Army moves closer to fielding EMBM solution
By John Higgins PEO IEW&S Public Affairs
Chief Warrant Officer 3 William Insch, an EW Technician with the Army’s Project Manager Electronic
Warfare & Cyber (PM EW&C), gathered more than 50 electronic warfare (EW) and electromagnetic
spectrum managers (ESM) Soldiers from around the globe for Product Manager Electronic Warfare
Integration’s (PdM EWI) User Verification Event, or UVE, for their premier platform, the Electronic
Warfare Planning and Management Tool (EWMPT). The objective of the UVE was to obtain feedback
from the EW/ESM 0perational force.
The EWPMT is a battlespace visualization and analysis application that lets electronic warfare officers
and electromagnetic spectrum managers coordinate in a shared overlay style that prioritizes their area
of expertise: the electromagnetic spectrum.
“The value of having these senior folks who have done EW their whole career,” said Insch, “is that
they’ve deployed at all levels from brigade to Army Command, and that experience makes their critical
user feedback vital to ensuring that we’re providing the force a product they can actually use.”
To ensure a range of input from the force, Insch brought in personnel from school houses, training
centers, units already familiar with EWPMT from events like Cyber Blitz, OCONUS representatives, and
joint organizations for feedback. Key participants from the training centers included Chief Warrant
Officer 3 Nicholas Esser, an Electronic Warfare Instructor from the Warrant Officer Basic Course out of
Fort Sill, Okla and Chief Warrant Officer 2 William Flannigan, a Soldier from the National Training Center
in California. These two officers will be introducing and designing the ongoing training, respectively.
“Getting the capability drop at the school house is critical,” said Esser. “At the school house we have
instructors who have been instructors their whole career, they’ve gone from brigade to division to joint
levels and finally to the school house teaching. We’re finally getting to a point where it’s a home grown
branch of people.”
While Esser represents a school house perspective on what the EMPWT will need, Flannigan focuses on
mobilization and training of larger combat elements.
“One of my major objectives is to get this to the combat training centers and start implementing it
through their training and validation,” said Flannigan. “Practice like we fight. We do a minimum of ten
units per year. It would be really good to get this out there and get more feedback from the soldiers that
are deploying with it.”
“It’s exciting to see we actually have a tool now and we’re actually working toward a solution.”
Flannigan said, and his priority is ensuring more time and training with the EWPMT. “If we all get new
gear but we’re not using it in training then we’re not going to implement it downrange,” he said.
Incorporating the EWMPT in the Military Decision Making process was another key point for many of
personnel who travelled to the Aberdeen area for UVE. Capt. Sacarra Pusey, an Electronic Warfare
Officer with 3
rd
Brigade Combat Team, 10
th
Mountain Division out of Fort Polk, LA, said;
“Cyberblitz was our first time seeing the EWPMT, besides hearing about it during training as a officer
