RAA Liaison Letter 2024 - 2025 Edition

RAA Liaison Letter – 2024 / 2025 Edition 115 Project Convergence Captain HG Williams, S33 108th Battery, 4th Field Regiment RAA Project Convergence Capstone 4 (PCC4) is led by the U.S. Army Futures Command (AFC) and has held four major gatherings since its inception in 2020, with the 2023 iteration intentionally post-phoned, in order to refine objectives and past lessons, to be applied in 2024. The general, but primary goal of PCC4 is to test capability modernisation technologies and the processes and systems in which they are applied, in order to bolster an integrated fighting force across all warfighting domains and partner forces. This is conducted as a CPX, hosted by the U.S. Army with participants from Australia, Canada, New Zealand, France and Japan, in order to implement a coalition network and achieve full mission threads from sensor to shooter in a multinational environment. With the specific objectives and training outcomes varying year by year, Project Convergence has one important characteristic which distinguishes it from other overseas interoperability training exercises. That is, Project Convergence is designed as an experiment rather than an exercise, focussing on data collection and development through failure. More appropriately stated, Project Convergence encourages divergent and innovative thinking, by removing the idea of failure and the fear associated. In doing so, they facilitate effective data collection, by identifying system limits, as key development opportunities in the technical space. … Project Convergence is designed as an experiment rather than an exercise, focussing on data collection and development through failure. The fourth iteration of Project Convergence, from 01 February through 24 March, saw the integration of 4 Regiment members into the Joint Fires and Effects Coordination Centre (JFECC). The JFECC was comprised of members from 4 Regiment and 10 Brigade, over two rotations, in two separate locations. The first contingent was located at Camp Pendleton California and had the primary goal of establishing and testing a digital link between the UK, USA and AUS systems IOT enable cross-nation targeting and execution, at a divisional level and higher. This contingent comprised Artillery Command Systems Operators (ACSOs) and a Fires Support Officer (FSO), from 4th Regiment; Captain Hannah Williams, Sergeant Joel Brennan, Bombardier Xander Moore, Gunner’s Jamie Sanders and James Sweeney. Under the tutelage and command of Major Pete Tarling and Major Ben Hutchinson, the respective Brigade Major and S33, the JFECC saw the successful engagement of up to 25 sensor-led targets in condensed time frames. In addition to this, Sergeant Brennan and Bombardier Moore, headed the integration of HIMARS assets into the AUS digital fires system. This was a successful integration between offensive support command and control systems, with long range fires, effectively engaging land and maritime targets up to 300km away. Further complexities arose whereby a cross-domain solution was reached, enabling a US closed system to transfer missions to AUS digital fires systems, to engage fire missions. This allowed fire missions to be passed through multiple systems, allowing for efficiency of fires dependant on the firing units’ location and respective target location. This added layer of complexity saw the ACSOs, Gunner’s Sanders and Sweeney, interacting with the US Army’s