Before ground forces can advance, the battlefield has to be shaped. Air defenses have to come down. Enemy weapons have to be destroyed. And the adversaries’ will to combat America has to be lessened. This is the job of field artillery; a branch of the US Army where speed, distance, precision, and results determine who controls the battlefield before ground forces ever make contact.
From Fort Bragg, NC, the 18th Field Artillery Brigade leads the Army’s rapidly deployable artillery units. As the largest HIMARS brigade, its soldiers must be prepared to deploy anywhere in the world within 10 days of notification and deliver long-range precision fires in support of the XVIII Airborne Corps, its divisions, and Special Operations Forces.
Fran Racioppi sat down with the command team of Colonel Andy Hercik and Command Sergeant Major George Cabrera, to talk about what it takes to maintain readiness as the battlefield rapidly changes. After two decades of counterinsurgency, field artillery is now leading in large-scale combat operations where kilometers matter, ammunition and logistics can determine operational reach, and the ability to shoot, move, communicate, and survive has become unforgiving.
Drones have made the battlefield increasingly transparent. A cell phone can expose a position. A lingering electromagnetic signature can make a HIMARS crew a target. The answer isn’t abandoning the fundamentals. It’s executing them better, while using lessons from today’s conflicts to change how soldiers train and how the Army develops the capabilities required for tomorrow.
We also discuss what true integration between conventional forces and Special Operations looks like, why the targeting process has to bring every capability together from the beginning, and the responsibility of NCOs and officers to build a formation that doesn’t simply comply with standards, but understands why those standards keep soldiers alive and make them lethal.
When the call comes, there won’t be time to prepare. 18th Field Artillery Brigade has to be ready.
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Colonel Hercik, Sergeant Major Cabrera, welcome to The Jedburgh Podcast.
Thanks for having us, Fran.
Glad to be here.
We’re here. You’ve welcomed us into Fort Bragg, North Carolina. We’re at the headquarters of your command, 18th Field Artillery Brigade, part of the 18th Airborne Corps. I would say always, field artillery has been a critical component of America’s ability to project power and combat force. What we’ve seen over the last couple of months has put our field artillery capabilities front and center in modern warfare.
The mission of this brigade is to plan, synchronize, and employ long-range precision strike fires and counterfires in support of the 18th Airborne Corps, its subordinate divisions, and the Special Operations Forces as required. Readily available, ready to go on a very short string at a moment’s notice. What does the mission of this brigade mean to you?
You already laid it out, Fran. The mission of this brigade is to generate the maximum amount of warfighting readiness relative to our resourcing. We have to be ready to deploy, fight, and win within ten days of notification. 
The mission of this brigade is to generate the maximum amount of warfighting readiness relative to our resourcing. We have to be ready to deploy, fight, and win within ten days of notification.
In order to be ready for that, we have to constantly ensure that our training, our maintenance, and our systems and processes are to the level that allows us to rapidly transition from peace to war and then fight and win. What our mission means is that we have to be ready. We only get ready through training and maintenance. Our army exists to fight and win our nation’s wars. When we’re not at war, we exist to prepare to win the first fight of the next conflict. That’s exactly what we do here in the 18th FA Brigade.
With the additional requirement of being able to be anywhere in the world within ten days of notification to support either the 18th Airborne Corps or any combatant commander who requests the capability. To do that, it requires significant attention to our warfighting readiness. That we have to continually build and maintain across training, maintenance, personnel, and equipment on hand.
Sergeant Major, when you look at the force, readiness and the capability to be ready to go, as the Colonel said, anywhere in the world for any mission. These geographic regions, the requirements and the adversaries are different but your brigade like all organizations within the army are led by the NCOs. When you look at the NCO Corps across the brigade and you talk to them about force readiness in a time post-GWAT were becoming complacent at times. What’s your message to them? How are you getting them to understand the critical piece that they play in their nations?
As an NCO or non-commissioned officer, the first thing we need to do is make sure our families are taken care of. With that, I always tell my non-commissioned officers to make sure we teach, coach and mentor our individual soldiers. Making sure they’re proficient in their job and they know the fundamentals, the basics of how to shoot a weapon, how to drive, etc. Making sure we have an idea of what we talk about as a non-commissioned officer. Making sure they’re tactically proficient in their jobs.
The capabilities of the brigade are both offensive and defensive when we look at our ability to project power. Can you talk for a second about the various subordinate units and some of the capabilities that they bring to the fight?
Additionally, we have the 188th Brigade Support Battalion, which enables the brigade to receive additional sustainment attachments in order to sustain operations. I often tell the brigade that, “We’re a field artillery brigade, but we’re more like a sustainment brigade that does artillery stuff.”
When we talk about being able to mass fires, at the scope, scale and speed required for large-scale combat operations, we must be able to ensure that we have the right weapon to target and match at the right place at the right time. That is a task all in and of itself to ensure that we have the right ammunition where it needs to be, when it needs to be there. That is a huge capability for the brigade, is our ability to move our own ammunition. Finally, you have the brigade headquarters here, which 18th FA Brigade serves as the force field artillery headquarters for 18th Airborne Corps.
What that means is we are principally responsible to provide command and control for any and all attached or reinforcing artillery to the corps. We are responsible for providing recommendations on how field artillery organizes for combat, positioning guidance down through the division level for corps level, corps level fires assets and division level fires assets. Between those four distinct units, that’s the capability of the brigade.
Offensive and defensive fires are often two sides of the same coin. It’s much more effective to destroy a launcher than to try to intercept an incoming missile.
How have you in the post-GIWAT period of time gotten the formation and I would say almost the branch back to the basics? What we saw in so much of Iraq and Afghanistan was a repurposing of field artillery. You had some units. Speaking from my experience in Iraq of multiple tours.
You saw field artillery units deployed and some of them were shooting big guns in support of the infantry forces and others were out doing combat patrols. How have you refocused everyone to say, “Mission set is almost back to what our core is in long range precision fires at the front end of battle. We need everybody to put away their infantry skills for a little bit and get back to what we’re doing?”
During my three tours in Iraq, I was employed as infantry in some capacity during all three of those. I had the same experience. We do have the advantage of, we have a little bit of time and space separation from those GWAT years. Where the artillery was employed as route reconnaissance, infantry, and sustainment. Only some of the less young folks like Sergeant Major and I are, not the last, but we don’t have as high of a hill to climb, so to speak, in terms of reorienting on our core mission.
That stated, though, there are plenty of bad habits that could be built over time. Supporting a contingency or the competition phase is vastly different from bar-scale combat operations. In order to refocus the organization, the soldiers within it, I see a couple different venues. The first is, the Army develops a mission essential task list for every unit type. Those 3 to 7 things that every unit must be able to do.
When we talk about orienting principles, that’s what we orient on. What has the army told us that this brigade must have the ability to do to fight and win? We focus on that. The next is being able to describe the conditions that we expect to encounter in large-scale combat operations. The lethality, the distance, and the ambiguity. Those things that we have not seen on a large scale over the years. Finally, after describing it through professional development. To the best of our ability, we implement and replicate those conditions during our collective training events.
When we have a battery qualification or a battalion level qualification here on Fort Bragg, North Carolina, we represent being contested in the air domain with UAS in the space domain via GPS jamming, additional capabilities, and the land domain with irregular forces, and even in the cyber domain. Through sets and reps of essentially forcing ourselves to train against a dynamic hybrid threat, force ourselves to reorient on the blocking and tackling that’s required to be able to shoot, move, communicate, and sustain ourselves over long duration.
Sergeant Major, how are you passing the knowledge? How are you using the lessons learned over GWAT in Iraq and Afghanistan, counterinsurgency and counterterrorism to train that next generation?
From experience, using our manuals. With that, going from table 6s to 18s. It starts with our sections. Make sure they get their certification knocked out. After that, their platoons certifications and after that, it goes to battle certifications, battalions, then overall table 18s at the brigade level. We have leaders have OCs, reviewing it and making sure with the checklist they’re doing the right thing and following the rules and regulations.
If I’m an ODA commander, do I have someone on the other line if I need to call for fire? Integration, can we work together? Can we co-locate on the battlefield? Do we have the resources to use each other’s stuff? Truly operate as one element in the broader support of the joint force. When we look at large scale combat operations, we start to define, as you said.
What does a day of large-scale combat operations truly look like? We are getting a glimpse of that over the last couple of months. The Navy, probably more than anybody else, with their proximity and some of the defensive stuff that they’ve had to do to protect those carrier groups is by seeing it in front and center more than anything. From your perspective, what is your ability from the 18th Field Artillery Brigade to support special operations forces in large-scale combat operations?
We talked about the brigade headquarters serving as a force field artillery headquarters for 18th Airborne Corps. What I didn’t mention is that I’m also the core fire support coordinator. I have the distinct honor of simultaneously being a commander and a staff officer. Which is super fun, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Do you get to pick when you’re one or the other?
I am the fire support coordinator. That’s why I have outstanding battalion commanders and outstanding field grades. As I explained to General Anderson when we discussed this, if we don’t get the targeting process right, then there’s nothing that this brigade is going to do to achieve success.
They participated in every targeting meeting, every target decision board. They were directly tied in with the fire staff, with my staff in the force field artillery headquarters. It was beyond the, “Can I call for fire?” We established a quick fire net if they needed fires from rocket artillery. We could support that. That’s the checkers. The chess was integrating them into the targeting process where the SOD-JF is able to, A) Nominate targets. B) Serve as observers for other targets that are important to the core commander. C) Even create some of the effects we were looking for through their, either unilateral or partnered force actions.
If we don’t integrate at the start, then we’re not going to be able to do it on the fly. Being part of that process, it all boils down to we’re just being good teammates because we all have the same ultimate objective. It’s not necessarily a question of who’s in charge. None of that matters. At the end of the day, winning is all that matters. 
At the end of the day, winning is all that matters. Having great teammates that are integrated from the start allows us to develop a common plan for how we’re going to shape the battlefield.
That’s a good way to put it, having one common plan, because you didn’t see that for a long time. Too long. I’m a huge fan of the 155s out of the self-propelled howitzers back from my infantry days. Number one was my CHU in Iraq when I was in 4th ID. I was able to get that blast every night right over my roof. More importantly, I used to call for fire all the time as an infantry platoon leader in 2005 in Iraq. The ability to then take that and we would start planning for it.
The first time we’d call for fire was like one of those times out of ranger school where we’re in a firefight and I’m like, “What do we do?” I’m like, “I can call for fire.” Having that epiphany that I could get someone on and then I remember after that, sitting down and then planning for it and saying, “What resources do we have available? How do we integrate even things like illumination onto target objectives? What do we have in contingency plans if we do need to call for fire?” Being able to be on the forward edge of that, at a strategic operational level, versus that tactical ODA or platoon level, is where you begin to see effects of that integration.
That’s why you have those firing servers. The experts beside the infantry or special forces. They tell you, this is the round or certain rounds. You can fire 505 or 555 or low rounds. They’ll give you the expertise so you can make a decision right there on what rounds to shoot.
You spent time in a seven special forces group as the FSO there.
Yes. I spent a couple years as the FSO for 3rd battalion 7th group. It was a great opportunity for me to learn more about the special forces specifically, but special operations generally. Leading into that, I’d had the experience that you mentioned of bumping into an ODA in Iraq, and we’d work together just off the cuff.
Being able to better understand the capabilities, the mission sets of Special Operations Forces was helpful to me to be able to better assist with the integration. Now, understanding what the capability can do if you’re willing to let it is important. It’s not some mysterious secret society that only shows up at the wrong time. 
What separates the 18th FA Brigade from what I had experienced supporting the 4th Infantry Division? You had tied that into the discussion we had about the support to 18th Airborne Corps in a rapidly deployable capability. What separates that ability from what supports 3rd ID or 4th ID?
To broadly on artillery to probably set the stage, at the tactical level, we’re talking infantry brigades. In an infantry brigade, you have cannons. Cannons are necessary and still valid. Cannons shape terrain to enable the infantry or the armor to maneuver. They’re firing in order to maneuver. As we get to the division and then to the core level, as we get from the high tactical to the operational level, you need the range of rocket systems to be able to reach the division in a core deep area.
At that stage, I would submit that we transition from firing to maneuver, which is what brigades are doing. 
We are a pure high mobility artillery rocket system. Again, meant for that 70 to 500 kilometer range. The brigade combat teams have a battalion of cannons that allow them to fire to maneuver so that they can maneuver so that they can fire deeper into the enemy’s rear area.
How do you integrate with air power out of the joint force and also with naval gunfire?
That also goes back to the integrating process of the targeting process. With either a tactical air control party or an air support operation center at the core level, they’re in the targeting process. As a matter of fact, our targeting process is largely oriented on being the entry point for those joint effects. We orient on the joint targeting process.
We ensure that we are making requests for support in the right manner, and in the right timeframe in order to be able to realize fixed wing, naval gunfire support, if necessary, or other capabilities that the joint force can provide.
The army is putting a lot of focus on, I won’t call it modernization. I think we probably need to get away from that term because if we’re not modernized, we’re going to have a slew of other issues. I would say they’re putting a lot of money into various initiatives to increase the capability of the field artillery units across the army from the tactical level up through the operational level. Some of their top initiatives have been in the rocket artillery range with precision strike missiles and initiatives to bring that up to 1,000 kilometers from 500 kilometers in the HIMARS.
A lot more money went into HIMARS expansion and capability then upgrades to the paladin tract howitzer capability. Also, this investment of $625 million to build a new ammunition complex to build 155 projectiles in Iowa and with support in Arkansas and Kansas. There’s a lot of focus from the army saying, “We need these capabilities.” As you look at your mission, what you’re required to support, how are you taking those near real time lessons learned from the various conflict zones of the world and then incorporating that into the rapid acquisition phase of getting to the next level?
It’s a great question. Here at Fort Bragg, we have the luxury of having one of the best laboratories for that. It’s called the Training Area. As we pay attention, we learn from the current conflict. We happen to have 327 Ford in CENTCOM and our partners in a 41st Field Artillery Brigade in Germany. They have very close attention to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Other sources of understanding are the threat environments, what are some of the tactics, techniques, and procedures that are being used forward.
We are then able to incorporate those tactics, techniques, and procedures, or threats here at Fort Bragg when we are performing collective training events. That enables us to identify where we may or may not have a material gap or we could innovate. Which I break apart from modernization and innovation is. Innovating is we are going to change what we are doing within our own resources to do it better. How do we innovate with different tactics, techniques, and procedures? How do we reorganize to face this current problem center threat?
Innovating is changing what we are doing within our own resources to just do it better.
As we identify potential material gaps, we have a couple of avenues. We have the joint innovation outpost, where you’re going to talk to Tom Monaghan. He’s a great entry point to the acquisition world, but as leaders in the field artillery, the Command Sergeant Major and I have a good running dialogue with the commandant of the field artillery out at Fort Sill. Other elements across the enterprise where we’re able to provide some feedback. I will say the Army Enterprise from the Pentagon, all the way out through the acquisition field is always interested in getting warfighter feedback. We provide it as much as we possibly can.
How’s drone warfare affecting field artillery writ large and your ability to project combat power at distance?
I’ll start on the survivability side first. Drone warfare, along with capabilities in other domains, the space domain and the electromagnetic spectrum,
At the end of the day, what we’re trying to do is avoid being at this point on the earth where the enemy missile hits when it hits. We don’t want to be there. We’ve had some great opportunities to train that here on Fort Bragg and adjust how we employ. Broadly, it’s increasing dispersion. Shortening the interval being in a hide location for a certain amount of time. We know it’s time to move. What it forces us to do broadly and how it changes how we deliver is we have to execute the fundamentals better.
It’s what it comes down to, shoot, move, and communicate. Clean up our electromagnetic spectrum. Reduce all of the unnecessary emissions that we’d grown accustomed to when we weren’t facing that threat. Again, as CSM mentioned earlier, back to the basics, blocking and tackling, fundamentals and discipline. What it also does on the offensive side is, I believe the army is considering or pursuing some low-cost one-way attack UAS.
At the risk of assuming that there’s a one-size-fits-all solution for anything, there’s a place in the right mixture of our high-end, long-range, exquisite munitions that can do only what a prism can do, and a relatively inexpensive one-way attack UAS. As long as we have the right mix to be able to employ the right weapon at the right time based on the threat, or even to use them in conjunction with each other. That’s where we get the best bang for our buck, so to speak. On the offensive side, our own promulgation of drones allows us to be able to locate and strike targets at a much higher rate.
One of the things is making sure soldiers understand the visibility of their signature. 
If you have a cell phone on, that’s a signature right there. We’re making sure they understand that. Some of the soldiers understand now. Whenever we leave the gate, they turn their cell phones off or put it away or put it somewhere else. Also, making sure they have a low signature, they camouflage everything, and they face paint. It’s small little things like that. Basic stuff, fundamentals, they will make sure they understand.
To Sergeant Major’s point, it’s powerful to be able to take the imagery from a drone that looks at your HIMARS or your platoon operations center and you then show what that looks like. That is powerful to a soldier like, “Now I understand what we’re talking about. We’re spanning the strategic level,” where we talk about drone warfare and how it’s changing the character but not the nature of warfare.
It’s mildly interesting if I’m a crew member in the HIMARS. When I can see that’s what I look like to an enemy threat system, now I can apply changes to do it better. Over the last three collective training exercises, we have seen a marked improvement of our crews and our command posts to be able to reduce their signature across multiple domains and be more survivable.
It’s just using our tools we have at the brigade level, especially the RS2. It’s making sure they use our drones, they fly around RAOs and they take a picture of those HIMARS. It’s also making sure this is what you saw and this is what you need to do better to make sure you camouflage certain magnetic vehicles.
That’s probably a little bit scary too, when you realize, “This is what I look like,” as an enemy target because that’s effectively what you are. I’ve been able to sit down with the Sergeant Major of the Army Mike Weimer a couple of various times to talk about several different initiatives. One of the things that he reiterates to me on a regular basis is this culture mindset of compliance to commitment.
When you come into the army, you hold the bag over your head because the drill sergeant tells you to hold the bag over your head. You shave because the drill sergeant tells you to shave. You do these numbers of things regularly because someone told you to do it. As you progress through your career, you begin to realize, “I do these things because that’s the right thing to do. That makes me better. That makes me, to his second point, a warrior.”
If war fighting is what we’re doing as an army and that’s our profession, then it requires warriors and a warrior mindset. A warrior culture to effectively war fight at the level that we need for present and future conflict. Sergeant Major, as you look across the formation and we see a young generation of folks coming in who are tied to those cell phones, who have a different idea. We showed up at 5:00 AM because they told us to show up at 5:00 AM. The young generation now will show up at 5:00 AM and they ask you why.
Everything that we got told when we were coming up as young NCOs, soldiers and officers, we did it that way because the sergeant told us to do it that way or the commander told us to do it that way. Now, I can pull out my phone and I can fact check you to make sure you know how to load that weapon system the right way. How are you instilling within the ranks this mindset of compliance to commitment and this warrior ethos that we’ve talked about for decades to prepare this formation for what’s to come?
One of the things, leader’s presence. Make sure you’re there. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Sergeant Major, Command Sergeant Major, or Lieutenant Colonel or Colonel. You have to be there. Me and the boss, we’re always in PT. That’s the start to the morning. We’re always in the motor pool. We’ll go walk around the motor pool, making sure soldiers are doing the right thing. It’s just presence. With that, empowering our leaders.
Normally, what I do quarterly, I sit down with my soldiers and talk to them, empowering them, like, “This is what you need to do. This is what I’m seeing.” If they have any feedback to let me know so we could do it. I always tell my leaders, “If you talk bad about this organization, what are you doing to help me fix this organization?”
In your question, you brought up a great point. You mentioned the soldier is going to show up at 5:00 and wants to know why. My view is, as leaders, we owe them that. We have to push the why behind the what down to the lowest level possible. It’s no longer okay to just say, “Because I said so.” 
We have to push the why behind the what down to the lowest level possible. It’s no longer okay to just say ‘because I said so.’ Showing the context builds that culture.
We used to sit in the hallway until they told us we could go home.
Maybe I’m not that smart and easy to control, but what I often push with our NCOs and our officers, how are you delivering the context to your formation? Why are we doing the things that we’re doing? We’re doing the things that we’re doing to make us more lethal and more survivable. To be able to win that first fight in the next conflict and showing to the best of our ability what that looks like during our collective training events.
Our brigade intelligence officer or the intelligence section do a pretty good job of replicating enemy threats out here on Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Our soldiers know that when you get out for what we call a table fifteen, which is a battery live fire qualification or a table eighteen, a battalion live fire qualification. It’s going to be about ten days of hard training. Somebody’s going to be chasing you through some domain. Maybe multiple domains at the same time. We can link the context or the purpose behind why we are doing PT. Do you remember on day six when you felt tired? It’s because maybe you weren’t physically fit enough, just as an example. Being able to draw that context out from the flash to bang, so to speak, is important in building that culture.
What’s your message to the force? Young officers who come in or soldiers who come into the organization. We were joking earlier about sending folks to the promotion boards. They’re sitting there in front of the promotion board looking to take that next level. As the command team, what are you telling them on a daily basis?
How do we get good at doing these things so that when the call comes in to deploy on that ten-day string that we talked about, when we hit the ground, we’re ready to perform the mission. We’re also able to survive in a lethal environment. That’s what we’re focused on. That’s what we’re oriented on. That is what drives our decision-making process within the brigade.
Basic fundamentals. Make sure they’re particularly proficient in their job, and then have fun. 
With a lot of opportunities on this show to talk about different units and different organizations within the army, within the military. When we look at the capabilities that you’re bringing, the investment that the army is making in field artillery writ large, and the focus that this capability and the soldiers, the NCOs, and the officers in this formation are going to play in our current and next conflict.
This is an organization that’s going to be front and center for American defense and American rapid deployable capability within the 18th Airborne Corps for a long time. I appreciate you guys taking some time out of your day to sit with me. to tell this story and highlight the importance of this organization and the critical effect that it has on the battlefield. I know you have a lot of things to do, so thank you.
I appreciate you taking some time to talk with us.
Thank you very much. I appreciate it.
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