Fort Huachuca Range named for a Buffalo Soldier
Major General Hale from Fort Huachuca was on First Watch with Sheriff Mark Dannels to discuss First Lieutenant John R Fox multi-domain non-kinetic range.
Hale: First Lieutenant John R Fox was a Buffalo Soldier in the 92nd Division. Fort Huachuca, if you didn't know, was the only installation that housed, trained, and deployed all four recognized units for the Buffalo Soldiers. The Buffalo Soldiers were our all African American units back in the late 1800s and early 1900s. So from 1892 to 1945, we had the 9th and 10th Cavalry regiments and the 92nd and 93rd Infantry Divisions all on Fort Huachuca. They were in billets right across from my quarters at Brown Parade Field. So the first Lieutenant, John R Fox, was in World War Two. He was killed on 26th December 1945 in Italy as he called in artillery on his own location because he was getting ready to get overrun by German forces. So we named the First Lieutenant John R Fox Range in his honor. We unveiled that range last year on the 28th of July, which is National Buffalo Soldier Day. We had his daughter, his granddaughter, and his grandson here for that ceremony.
So what's the range all about? So we were approved by the Chief of Staff of the Army in December of 2020 to build the Army's first MDO range here on Fort Huachuca. So at Fort Huachuca, since we're in a bowl surrounded by the Chiricahua, the Whetstone, and the Huachuca Mountains, we can do a lot of things in that electromagnetic spectrum that I talked about earlier, as well as in our airspace. So on Fort Huachuca, from the ground up to 30,000 feet for 1500 square miles. I own the airspace, either deligated or restricted to Libby Army Airfield. So that means we can train in that airspace all day long, and all we have to do is tell people what we're doing. We control that airspace, so on the John R Fox range, we can train in the electromagnetic spectrum. We can train Signals intelligent soldiers, we can train electronic warfare soldiers, we can train cyber soldiers, and we train in space as well. We connect up to satellites in space and do things in space.
So we have opened our range now. We've already had two units that came out earlier this year. In February, we had the multi-domain effects battalion from the first multi-domain task force from Joint Base Lewis McCord, which is up in Washington state. They brought about 200 soldiers down to Fort WHuachua, to train for two weeks. They were able to operate the longest high-frequency radio shot that they've ever done in their history, over 1600 miles here at the John R Fox range. They had the units up at Joint Base Lewis McCord. They had units in South Dakota, and they had a unit at Fort Gordon, Georgia, all supporting their operations here at Fort Huachuca. We also had the Ranger Military Intelligence Battalion here back in March, and they conducted a cyber electronic warfare exercise as well as brought in the second platoon of Mortar Section from 2nd Ranger Battalion. So we fired mortars on Fort Huachuca for the first time since 1981 last month, and they conducted operations as well. In the John R Fox range. We were able to push 100 watts of energy from the ground on our range complex. Everywhere else in the continental United States, you can push .05 watts. We pushed 100 watts. We had compass call and aerial assets from the Air Force flying over and supporting from about 17,000 feet to the range. They pushed 4000 watts of energy to jam an enemy emitter that we had replicated on our range complex. Two weeks ago, we had what we call Vanguard 23 as an experimental exercise. We had 47 both live and virtual threat emitters replicating a People's Liberation Army from the Chinese Army brigade out on our range complex. And we were then collecting all those enemy emitters with our program of record systems that we have in the Army as well as prototype equipment that we're looking to build and field for our soldiers and Army. So we're excited about the John R Fox range. It's got so much potential, and we are open for business across the Army and for DoD for soldiers to come train here at Fort Huachuca.