Technology Enables Wartime Skills to be Learned and Refreshed
Monday, 11 January 2010 13:55
Technology allows JFOs to learn and refresh skills for requesting, adjusting and controlling all surface to surface fires and assisting with Type 2 and 3 close air support, close combat aviation and performing autonomous terminal guidance operations. JFOs are one foundation of jointness on the battlefield.
And so an article from the Fort Sill Cannoneer published on the TRADOC Website caught my attention.
“It's a challenging course. The hardest part was definitely the simulations because they made it so that you had to catch your own mistakes," Staff Sergeant Joseph Gentile, the 2,000th graduate, said in the article. And while simulations and other applications help graduate JFOs, the technologies also refresh the observers’ skill sets and keep their level of learning at prescribed readiness levels.
To stay qualified as a joint fires observer they have to be retested every six months. To assist with keeping the JFOs current with their skill sets, instructors and commanders are in the process of creating a better sustainment system. They're doing so by using the Army's digital training management system.
“The new system will show all of the observer's information online, tracking their training and qualifications as well as what training they need. They expect the system to be online in April,” read the article.
New graduates have training support packages available on Joint Knowledge Online. “There's currently a downloadable document that details exactly what they need to do to stay qualified. It also provides legitimate scenarios for simulation exercises so they can be proactive on their own,” added the article. ♦