TOPIC: JOINT TRAINING
DISCUSSION. What the CTCs are doing now.
"Probably the most exciting aspect is doing joint CSAR when we have (Army and Air Force assets working together)...with ABCCC aircraft...."
"The problem is that we have precious few BLUFOR commanders and staff officers who understand how to use CAS."
"We don't plan SEAD very well for the Air Force. We don't do a very good job of establishing ACAs... There is a lot of fertile ground there."
"(For one of the O/C teams), the target audience is intended to be the Army component of a JTF. We haven't really had a conventional experience yet. (We) did the JTF that went to Rwanda...(and) Ramstein, Germany, watching AFSOUTH train...."
"Clearly, our primary partner...is the Air Force. They not only provide us just first-rate airlift support, both strategic and tactical, but also CAS...."
"Navy SEALs...are coming here to do off-shore operations...(and) live fire.... We are starting to see the SEALs on the ground here at the Training Center."
"At the last rotation, we had our first Navy air... I think we are going to see carrier-based air, perhaps not in the Gulf of Mexico but parked somewhere over in Florida and flying here to support the training center."
"As you look at the Marine Corps,...ANGLICO is a primary area every rotation.... We have a fictitious harbor and bay out here west of post, so we can pull a ship up and have not only close air support and Army indirect fire, but we have naval gunfire integrated.... The First and Second ANGLICO view the Training Center here as very, very important to their training and readiness."
The necessity and potential to do more.
"The joint area is an area that we have to do more work."
"I am not satisfied that we are doing all we can in terms of working the joint piece...."
"We have many potential problems still to discover in JTF operations.... We don't train all the parts of that complex mission."
"I can conjure up a rotation where you have a Marine brigade at Twenty-nine Palms, instrumented; an Army brigade training at the NTC instrumented; and a JTF headquarters located at Edwards Air Force Base controlling both of them, where Air Warrior provides air support to the JTF headquarters."
"Last rotation we used Edwards Air Force Base as the APOD for the armored movement scenario. There's the potential there for getting MTMC and the Air Force involved and operating an APOD for Army forces coming and that being the point of entry into the NTC...."
"There is also fertile ground to bring the Marines in early as part of the rotation and have Marines be the force in place that is relieved by Army forces. That is the Marines being the early entry force."
"Joint exercises - its time has come. We have to do it. If we don't do it, one of these days Congress is going to tell us to do it... the services (should) jointly agree that we ought to be doing it, and we ought to have a glide slope to get there on our terms."
"There is a tremendous potential to do a lot more joint training here than is currently done or even envisioned."
"BCTP in my mind has to be the guy that does the training of the JTF headquarters.... Is there value in doing it as a USACOM exercise? Yes."
"Ops Group Delta at BCTP has been developed...to train JTFs.... We really need to get them in synch with us guys at the dirt CTCs if you really want to leverage the collective potential of all the CTCs. You really need to get all the CTCs in line. Not all the time, but occasionally, and see what you can get out of it."
"(deployment)...needs to be done under the auspices of a JTF. We have JTFs deploying and we don't do very much training with them right now. The more see it, the more l realize how we are in our infancy with that sort of training."
"I could envision a Marine operation under the JTF that could be on the ground having conducted an amphibious helicopter assault into the (box) and they could be securing the airfield for follow-on light forces, who would do a relief in place. That is around the corner."
"The Navy has committed to a Navy ship simulator...we could have the simulator right here, over in our exercise maneuver control center."
"There perhaps could be a joint exercise going on somewhere else in the states and we could be integrated into it, not changing our scenario but we could use the assets from that exercise to come down here and support the Training Center."
"We are ripe here for virtual, constructive and (live) to all link right here. Then we take simulations with the Navy, actual fleet exercises, Marine operations, we could in fact do an operation, for example, linked to an outfit in Lejeune who is doing an amphibious operation...and play that...we may be able to, if we could ever synchronize it, have a corps commander playing the role of JTF to run contingency operations with let's say a 24th Infantry Division, XVIII Airborne Corps outfit on the desert floor and the 82d doing a forced entry down here, all within the same theater."
Obstacles to realizing potential.
"The biggest problem is the scheduling of air.... It's not a responsive planning environment."
"Make certain...that whatever instrumentation system the Marines buy...is fully compatible with the (Army's) instrumentation system."
"There have been some discussions between STRICOM and the Marine Corps training facility at Twenty-nine Palms to get Twenty-nine Palms into the instrumentation business...."
"Obstacles: branch (and service) parochialism...the resourcing of all of it, the compatibility issue of systems and instrumentation and that sort of thing."
"There is no such thing as a joint AAR template...that is commonly understood between the Army, Air Force, Marines and Navy."
"There are tremendous hurdles in trying to make some kind of scenario amongst all the CTCs make sense...."
"We use computers and we use simulations, but we have not always had the right match...I don't think the services together, the joint community, has been as far thinking -- certainly not as the Army has been -- in developing their models. The models that they have don't really do what it is you would think they would want them to do."
CURRENT ASSESSMENT. The combat training centers are conducting joint training now. The JRTC has as its charter the training of Air Force airlift and tactical air combat elements and routinely trains Marine ANGLICOs. The BCTP frequently trains joint headquarters and Army headquarters with joint elements. The NTC has standing agreements with the Air Warrior Center at Edwards Air Force Base for collaborative training. The CMTC has experience working with U.S. and allied air forces. Most of this training, however, is marginal integration of sister service assets into an Army exercise. CTC realism and fidelity gives our joint partners such a positive experience that their demand for more involvement grows quickly. The adaptive nature of the CTCs allows them to accommodate growth in sister service participation fairly readily.
FUTURE IMPLICATIONS. The potential of the CTCs to provide realistic training for joint forces is much greater than is currently being tapped. The CTCs have the potential to exercise joint power projection, joint ground maneuver, joint tactical air operations, joint fire support, joint logistics and joint task force headquarters. They can provide the same benefits of doctrine and training development, leader development and experimentation to the joint force as they currently do for the Army. Much of this potential exists in the possibility of electronically linking CTC rotations, which are live simulations, to virtual and constructive simulations at other locations.
For this potential to be realized, significant institutional barriers must be overcome:
- First, any expansion of the CTC mission must provide all participants the training fidelity now experienced by Army ground maneuver forces. This requires a commitment to joint training from the highest levels of the Department of Defense manifested by agreement among the services on a philosophy of training. CTC fidelity is a function in part of Army training doctrine consisting of the central concepts of a METL; tasks, conditions and standards for common activities; and individual, collective, leader and system training regimens. Most important is a culture of honest and public assessment, based on objective feedback, that promotes improvement, a culture whose most prominent feature is the AAR. Sister service small units that have experienced CTC rotations have embraced these concepts enthusiastically through their association with the Army. So must any unit hoping to profit from a CTC rotation. If the CTCs are to become true joint training centers, all the services must adapt similar concepts of training to their unique cultures. The Army should take the lead in promoting its training doctrine as the point of departure for a joint training doctrine compatible with CTC fidelity.
- Second, a joint instrumentation development plan must be devised so that money is wisely invested in easily compatible systems. Again, the Army systems in place at the CTCs should provide the model. The Army should demonstrate the resolution it achieves through its instrumentation and encourage the other services to pursue compatible systems of equivalent capability. The flexibility and potential of the training centers can be increased significantly if the units of all services can readily participate in any exercise at any of the centers, including new ones that each of the services may want to develop.
- Third, the services must commit resources. The CTCs, as currently structured, work hard just to provide training for their Army clients. Expanding the CTC concept to provide a similar caliber of training to joint task forces will require personnel, equipment, training lands, training aids and other resources from each of the services. (Applying the CTC concept to sea services provides some unique challenges that may be met by a mobile capability, not fixed to a permanent "box," but able to fall in on a naval/amphibious task force when a suitable training site is available.) Especially important is the selection, assignment and training of personnel to serve as O/Cs. These may be permanently assigned to operations groups, or trained at the O/C academies for a particular rotation.
- Finally, synchronizing the participation of many different units from the various services requires a closely coordinated calendar laid out well in advance. Because such scheduling would inevitably involve the combatant commands, the Joint Staff should oversee and coordinate planning. USACOM should be the main planning headquarters and FORSCOM the executive agent, with USEUCOM and USAREUR their counterparts respectively for Europe.
by COL PAUL H. HERBERT, IN
Main
Table of Contents
Topic:
FSB Logistics Training at the CTC and Home Station
Topic:
Experimentation
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