European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - October 12, 1994, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Wednesday october 12, 1994 the stars and stripes Page 3 heart n g starts i h by a c k h a we d own Ings Oklahoma City a the military equivalent of a grand jury hearing got under Way tuesday to decide whether five air Force officers should be punished for mistakenly shooting Down two american Heli copters " ,. ,. One of the five maj Douglas Martin waived his right to the hearing and asked for either administrative discipline or a speedy trial. Twenty six people were killed april 14 when two f-15 fighter planes fired on a pair of Black Hawk helicopters mistaken for soviet made iraqi Hinds. An air Force report alleges that the Crew of an air borne warning and control system aircraft failed to Tell fighter pilots that the helicopters were american failed to ensure that the aircraft used the right identification codes and failed to properly Monitor the entire no Fly zone established to protect kurd from iraqi air attack. Martin and his fellow a acs radar plane Crew members maj Lawrence Tracey capt. Jim Wang 1st it. Joseph Halcli and 2nd it. Ricky Wilson were responsible that Day for monitoring the no Fly zone. At the end of the hearing it. Gen. Stephen b. Croker commander of the 8th air Force will decide if the officers will be court Martiale remanded to administrative discipline or cleared of the charges against them. Unlike a grand jury the hearing is conducted i Public and the accused can present evidence and ques Tion witnesses. The hearing could run six Days a week for three weeks. If convicted by a court martial the five officers each face maximum penalties of dismissal from the air Force forfeiture of two thirds of their pay for three months and three months confinement. It. Col. Randy w. May one of the fighter pilots who shot Down the helicopters has been charged with negligent homicide and dereliction of duty. His Case will be taken up at a separate hearing. May assigned to the 53rd fighter so based Aspan Dahlem a Germany declined to appear at the hearing for the a acs Crew on the advice of his attorney. Martin is assigned to Langley fab va., while theother Crew members Are based at tinker fab okla. Alerc hints arms out by computer woes by Carlos Bongioanni staff writer computer glitches have seized the merchants National Bank automated Teller system causing widespread prob lems for defense department customers in Europe. Some customers have Bee unable to Access their savings accounts or conduct other a Upney transactions said Frank Chunderlik manager of Bank sup port operations. The problems came to Light last week and Bank officials said they cannot pre dict when they will be removed. As far As we can Tell problems began to arise shortly after we changed to a new switching station in the states Chunderlik said. The Good news is customers can expect quicker response time and less outages after the wrinkles Are ironed out of the new  he said some merchants account hold ers have been unable to withdraw Ger Man Marks or Access their savings accounts at automated Teller machines belonging to other Banks. Customers from other Banks have also experienced problems using merchants  Bank card holders May not be Able to obtain Deutsche Marks receive account balance information or make transfers Between accounts using the merchants Green machines he said. Technicians Are trying to pin Point the exact problems by documenting what s happening. Engineers at a data Center in Indianapolis ind., Are working closely with technicians Here to come up with solutions he added recalled pacifiers sold across Europe by the stars and stripes the nuke orthodontic pacifiers being recalled by the Gerber products co. Have been sold in the . Forces Exchange sys tems and commissaries throughout eur   v Gerber announced the recall oct. 3 be cause the clip that holds the nipple to the Mouth shield is defective and can cause choking. The pacifiers subject to the recall Bearthes code Numen 0-15000-0250. The Date codes of the packages Range from 070193 through 063094. Commissary and Exchange patrons in Europe who have purchased these pacifiers have two options they can return the pacifiers to the nearest Exchange or commissary for a refund or they can Cal Gerber at 1-800-4-Gerber to receive a free replacement. No choking incidents related to the pacifiers have been reported in Europe said Barbara Slifer a spokeswoman at the 7th medical come in Heidelberg Germany. Is Davo Melancon staff sgt. Dale Jaedicke he Btry 3rd in 41st Field arty regt puts the interim fire support automated systems computer through its paces during a recent training exercise held at Camp Robertson in Schweinfurt Germany. New turn Saver can be Lifesaver by pave Melancon Wurzburg Bureau Schweinfurt Germany afew seconds saved Means a few More rounds downrange and that can make All the difference says a 3rd inf div artillerymen. The secret to shaving those few seconds can be found in a new computer system said sgt. Floyd Wesley b Btry 5th in 41st Field arty  Wesley and every other fire control Soldier in the division Learned the difference when they took their tracked control centers to Camp Robertson i Schweinfurt for two weeks training and practice on the interim fir support automated systems. The computer system was install Din the control vehicles in August. The unit is much faster than theone before Wesley said. It increases our ability to get rounds  the old system took 40 seconds to manually compute Mission he said. The same Call for fire now is handled in five  observers Send target information digitally Over their radios to Wesley s vehicle he said. That. Information is processed by the computer and a fire direction officer judges the  the information checks out the firing data is radioed to the gunners and a couple of rounds Are fired. The observer sends in any corrections which Are then re computed. Finally All guns fire for  can get those rounds Down 30 seconds quicker Wesley said. That could save somebody s life. When you Are on the Battlefield that s a Long ". ,. We used to be dependent upon Central computer said the project officer capt. William Cole he Btry,3rd inf div arty. We used to have one in Headquarters and in each battalion. We have now replaced those three big computers with 37 smaller but just As capable  the old system was carried in a 5-Tontruck. The new one can be carried in a Soldier s  was 1950s technology said one noncommissioned officer. Firing batteries were almost helpless if one of the older units was knocked out he said. Any of these fire support centers can take Over the Mission Cole said. A platoon level fire direction Cente like Wesley s Prev ids target locations and weapon and weather data to the individual artillery pieces he said. Higher Echelon centers determine the firing priorities and Overall Mission. In addition to providing firing data the computers at All Levels keep count of the number and types of found fired. The system could also provide firing information for naval guns co Esaid although we Don t normally do that it  the old system had no data base it was just like a Rock said Art Bailey part of the 20-member instruction Tea from the army artillery school at fort Sill okla. Each of these systems is computer in itself. It s digital so you Don t have to use voice communications anymore Bailey a former artillerymen called it user  \ it takes away my computational errors said staff sgt. Dale Jaedicke of he Btry 3rd in 41st Field arty regt a battalion fire system control operator. Instead of doing charts an darts and Whiz Wheeling it this thing does it All for  observers individual howitzers platoons and eight gun batteries Are shown on the computer s screen he said. Targets firing zones avenues of approach areas of operations and other boundaries arc also mapped out. With this Little graphics display window he said we can see it and shoot our missions at the same