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Empire Challenge 10 finishes up

Empire Challenge 10 (EC 10) recently concluded after three weeks at Fort Huachuca, Ariz, and other locations around the world.

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By Army Sgt. Josh LeCappelain
USJFCOM Public Affairs

(SIERRA VISTA, Az. – August 13, 2010) – Empire Challenge 10 (EC 10) recently concluded after three weeks at Fort Huachuca and other locations around the world.

An annual U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM)-led multinational intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) demonstration, EC 10 showcased emerging capabilities and provided lessons learned to improve joint and combined ISR interoperability.

Air Force Col. George "Skip" Krakie, the chief of USJFCOM's ISR integration Division and the EC 10 military lead, said the 13 days of live operations in the event included all the military branches, as well as combat support agencies, the intelligence community, DoD members and coalition partners, with an emphasis on improving interoperability across the board.

“It’s a very large event…we make sure that the capabilities that belong to the Marine Corps can talk to the Army system,” Krakie said.  “And that the Army system can talk to the U.K. system, and that the U.K. system can talk to the Canadian system.  So we work those interoperability issues with the goal of solving those problems…here instead of in Kandahar (Afghanistan).”

This year’s event took a special interest in information sharing with the coalition and pushing information out to those who need it most.

“The focus for this year is on multinational interoperability and data sharing,” Krakie added. “That is one of the key things that we were tasked with last year – how do we move data from a U.S.-only network to a multinational network that includes 43 nations involved in [the International Security Assistance Force].

“We are also focused on how to move ISR data to what we call the tactical edge, to the warfighter who may have a radio or a laptop or some other device…how do we get the ISR data he needs to execute his mission down to him in the field,” he continued.

All the participants addressed challenges provided directly from warfighters on the ground in theater.

“It is an assessment-driven event, everything that participates in Empire Challenge is assessed in interoperability and also if it addresses warfighter identified shortfalls,” added Krakie.  “We look at what the warfighter is looking for, we look at capabilities that they’ve brought to our event and see if they can solve some of our problems.”

Operations in Afghanistan provided the setting and scenarios for EC 10.  Fort Huachuca hosted event operations because its terrain and environment closely resembled that in Afghanistan, said John Kittle, EC 10 program manager.

"We chose Fort Huachuca based on the requirements we identified very early on," he said. "We decided that we needed to focus on the fight in Afghanistan and provide improvements or solutions to the problems they have over there. We looked and Fort Huachuca presented the right operating environment for us. It has a good mix of the kinds of environment they have in Afghanistan - the desert, mountains, valleys, vegetation."

Coalition partners from Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand participated in the main effort in Arizona, with Canadian and British teams setting up forward operating bases (FOB) on Fort Huachuca’s east range.

“The U.K. brought in their Cortez system, which is their equivalent of the U.S. Army’s [Base Expeditionary Targeting and Surveillance System – Combined (BETSS-C)], which is our force protection for FOBs,” said Krakie, adding that the Canadians brought their version, named Longhouse, as well.  “What we are working on is integrating those and making sure they can share data they produce between the different FOBs, but also up the chain of command and then also pushing data down to them that is produced elsewhere.”

Krakie listed the Cortez system as one of the several successes of this EC.

“The equipment that is here now has been delayed going to Afghanistan because they had to work out some specific issues with the U.S. aerostat and some other tactics development work.  So, they diverted that equipment from Afghanistan and brought it here to do that work,” said Krakie, adding that the equipment will be packed up and shipped immediately to Afghanistan following successful testing here.  “The issue that they were working on in particular was taking this U.S. aerostat, which is deployed with the Cortez in Afghanistan, and integrating it into the Cortez system.

“Cortez is a suite of sensors and command and control (C2) capabilities.  The way we do it now is that the aerostat data came down and had to go to its own display. That is obviously not the way we want to do business, so what they focused on was integrating it into the Cortez.  We have successfully accomplished that.”

“The other thing that they’ve been working on is that now that it’s integrated into it, what are the tactics and the standard operating procedures for using that?  So, they’ve been developing those here as well,” he continued.

Other accomplishments noted by Krakie included video from the BETSS-C system pushed to the Canadians and the U.K., enabling them to see what the U.S. could see.  The Canadians improved their ability to push friendly force information to aircraft to expand combat identification.  Additionally, a NATO Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) was able to take control of a U.S. ScanEagle umanned aerial system and see the data it broadcast on their systems.

Some of the other U.S. elements operating at Fort Huachuca included USJFCOM’s Joint Battlespace Awareness ISR Integration Capability and Valiant Angel, Green Devil, and the Distributed Common Ground System (DCGS) from both the Army and Marine Corps.

Kittle said the various military services’ DCGS systems acted as the baseline infrastructure for use and distribution of data produced by EC 10 assets.

“Our objective is to get the data to them, via any means,” Kittle said.  “(The Army, for example) has as part of their kit the secure common data link that receives [Joint Surveillance and Target Attack Radar System] data for instance.  If these service DCGS programs do not have a direct receive capability, then our objective is to get that data to them via the network architecture that we’ve built.”

Krakie praised efforts of everyone involved in EC 10, but said there still was work to be done and that sensors and systems still would need to be checked for interoperability.

This was the seventh EC, and the second led by USJFCOM.  Nearly 2,000 people participated in the event worldwide from 20 locations.  Fort Huachuca was the live operations center, with approximately 900 participants on the ground here. 

Other locations participating via a digital network included USJFCOM's Joint Intelligence Lab and Joint Systems Integration Center in Suffolk, Va., service DCGS and combat support agency labs around the U.S., coalition sites in the United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, and the NATO Consultation, Command and Control Agency in the Netherlands.