The Corps has qualified Joint Fires Observers for every squad. Here’s how they’ll train.

The Marine Corps has already embarked on an ambitious plan to hone immense combat power in the rifle squad by training Joint Fire Observers, or JFOs, for every rifle squad across the Corps.

And now, small, portable virtual reality trainers may be a means to maintain that skillset to aid Marines in calling artillery and close-air support.

So far, the Corps has managed to train about 1,000 JFOs since 2016, according to Capt. Karoline Foote, a Marine spokeswoman. That number would be enough to provide a JFO for all 648 active-duty rifle squads in the Marine Corps.

But as the Corps pushes the responsibility to rain down precision air and naval gunfire further down the chain, maintaining and certifying that skillset brings its own hosts of challenges.

Enter the Mobile Fire Support Trainer, or MFST, a small wearable augmented reality system that will allow Marines to train on close-air support and fire support missions anywhere.

“Instead of a Marine going out to the range and putting several thousands of dollars of actual ammunition downrange, we can give them a virtual environment to do that in,” Maj. Jason Hibler, an infantry expert for Marine Corps Systems Command, told Marine Corps Times.

The MFST is programmed with a series of fire support and close-air support missions that includes fixed and rotary wing, M777 howitzers and mortars. The system will eventually include partner nation force aircraft, naval gunfire and rocket artillery.

The idea, according to Hibler, is to let Marines work out the kinks in their call for fire missions without wasting expensive ammunition or aircraft fuel. But eventually, for a Marine to actually be certified as a joint terminal attack controller, forward observer or JFO, they’ll have to use live ammunition.

But the long-term goal of the MFST is to get the system to be able to knock out some of the training wickets required for air controllers, Hibler explained.

The greatest benefit of the system is that the Marines can set up a fires range anywhere they are, Hibler said.

The system is currently a prototype but eventually MFSTs will find their way into various school houses like the artillery school at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

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