Crusader Battle Lab Warfighting Experiment (BLWE) 1: Assessing Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) for Crusader Units Within a Synthetic Environment

The U.S. Army Research Laboratory and the Depth and Simultaneous Attack Battle Lab have performed the first Battle Lab Warfighting Experiment that evaluated operational concepts for the Crusader system. The experiment was conducted during June and July of 1996 in the Janus Battle Simulation Center at Ft. Sill, Oklahoma. The research addressed critical operation issues focused on the employment of the Crusader system on the 21st century digitized battlefield. Command and control, and ammunition logistics and resupply systems used by a direct support field artillery battalion when employing the simulated Crusader system were evaluated to identity innovative tactics, techniques, and procedures that could be introduced in conjunction with the fielding of the Crusader system. This research was conducted using a synthetic battlefield environment that placed field artillerymen into distributed interactive simulation technologies where they used actual tactical data processing equipment to perform fire support functions. There were four major outcomes of this research: (1) A preliminary set of tactics, techniques, and procedures that addressed command and control functions, situation awareness, fire order consistency, and sustainment was identified. This information will be evaluated further by the system developer and field artillery community and will be considered for additional testing during later experiments or closed loop studies. (2) Major findings were: (a) The Crusader system as currently specified, will deliver effective fires to defeat the projected threat and provide timely support to maneuver forces. (b) The pooled resupply concept was successfully demonstrated and shown to be a robust technique in the face of losses of individual resupply vehicles.Army Research Lab Fort Sill Ok Human Research and Engineering Dir is the author of 'Crusader Battle Lab Warfighting Experiment (BLWE) 1: Assessing Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures (TTPs) for Crusader Units Within a Synthetic Environment' with ISBN 9781423564669 and ISBN 1423564669.