ADA Modernization Team Seeks ‘Quick Wins' On Goals

Two of the six modernization priorities that Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley set forth last October directly affect Fort Sill and the Fires Center of Excellence.

- Mitch Meador

Two of the six modernization priorities that Army Chief of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley set forth last October directly affect Fort Sill and the Fires Center of Excellence.

No. 1 is long-range precision fire support capability, and that’s the field artillery branch. No. 5 calls for better defenses against missiles and drones, and that’s air defense artillery.

When Brig. Gen. Stephen Maranian was asked in a recent interview how it felt for his branch to top the list, he replied that any one of the six could have been No. 1.

His ADA counterpart, Brig. Gen. Randall McIntire, said he “absolutely would agree with that.”

McIntire said it’s less about the order and more about having a combined arms approach to the future.

“It’s a total package … Everybody has a piece of the pie here to make it work, from a combined arms approach,” he explained.

“All six priorities are critical in our ability to win in a near-peer adversary fight,” said the ADA School commandant and chief of the ADA branch. “We have spent the last 15-plus years focused on fighting wars of insurgency and terrorism while our adversaries have made improvements in their own capabilities. This has resulted in loss of significant overmatch that we had long maintained since World War II.

“To regain that dominance the Army chose to focus on the six priorities,” McIntire said.

“I think it’s fantastic that Fort Sill’s got two of the six priorities, and I often remind myself, ‘how would you like to not be one of the priorities?’ Because it is a big Army,” he pointed out.