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Grecian Firebolt

Grecian Firebolt is the largest communication exercise in the United States and is sponsored by U.S. Army Signal Command [USASC], located in Fort Huachuca, Arizona. The exercise is designed to refine the integration and interoperability among active component, Reserve and National Guard units. The operation integrates the use of current and newly developed generations of equipment, including commercial items, to ensure that all services and Army components are familiar with procedures necessary to work together successfully during wartime. Grecian Firebolt assesses the planning and execution of Active, Reserve, and National Guard Signal Components' capability to deploy to field locations and provide reliable and flexible command, control, communications, and computer (C4) support during Wartime.

Grecian Firebolt is the only worldwide command, control, communications and computer training exercise. It provides an opportunity for the services, including the Army Reserve and National Guard, to try new things, test new procedures and ensure we provide the best communication support to 'warfighting' CINCs.

Grecian Firebolt has evolved from a joint training exercise championed in the early 1980s by South Carolina Army Guard Col. Gene Riley, who served for 27 years in the 228th Brigade and who believed that signal soldiers in all components "needed to train together." An initial Cornerstone exercise in 1984 was modest by today's standards. Army Guard and Reserve units operated a communications system in Virginia and Pennsylvania. The 228th orchestrated the first Grecian Firebolt in 1989 that was based in Florida, that encompassed the East Coast, and that included active and reserve component units. The exercises have taken on global dimensions since 1994.

Elements of U.S. Army National Guard units from Delaware, New York, and South Carolina trained with their active duty counterparts as well as the Navy, Marines and Air Force in a joint global communications exercise called Grecian Firebolt 95. The exercise was designed to transmit large volumes of voice, data and visual messages in joint operations giving major commanders ready access to information for battlefield command and control. The Delaware Army Guard's 261st Signal Command provided operational control of the Army elements. Joining Delaware in Grecian Firebolt 95 was the 187th Signal Brigade, Brooklyn, N.Y., and the 228th Signal Brigade, Spartanburg, S.C. The exercise, which began June 10, linked systems in Asia, Europe, and North and Central America as well as 16 states from Alaska to Florida.

Three thousand, five hundred soldiers in tactical signal units went "hot" during Grecian Firebolt '95, the world's largest signal exercise. Grecian Firebolt is the time junior enlisted soldiers get the training they need. That's because it is a signal-only exercise. Signal units were creating a hardened, reliable and redundant network, capable of supporting a worldwide communications system -- even if all others failed. Key to this network were two mobile gateway van teams of the 11th Sig. Bde. The teams gave units operating in the Fort Huachuca, Ariz., area the kind of electronic mail capability they needed to conduct unclassified communications throughout the exercise. While testing the Army's signal readiness, Grecian Firebolt '95 also helped demonstrate the value of the Army Power Projection Operations Center. For the first time, the APPOC created the needed link between tactical communicators and the strategic net. In another first during Grecian Firebolt '95, Information Systems Engineering Command deployed two members of its Technical Integration Center to install and maintain a continuous secure, tactical video teleconferencing center, or VTC, linking Bethany Beach, where the 261st Sig. Cmd. was headquartered, and Fort Huachuca.

The 240th Signal Battalion (California Army National Guard), and the 319th Signal Battalion (USAR) spent their Annual Training (AT) working together in support of exercises Wild Boar '98 (and Grecian Firebolt 98 ) from June 6-18, 1998. The exercise involved more than 8,000 soldiers, making it the largest signal exercise ever. It blended together signal assets from the active components, the USAR, and the National Guard demonstrating that "total force"is not just a concept - it works. Virtually every kind of military communications equipment was used in the extensive CONUS and OCONUS deployments. This included VHF-FM, Tactical Satellite (TACSAT), Mobile Subscriber Equipment (MSE), Tropospheric Scatter, and high frequency radio. The Mobile Subscriber Equipment used by 240th Signal Battalion has many capabilities. It provides mobile digital secured voice and non-secure telephone service, mobile faxes, and computer networking capability (TACLAN). The 240th demonstrated that persistence and determination pays off. Despite some challenges they were able to connect to the exercise from Camp Roberts by using a VHF-FM Retrans to the combat net radio interface in a small extension node (SEN) at Fort Hunter Liggett which is about 100 miles northeast of Camp Roberts. A SEN is a small communications center located in a mobile shelter that has the capability to support local users, local area networks, and combat net radio (CNR). This connection made it possible to complete a call from a 40 ID (m) tactical vehicle on Camp Roberts to U.S. Army assets in Panama over the WildBoar / Grecian Firebolt network. This call demonstrated the extensive tactical connectivity between division headquarters and any location in the network.

The Army Reserves' 335th Theater Signal Command (TSC) was the U.S. Army Signal Command's executive agent for Grecian Firebolt 2000. As executive agent, the 335th commanded and controlled four brigades containing over 3,700 active, Reserve, and National Guard soldiers. The 335th also provided the overall communications network management for communication systems stretching over 28 states. This communications network supported exercises nationwide such as Golden Cargo with 19th Theater Army Area Command, Golden Coyote with 420th Engineer Brigade, Golden Medic with 3d Medical Command and Polex with 475th Quartermaster Group. To accomplish this, the 335th had a true multi-component force using two AC units: 11th SC Brigade, Ft. Huachuca, Ariz. and 93rd SC Brigade, Ft. Gordon, GA; the USAR's 359th SC Brigade, Ft. Gordon, GA, and Army National Guard's 228th SC Brigade, Spartanburg, SC. Each Brigade also had a mixture of AC, USAR, and ARNG signal units. Services include Non-Secure Internet Protocol Routing Network (NIPR), Secure Internet Protocol Routing Network (SIPR), Tactical Packet Network (TPN), Videoteleconference (VTC), and Voice and Data.

June's global Army signal training exercise, Grecian Firebolt 2001, helped determine just how well the moving parts -- the active, Guard and Reserve troops -- enable the Army to talk during this age of mobile communications. It was the biggest peacetime communications exercise in the world. More than 4,000 people, including civilians and members of the Air National Guard, took part in the annual event during June's final two weeks. Grecian Firebolt 01 is designed to test and further develop the deployment of a combat-ready global Signal force to engineer, install, operate and maintain communications systems capable of handling large volumes of voice, data and video traffic. The U.S. Army Signal Command at Fort Huachuca, Ariz., sponsored the exercise that connected signal units in 14 of the continental states into a communications umbrella with other units in Puerto Rico, Hawaii, South Korea and Japan.

During Grecian Firebolt 2001 -- a multi-component, multi-service, training exercise -- the 311th communicated with its subordinate units and higher headquarters through web-based reporting on a secure network. The 311th, an Army Reserve unit based at Fort Meade, Md., was the executive agent for Grecian Firebolt. As such, it was tasked by its higher headquarters, the U.S. Army Signal Command, from Fort Huachuca, Ariz., with the planning, command and control of this world-wide signal exercise. Units from Korea to Puerto Rico and across the continental United States submitted status reports dealing with personnel and their locations, supply and communications to the Grecian Firebolt network. Instantaneously, the reports were collated to provide an overall picture of the exercise to decision makers and other interested parties. In addition, there were a number of other documents available for viewing on the secure network created as a product of the training exercise. Fragmentary orders, training objectives, situation reports of the 311th and its subordinate brigades, and even the daily command briefing presented to Army Signal Command were there for access.

Coordinating a Signal exercise can be difficult. When placed under the control of a different unit, the challenges can become tremendous. Company B, 63rd Signal Battalion, 93rd Signal Brigade, got a chance to find out what it would be like during Grecian Firebolt '01, when they were placed under the operational control of the 417th Signal Battalion, a Florida Army National Guard unit. The battalion also controlled elements of the 290th Joint Communications Support Squadron, a Florida Air National Guard unit, and its own 653rd Signal Company.

In June 2002 the year's annual Grecian Firebolt exercise tested a worldwide communications network that could be used for Homeland Security. The Federal Emergency Management Agency joined the month-long exercise as part of the Homeland Security scenario, and so did the U.S. Joint Forces Command. FEMA directors said they like the Army's signal reliability and the versatility of using several communication paths. They also like any path increasing their speed of contacting the Department of Defense. U.S. Joint Forces Command was involved in the exercise to observe the interoperability between Army and Air Force Force communications assets. The command is evaluating the infrastructure for a Homeland Security defense communications template. The exercise, which began June 1, costs approximately $1.2 million dollars budgeted annually by reserve-component units participating in it.