#207: No Place to Hide - 18th Field Artillery Brigade Colonel Andy Hercik & Command Sergeant Major George Cabrera

The Jedburgh Podcast

This episode of The Jedburgh Podcast features Colonel Andy Hercik and Command Sergeant Major George Cabrera from the 18th Field Artillery Brigade at Fort

Key takeaways

• Field artillery is essential for shaping the battlefield before ground forces engage, using speed, precision, and long-range fires.
• The 18th Field Artillery Brigade maintains readiness through continuous training, maintenance, and logistics mastery, enabling deployment within 10 days of notification.

Main topics

• Rapid deployment capabilities of the 18th Field Artillery Brigade
• HIMARS precision strike systems and operational range

Notable quotes

"Before ground forces can advance, the battlefield has to be shaped. Air defenses have to come down. Enemy weapons have to be destroyed."

"We only get ready through training and maintenance... When we're not at war, we exist to prepare to win the first fight of the next conflict."

Conclusion

The 18th Field Artillery Brigade exemplifies the U.S. Army's evolving focus on rapid, precise, and

Transcript preview

Speaker 2 (0:01) 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 U.S. Army where speed, distance, precision, and results determine who controls the battlefield before ground forces ever make contact. From Fort Bragg, North Carolina, 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 18th Airborne Corps, its divisions, and special operations forces. I sat down with the command team of 18th F.A., Colonel Andy Hersick, 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 high-mars crew a target. The answer isn't abandoning the fundamentals. It's executing them better. while using lessons from today's conflict 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. Because when the call comes, there won't be time to prepare. 18th Field Artillery Brigade has to be ready. The Jedberg Podcast is brought to you by OneBreeze, enabling military leaders to make innovative, informed, and deliberate decisions faster than ever before. Superhuman command wins wars. Follow the Jedberg Podcast and the Green Beret Foundation on social media. Listen on your favorite podcast platform, read on our website, and watch the full video version on YouTube as we show you why America must continue to lead from the front, no matter the challenge. Speaker 2 (2:23) Colonel Hercik, Sergeant Major Cabrera, welcome to the Jedburgh Podcast. Thanks for having us, friend. Glad to be here. We're here. You've welcomed us in to Fort Bragg, North Carolina. We're at the headquarters of your command, 18th Field Artillery Brigade, part of the 18th Airborne Corps. And you have today, and I would say always, field artillery has been a critical component of... America's ability to project power and combat force. But today, what we've seen over the last couple of months has really 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 Speaker 3 (3:23) kind of already laid it out, friend. 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 10 days of notification. We have the HIMARS. immediate response force requirement for the United States Army and for the 18th Airborne Corps. That is one of our orienting principles is our world can change on a dime when the call comes in. So 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. What our mission means is we have to be ready. And we only get ready through training and maintenance, right? 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. And that's exactly what we do here in the 18th FAA Brigade. With the additional requirement of being able to be anywhere in the world within 10 days of notification to support either the 18th Airborne Corps or... a combatant commander who requests the capability. And to do that requires significant attention to our warfighting readiness that we have to continually build and maintain across training, maintenance, personnel, and equipment on hand. Speaker 2 (4:59) Sergeant Major, when you look at the force and readiness and the capability, to be ready to go as the colonel said anywhere in the world for really any mission these geographic regions are different the requirements are different the adversaries are different but your brigade like all organizations within the army are led by the ncos and when you look at the nco corps across the brigade and you talk to them about force readiness when in a time post g watt where become complacent at times. What's your message to them and how are you getting them to understand the critical piece that they play in their nation's defense? Well, Speaker 1 (5:42) one of the things as an NCO, non-commissioned officer, the first thing we need to make sure is making sure our families, you know, take care of. And then with that is making sure, like I always tell my NCOs, non-commissioned officers, make sure we teach, coach, and mentor our individual soldiers, making sure they're proficient in their job. Making sure they know the fundamentals, the basics of how to shoot a weapon, how to drive, you know, Xero, certain other stuff, right? Making sure we have an idea of what we talk about as an non-commissioned officer. Making sure they are tactically proficient in their jobs. Speaker 2 (6:17) The capabilities of the brigade are both offensive and defensive when we look at our ability to project power. So can you talk for a second about the various subordinate units and some of the capabilities that they bring to the fight? Speaker 3 (6:33) Yeah, absolutely. Currently, we are the Army's largest high-mars brigade with 54 high-mars launchers. So we have two firing battalions, 327 Steel Rain, currently deployed. in support of Operation Epic Fury and 3rd of the 321st Field Artillery, the Thunderbolts. Those are our two high-mars battalions. They are configured in what we call a 3x9 configuration, so three batteries of nine launchers each. Pretty simple. But their capability is the ability to deliver precision strike munitions from 70 to 500 kilometers. in support of, again, the 18th Airborne Corps supported divisions or whichever combat commander we find ourselves working for at the time. Additionally, we have the 188th Brigade Support Battalion, which enables the brigade to receive additional attachments, sustainment attachments, in order to sustain operations. I often tell the brigade that, yes, we're a field artillery brigade, but we're more like a sustainment brigade that does artillery stuff. So I mentioned we have 54 HIMARS launchers. We also have 126. ammunition trucks and 126 ammunition trailers. Each launch pod container for a HIMARS weapon system weighs 5,000 pounds. So when we talk about being able to mass fires at the scope and scale and speed required for large-scale combat operations, we must be able to ensure that we have the right weapon to target match. at the right place at the right time. And 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. So that's actually a huge capability for the brigade is our ability to move our own ammunition. And then finally, you have the brigade headquarters here, which 18th FAA 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, ultimately, to provide recommendations on how field artillery organizes for combat, positioning guidance down through the division level for, again, core level fires assets and division level fires assets. So between those four kind of distinct units, that's the capability of the brigade. In terms of defensive fires, we do not have any... purely defensive capabilities. But as we look at offensive and defensive fires, which is kind of a term of art that we hear a lot, I would submit that to a certain degree, offensive and defensive fires are often two sides of the same coin. So a field artillery brigade, when we are supporting 18th Airborne Corps, the things that we are going to look to do first in any conflict is we're going to first look to strip away adversary air defense, and then kill what's killing us. So if you look offensively, they're defensive fires because we're looking to destroy their long-range fire systems. And it's much more effective to destroy a launcher than to try to intercept an incoming missile. How have you, Speaker 2 (10:14) in the post-GWAT period of time, gotten the formation? And really, I mean, I would say almost the branch back to the basics, because what we saw in so much of Iraq and Afghanistan was a repurposing of field artillery. And so you had some units, I mean, I know from speak 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. So how have you refocused everyone to say, look, mission set is almost back to what our core is in long range precision fires at the front end of a battle. And we need everybody to put away their infantry skills for a little bit and get back to what we're doing. During my three Speaker 3 (11:10) tours in Iraq, I was employed as infantry in some capacity during all