At Fort Sill, America’s artillery gets modernized
LAWTON — On a recent Friday morning, the short booms of artillery fire echoed off the Wichita Mountains as U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe landed his small plane on historic Henry Post Army Airfield at Fort Sill, stepped out and greeted commanders of the American military’s premier artillery training center.
The guest of honor, a Tulsa Republican and interim chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, is a hard-line defense hawk who has, in recent months, warned anyone who will listen that America is falling behind two longtime foes, China and Russia, in its artillery aptitude.
It’s not a message that everyone wants to hear, including many in the military. Defense Secretary Jim
When I say that both Russia and China have some systems that are better than what we have, (people) are shocked, they don’t believe that.” U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe
Mattis, a retired four-star general, has asked Inhofe to stop discussing the Army’s shortcomings, according to the senator. Yet he continues to do so, in Senate hearings, interviews and private discussions.
“When I say that both Russia and China have some systems that are better than what we have, (people) are shocked, they don’t believe that,” Inhofe told Brig. Gen. Randall McIntire, commandant of the Army’s air defense artillery school, during a discussion on rate of fire.
“Our rate is what, four (rounds) a minute?” Inhofe asked McIntire, guessing correctly. “Theirs are eight and 10 a minute. But all of that’s going to change.”
The CFTs
Inhofe’s visit to this southwest Oklahoma outpost corresponded with the Army’s decision to permanently place two 32-person cross-functional teams at Fort Sill, alleviating some concerns here in Lawton that they would be moved to an Alabama base. The teams, which specialize in long-range precision fire and air and missile defense, are tasked with modernizing the Army’s artillery systems.
“Now that the announcement is official that the CFTs will remain, we’ll start getting additional folks here,” said Robert Picht, a field artillery technical adviser at Fort Sill, using military parlance for cross-functional teams.
The teams were formed in November with experts stationed at several bases and have used Building 1616 at Fort Sill as a de facto headquarters in the six months since, meeting monthly. The Army’s announcement will allow the two teams to be stationed permanently in Lawton.
“We’re also reaching out to industry,” said McIntire, who heads the air and missile defense cross-function team. "(We're) bringing industry to the table and saying, ‘Hey, what have you got that we don’t know about, that we could get our hands on?’ I think what will happen is you’ll start to see a synergy of industries moving around Lawton to reinforce the CFTs.”
In the small conference rooms of Building 1616, McIntire and Picht explained to the senator, in the lingo of their professions, the cross-functional teams' modernization efforts. Surface-to-air Patriot missiles should be combined with an Integrated Fire Control Network, McIntire said.
Within five years, the Reagan-era Army Tactical Missile System should be replaced with what the cross-functional teams are calling a precision-strike missile, Picht told Inhofe, who promptly asked about its rate of fire. Richt said the proposed rate is six to 10 rounds per minute. The senator was unimpressed.
“So, we are still, technically, a little bit behind ... China and Russia?” he asked Richt, who said the United States would be nearly equal with the two foeson rate of fire.
“Well, we’re at four and they’re between eight and 10,” Inhofe reminded Richt. He later told him, “See what you can do to change that six (rounds per minute) to 10 as you’re moving along.”
John Gordon, a military policy researcher at the RAND Corporation and former artillery officer, says artillery, an American strong suit during the world wars, atrophied in recent decades as the U.S. turned its focus to counterinsurgency. With the U.S. bogged down in the Middle East and Central Asia, China and Russia invested in artillery that shoots farther and faster than American equivalents.
“I think people have become acutely aware of these kinds of issues but there’s a fair amount of catching up to be done,” Gordon said.
‘World War III’
Along with the rise of Russian and Chinese artillery, the second prong of Inhofe’s two-pronged warning in recent months has been his belief that the world is more dangerous now than in any other period in his lifetime, which began in 1934. It’s a message more likely to resonate with military members than his first prong.
“You’ve been reading about the creation of all of these islands out in the South China Sea that China is doing,” Inhofe told an Armed Services Day luncheon at Fort Sill on May 18. “When you look at them — first of all, this is something that they’re illegally creating, because it was just water. It wasn’t even land out there and it’s almost as if they’re preparing for World War III.”
Inhofe has repeatedly made the World War III remark about China and repeatedly raised concerns about a study that found NATO could be overwhelmed by superior Russian firepower in Eastern Europe. Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti, commander of the U.S. European Command, downplayed the report in congressional testimony this March, saying NATO's 29 nations can adequately deter and defend against Russian threats.
Commanders at Fort Sill were eager to field Inhofe’s questions about counteracting threats in the world’s hot spots. Maj. Gen. Wilson Shoffner, the commanding general of Fort Sill, said one cross-functional team will work on air missile defense in the Korean Peninsula. McIntire said, “There is no silver bullet” for air missile defense so the Army must use a number of sensors and shooters to down drones, cruise missiles, tactical missiles and more."
“It’s kind of like having a toolbox ... the threats are just so different that you’ve got to have a different tool,” he told Inhofe, adding later that “the Russian new generation of warfare was a wake-up call.”
As a result of that wake-up call, Fort Sill is ramping up its work on mobile short-range air defense, a lightlyarmored vehicle used by front-line forces.
“That’s a significant win for the cross-functional team,” McIntire told Inhofe. “We’re building four battalions worth and the first tranches that we’re building are going to Europe to reinforce our NATO partnership over there, reassure our allies and help provide deterrents against Russia.”
Inhofe, who served in the Army during the Cold War and still views parts of the world accordingly, told Fort Sill’s commanders that the Army must improve its artillery, ramp up its production of hypersonic missiles (those that can travel a mile a second) and modernize its nuclear triad “not just for mission purposes but for propaganda purposes.”