  • By Cherie Johnson and Casey Bain
  • Joint Fires Integration and Interoperability Team and U.S. Joint Forces Command Public Affairs
EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. --  The Joint Fires Integration and Interoperability Team is preparing to deploy with an eight nation coalition to assess technologies in an advanced concept technology demonstration designed to reduce friendly fire incidents and enhance combat effectiveness.

JFIIT, a subordinate command of U.S. Joint Forces Command, is traveling to Nellis Air Force Base, Nev., and the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., to conduct the joint training mission with Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, United Kingdom, United States and NATO.

"This demonstration is crucial because it will allow us to assess emerging non-cooperative target identification technologies in a realistic operational environment," said Jim MacDonald, Science Applications International Corporation and JFIIT senior analyst for the demonstration. "If these technologies are proven effective, they could be fielded to our forces and coalition partners in the near future, and would significantly enhance our ability to positively identify targets on the battlefield."

JFIIT, USJFCOM and its partners will test Coalition Combat Identification technologies during an operational demonstration known as Bold Quest which will take place at Nellis AFB and the NTC from Sept. 7-19.

"One of our goals is to resolve some of the combat ID shortfalls that we've seen during Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan," said U.S. Marine Corps Maj. Eric Drown, JFIIT project lead at Bold Quest. "The great work done here by USJFCOM and our allies will help warfighters today, and in the future by focusing our efforts on improving coalition combat identification capabilities.

"When you improve combat ID, you enhance overall combat effectiveness and reduce the potential of fratricide and collateral damage," he said. "That's mission-essential to the warfighter, and that's why we're excited to be part of this important event."

This demonstration will allow active duty service members to train with and help assess the technologies at Bold Quest.

"We think it's a fundamental requirement that you allow the actual men and women in uniform to train with this equipment in a challenging field environment...and Bold Quest will do exactly that," said Mr. MacDonald. "We want to demonstrate the capability to share blue (friendly) force situational awareness information in an air-to-ground environment that will help the warfighter defeat any adversary, and come back home safely."

Two technologies that JFIIT will be focused on during Bold Quest are the Synthetic Aperture Radar-Aided Target Recognition and the Laser Target Imaging Program. The SAR-ATR is a software upgrade for the Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System and the LTIP is a software upgrade to current fighter advanced targeting pods.