TWENTYNINE PALMS, Ca. — After seeing a decade of heavy combat in two major wars, the lightweight M777 howitzer continues to be an integral piece of the U.S. military’s artillery strategy – as it looks forward to facing a range of new threats.

With the capacity to fire up to five 155mm rounds a minute, the M777 provides artillery units with pinpoint accuracy in long-range-fire for up to 18.6 miles, and the capability to transport the equipment quickly between locations.

At the Twentynine Palms Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, training prepares troops for scenarios when long distance precision fire is needed in support of maneuverable forces. These training operations take place on the Marine’s largest live-fire base with nearly 600,000 acres, aptly located in the desert and mountainous region of Southern California.

The Marines at Twentynine Palms were the first to receive the M777 when it became operational in 2005. Soon after it was used by the U.S. Army and Marines in Afghanistan in 2007, and Iraq in 2008.

“We provide fire support to the maneuverable forces,” said Lt. Col. Charlie Von Bergen, commanding officer of the 3rd Battalion 11th Marines at Twentynine Palms. That often means pinning down the enemy so U.S. troops can move.

Von Bergen spends just under a month training his battalions to locate enemy targets and aid forces to maneuver safely between checkpoints. During Von Bergen’s current training exercise they are working with three M777 howitzers, but would typically have six in combat.

“We do things to produce a certain effect out on the battlefield, whether it is to delay, destroy, divert, suppress or neutralize somebody,” said Capt. Andrew Reaves who oversees the howitzer sections for the battalion.

The 3rd battalion is practicing with high explosive white phosphorus, smoke and alum flares round. “It’s like flipping on a light switch,” said Capt. Richard Whalen of the alum flares. During the exercises, Whalen’s unit maps the known enemy targets and locations of impacted rounds, as well as ammunition levels of each type of firepower.

To continue to be effective in evolving warfare, the newest M777 system weighs in at less than 8,000 pounds, the first howitzer to be less than 10,000 pounds and almost half the weight of the previous iteration.

Col. Don Paquin says he remembers primarily using the M777 for its forcible entry fire support capability to attain footholds and wait for follow-on force to expand their ground in the Middle East. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, he said the artillery weapon is “pretty dog-gone good.”

“It’s iterative and its constant,” said Paquin, a light artilleryman studying National Security Strategy at the National War College. He believes the current M777 A2 model accomplishes exactly what it was designed to do.

“With toad systems you always want a faster way of emplacing and displacing the system,” he said. When he first joined the military he used the previous M198 howitzer, which required a crew of nearly twice the five-man crew of the M777.

With the recent A2 upgrade to the M777, the howitzer now has increased digital capabilities. “The howitzer always knows where it is,” said Paquin, who does not believe there is a need for concern in relying solely on digital GPS for aiming the weapon. “We trust the technology.”

Paquin said that there are backups to the digital technologies allowing troops to trust the equipment they have.

While strategic warfare’s complexity grows with the use of drones and unmanned aerial vehicles, the M777 howitzer artillery system will have many years left in modern warfare.

In anticipation of Veterans Day, NSJI co-director Tim McNulty spoke with two veterans, one who is engaged in running an Internet “incubator” office and other in developing a unique web application for ordering and paying for restaurant meals. Tom Day, a former journalist and Army veteran, is one of the founders of The Bunker Incubator, an office based in Chicago’s Merchandise Mart. Seven new affiliates of The Bunker are set to open around the country in coming months. One of the veterans who have benefited from the Bunker is Jeremy Adkins who co-developed the Dyner app that will be released next January. Jeremy and another colleague came up with Dyner and other potential web applications as they drove their Army vehicle. Both Tom and Jeremy discuss how many veterans who have dealt for years with high-tech military systems are well qualified to apply that familiarity to civilian systems.

Webinar: The Military After Iraq and Afghanistan. Watch the full webinar.

TOPIC: A Post-Kinetic World: The United States Military After Iraq and Afghanistan. Hosted by Medill National Security Journalism Initiative.

WHEN: Tuesday, July 22, 2014– 1 p.m. Eastern, 12 noon Central Time, 10 a.m. Pacific

WATCH VIDEO REPLAY: On this page.

OVERVIEW: Focusing on the three major elements of the Obama Administration’s counter-terrorism strategy, Professor Jon Caverley makes a case that direct action is a valuable tool, but journalists are underreporting the other two essential aspects of counter-terrorism that the President outlined in his recent speech at West Point.

Direct action through special operation forces and drone strikes generate headlines, says Caverley, but the second and third elements of the strategy–training of foreign militaries and American arms sales around the world—have the potential to create much larger, long term impacts on international politics.

HOST: Medill Lecturer and NSJI co-director Tim McNulty.

TOPIC: A Post-Kinetic World: The United States Military After Iraq and Afghanistan

WHEN: Tuesday, July 22, 2014– 1 p.m. Eastern, 12 noon Central Time, 10 a.m. Pacific

OVERVIEW: Focusing on the three major elements of the Obama Administration’s counter-terrorism strategy, Professor Jon Caverley makes a case that direct action is a valuable tool, but journalists are underreporting the other two essential aspects of counter-terrorism that the President outlined in his recent speech at West Point. Direct action through special operation forces and drone strikes generate headlines, says Caverley, but the second and third elements of the strategy--training of foreign militaries and American arms sales around the world—have the potential to create much larger, long term impacts on international politics. [caption id="" align="alignright" width="125"] Caverley[/caption] SPEAKER: Jonathan Caverley is now a Research Associate at MIT. Previously, Caverley was an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Northwestern University. His current research examines the distribution of the costs of security within democracies, and its contribution to military aggressiveness. He also studies the globalization of the defense industry, and the role of technology in international politics. His research has been supported by the International Security Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University; the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation; and the Program in International Security Policy, University of Chicago. Caverley also served as a submarine officer in the U.S. Navy and as an Assistant Professor of Naval Science at Northwestern University, where he taught undergraduate classes in Naval Engineering and in Leadership and Management. He has consulted for the RAND Corporation, where he helped develop scenarios for responding to a biological weapons attack in East Asia. His PhD and MPP are from the University of Chicago, and he received his BA in History and Literature from Harvard College. The webinar is sponsored by the Medill National Security Journalism Initiative. For questions, please contact Timothy McNulty via email.

Paul Rosenzweig shares his expertise to help reporters better understand cyber crime — how much money and intellectual property are we losing every day and what it means, as well as how governments around the globe can coordinate to fight a criminal element that knows no boundaries. The webinar, organized by Medill National Security Journalism Initiative, was held on Oct. 16, 2013 from the Northwestern University campus in Evanston, IL and the Medill Washington Bureau.

Rosenzweig’s PowerPoint slides are below.

Listen:

About Dan Meyer

Dan Meyer

Dan Meyer, the Pentagon’s director of whistleblowing and transparency, was a whistleblower himself to the Senate Armed Services Committee following the explosion onboard the battleship IOWA (BB-61) in 1989. He now advises the Inspector General of the Department of Defense on the protection of sources to the Department’s audits, investigations, inspections and evaluations. Over the past six months, he has been the chair of an informal working group coordinating the implementation of PPD-19, the president’s whistleblower protection program for the intelligence community.