FORT SILL, Okla. -- The Fires Center of Excellence is adding Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) to its training arsenal under the Air Defense Artillery School. The training is being done in a brand new building, dedicated Jan. 23 as the Lt. Gen. C.J. LeVan THAAD Instructional Facility.
"This represents the culmination of a lot of activity to get the facility built, the instructors trained, and the training devices were built and delivered," said Brig. Gen. Christopher Spillman, ADA School commandant and chief of ADA. "All of that required a monumental amount of work and coordination from various stakeholders across the air defense artillery community."
Prior to the $27 million facility opening, contractors from Lockheed Martin were responsible for going to an active unit and training Soldiers as they arrived.
Now under the ADA School house, 12 Soldiers and eight contractors are teaching Soldiers inside the 100,000 square-foot facility.
"THAAD is a very important success story for the nation. It's a very sophisticated missile defense technology," said Spillman.
THAAD is designed to shoot down short, medium, and intermediate ballistic missile threats. Similar to the Patriot Missile System, THAAD is also used as a deterrent.
"In very basic terms, it sees farther and it shoots higher than Patriot. So really what it does it buys us time as we are able to detect sooner and shoot farther," said Col. Jim Payne, 30th ADA Brigade commander. "Time is enormously important when you think of what our mission is. And that's to really friendly protect and freedom of maneuver for our ground forces."
The entire THAAD system consists of five major components: launchers, interceptors, radar, fire control and communications units and THAAD-specific support equipment.
"The THAAD system is a very expensive system. You don't want to put young Soldiers on very expensive pieces of equipment," said Spillman. "You want to put them on training devices that have the same fit, form and function as the actual weapon system so they can practice and learn and have a number of iterations on those training devices so they can become proficient more efficiently."
Payne said THAAD instructors pose problems to the ADA students and give them parameters to collaboratively solve problems.
"With this method of instruction you're really getting after a higher cognitive level of understanding," he said.
Select individuals are sent to receive additional THAAD training after Basic Combat Training and Advanced Individual Training here. After the Soldier earns their additional THAAD skill identifier they're sent out to the operational force.
"This is the first facility for the THAAD weapon system. Until this point the skill set had such small density that it was not even taught in the institutional Army, the school side of the Army," said Payne.
The Army currently has three operational THAAD batteries and a fourth currently going through equipment training. Spillman said there is a potential for four more operational THAAD batteries in the future.