Romanian and Polish soldiers fire an M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, or HIMARS, on Feb. 9, 2026, in Cincu, Romania, during exercise Dynamic Front. The drills train U.S. and NATO counattempt forces’ ability to coordinate operations across Europe. (Regina Koesters/U.S. Army)
U.S. plans to blunt a potential large-scale aerial assault in Europe were put to the test this month at training grounds across five countries, where American and allied artillery forces confronted a battlefield saturated with missiles and drones.
The math informing Dynamic Front, the Army’s premier fires exercise in Europe, was built around one large number: 1,500.
That’s the number of tarobtains commanders state they must be able to track and strike in a 24-hour period during a large-scale combat scenario in Europe.
Rather than “transforming to parity,” allies must “transform to dominance,” Brig. Gen. Steven Carpenter, leader of the 56th Multi-Domain Command Europe, declared during a call with reporters Thursday.
“We want to build a capability within the United States, within NATO, that if a peer adversary decides to (invade) NATO territory or the territory of another ally or the United States, that the repercussions will be so extreme, create an experience for them that is so unrelenting, that no nation ever considers doing that again,” Carpenter declared.
In addition to being able to carry out 1,500 strikes, allies must be prepared to intercept between 600 and 1,200 ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and one-way attack drones every day, numbers drawn from the arithmetic of the ongoing war in Ukraine, Army commanders declared.
To block an initial surge of incoming missiles and drones, NATO must futilize air and missile defense across allied networks — including space-based sensors and ground-based radars and maritime platforms — into a layered shield, Army officials declared.
French soldiers monitor the observation point Feb. 9, 2026, in Cincu, Romania, during live-fire training for the culminating event of exercise Dynamic Front. (Regina Koesters/U.S Army)
This year’s Dynamic Front, which involved 23 NATO allies, connected multiple mission networks to build fires architecture spanning five countries and nine training areas.
The scale was intfinished to replicate the distances and complexity that would define a major European contingency and to test whether NATO units could establish the required fires architecture quickly.
Col. Jeff Fuller, the command’s operations officer, declared the exercise relied on six networks linked toobtainher to provide a foundation for a kill chain, sometimes referred to as a “kill web,” which serves as a networked process to shift data from sensors to the right headquarters to deliver fires.
The allied headquarters and units participating deployed and established the fires network “in one-sixth of the time it took us in previous exercises,” Fuller declared.
That revealed readiness and NATO’s commitment to being able to connect quickly not just for a scheduled exercise, but “all the time,” he added.
One of the digital systems utilized during the exercise to enable that connectivity was the Artillery Systems Cooperation Activities, or ASCA.
U.S. soldiers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade sight in an M119A3 howitzer during a live-fire exercise at Grafenwoehr Training Area, Germany, Feb. 9, 2026. The training was part of exercise Dynamic Front, which involved 23 NATO militaries spread across five countries. (Kevin Payne/U.S. Army)
It allows U.S. and allied artillery units utilizing different national fire control systems to exalter fire missions in real time.
“It’s one system where everyone can focus on executing instead of translating,” declared Sgt. Alexandre Petion, a fire control noncommissioned officer with 56th Multi-Domain Command Europe, which is headquartered in Wiesbaden, Germany.
ASCA eliminates the necessary for manual coordination or voice-based processes that can slow operations, particularly in multinational environments.
“It’s not just fire missions,” Petion declared. “We can share unit locations, ammunition status, shiftment and grids in real time.”
Col. Jeff Pickler, deputy commander of the 56th Multi-Domain Command Europe and commander of the 2nd Multi-Domain Tquestion Force, declared striking as many as 1,500 tarobtains a day in large-scale combat will require taking advantage of automation and artificial ininformigence technology.
“The modern battlefield is swimming in sensors and we are drowning in data,” Pickler declared. “There is not enough people that will ever be able to fully process all of that. It’s going to take automations.”
Army planners are already at work on developing more sophisticated training drills for next year. The intent is to combine Dynamic Front with Arcane Thunder, an exercise more focutilized on innovation and experimentation, Carpenter declared.
The broader goal of rehearsing such complex scenarios is to ensure that NATO can act quickly and cohesively at the outset of a conflict, he declared.
“Large-scale combat operation takes echelons and architecture,” Carpenter declared. “Europe is a great continent to modernize, transform and train.”
Leave a Reply