HOHENFELS, Germany -- Two separate teams of soldiers converged on the town of Telishli. One team split off to secure the perimeter of the town, while the other maneuvered through the heart of the town.
Once inside the city, the second team was able to find the mayor in order to negotiate assistance from him on the battlefield.
Following tough negotiations, the team leader and the mayor of Telishli came to an agreement, ultimately embracing each other following the tough talks.
This is just one example of what a psychological operations team brings to the battlefield, and for 21 students of the NATO Tactical PSYOP Team (TPT) Course, it is a major part of what their job entails.
"It's a (German) national course, which we do for our officer candidates. In addition to that, we always invite host nations or guest nations to participate in the course, because it's meant to be an advanced tactical PSYOPS course," said German Master Sgt. Werner Beelitz, TPT Course instructor. "So, what we are looking for is gaining expertise of other NATO or allied member states in order to get the maximum effect for our students."
Taught annually, this year's course comprised of soldiers from Germany, Canada, Czech Republic, Netherlands, Denmark and Great Britain. During the course training, the soldiers are taught how to interact with local populous in an operational environment.
Beelitz said PSYOPS are planned activities using methods of communications and other means to influence perceptions, attitudes and behaviors affecting the achievement of political or military objectives. Those communication methods are taught in order to give allied forces improved access to the battle space in a deployed environment.
"The same definition exists for TPT. This is our thing," Beelitz said. "We influence perceptions, attitudes and behaviors; for example, for fields of movements, or to secure our own troops."
During the training exercise Oct. 27, the TPT was successful in their area of operations. They successfully negotiated freedom of movement throughout the battle space surrounding the town in order to get an advantage on enemy maneuvers.
The course provides students the opportunity to work along-side fellow NATO allies , which gives the soldiers much-needed face time with their counterparts on how they operate and how they can overcome differences in military tactics.
"The big key word is interoperability," said German Capt. Heiko Lingelbach, TPT Course officer in charge. "The first challenge for the teams, and they have been working together for two and a half weeks now, is to even their tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs)."
Lingelbach said the course work is always evolving in order to accommodate differences between allied military factions so all NATO forces can operate on the same page.
"It gives us a great opportunity to work with international students," said Lingelback. "Getting to know their practices and TTPs, and getting the best out of them, and if there is something we can adjust and steal and take it as a silver bullet and clip it into our magazine of good practice, we will do that.
"Since they are all from different allied countries, they somehow have the same skills, but then again, every TPT leader from a different nation team might have other drill speeds on dissemination, be it on conducting face-to-face, and so we pretty much teach best practices," said Lingelbach. "We are pretty much open for input, then develop best practices in order to, first of all reach standard, and second of all, within the teams, operate as an international unit."
Students of the course agreed the multinational training environment instilled within the program is beneficial to their jobs..
"What I hope to take back is the experiences from other people in the course, from other nations and … fill those gaps that maybe we have in our trainingsaid Master Cpl. Kayla Kulyk, TPT student, 32nd Brigade Headquarters, IA Company, Toronto.
Lingelbach said the Hohenfels training area afforded a perfect environment for the students to effectively train in a life-like setting.
"The five-hour drive (from Mayen, Germany, there the class originates from) is totally worth it because we have … excellent training conditions, we have great support from our observer controller unit," said Lingelbach. "We were happy to come down here to training area Hohenfels because of the excellent villages and all of the preparations, and then of course, the role-player support as well."
Although not a part of the training exercise occurring at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center in Hohenfels, all the activity in the training area has been advantageous to the students.
"One interesting thing was where they were doing a lot of their training, we had other training going on in the same area," said Maj. William Orkins, senior PSYOP plans officer for JMRC's Raptor team. "The actions in the training area "just added to the complexity of the situation where there were many distracters out there, there were other civilians on the battlefield, there were other military units, so they had to take that into effect just like they would if they were in a deployed environment."
Ultimately, the course leaders hopes that what the students learn can be taken back to their respective countries so their commands understand what the PSYOP role is on the battlefield, and in NATO.
"Everyone knows why they need pilots; to get into battle. Everyone knows why you need a medic. Not everyone in the alliance is aware of what PSYOPS actually can achieve on the battlefield for the commander," Lingelbach said. "We can provide freedom of movement, freedom of action and force protection. And those three key words, we need to bring out to the commanding officers. After all, we are all buddies on the battlefield. So, we have to take care of each other."
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