LRPF CFT Long Range Precision Fires Cross-Functional Team
WHO WE ARE
Located at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, the Long Range Precision Fires Cross-Functional Team provides modernization of the surface-to-surface capabilities by employing sophisticated offensive fires systems. Strategic deep fires will provide Army and joint-force commanders with a surface-to-surface capability that can penetrate peer-adversary defensive capabilities, significantly increasing the range of current and future fires systems. At the deep operational level, precision strike missiles will replace Army Tactical Missile Systems’ missiles and extend the range of currently available artillery, providing long range effects. They will have the ability to engage moving targets and will incorporate enhanced sensors. Close fires will extend cannon artillery ranges, increase volume of fire and provide enhanced lethality in support of brigade combat teams at the tactical level. Surface-to-surface fires provide the ability to destroy, neutralize or suppress targets at extended ranges, thereby shaping the close fight to a time and place of the commander’s choosing. The fires warfighting function provides tremendous opportunities to cooperate with our allies, partner nations and the joint force, resulting in synergy demonstrated in a unified and integrated fires network.
OUR LEADERSHIP
COL (P) John L. Rafferty
Director LRPF Cross Functional Team
Colonel (Promotable)
John L. Rafferty
Director
Long Range Precision Fires Cross-Functional Team
Col. John Rafferty, from Great Falls, Virginia, enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1987 and served as an indirect fire infantryman with the 8th Infantry Division in Mainz, Germany for two years. He then attended Longwood University in Farmville, Viginia where he was commissioned into the regular Army as a field artillery officer. John’s first assignment was in the 18th Field Artillery Brigade at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, as a fire direction officer and platoon leader in B Battery, 5th Battalion Air Assault, 8th FA. After two years, John joined the 3d Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment at Fort Benning, Georgia, where he served as the B Company fire support officer before moving to Marine Corps Base Quantico to attend the U.S. Marine Corps Amphibious Warfare School. He then moved to Baumholder, Germany, with the 1st Armored Division and served as a Division Assistant Fire Support Coordinator and Division Artillery director of logistics before assuming command of B Battery 1st Battalion, 94th FA Multiple Launch Rocket System, and then Headquarters and Headquarters Battalion 1st Armored Division Artillery. In 2002, he returned to the 75th Ranger Regiment to serve as the fire support officer for 1st Ranger Battalion and deployed several times in support of both Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom. John was then selected for the UK Joint Services Command and Staff College in Shrivenham, England.
John’s education includes a Bachelor of Arts degree from Longwood University, a Master of Arts degree from King’s College, London, and a Master of Strategic Studies from the U.S. Army War College.
