FORT BENNING, Ga., (May 6, 2015) -- Formations and leaders who are "smart" are able to routinely generate situational understanding through changing conditions. Fort Benning's Commander Maj. Gen. Scott Miller is focused on producing Soldiers, leaders and formations that are smart, fast, lethal and precise. Leaders at the Maneuver Center of Excellence are rapidly adapting to future requirements.

In terms of developing future capability, Col. Chris Willis is the Training and Doctrine Command capability manager for Brigade Combat Team-Mission Command. He's overseeing efforts to get cell phones equipped with wireless data capabilities into the hands of dismounted leaders.

"Dismounted leaders are the most disadvantaged as far as data because most of the Army's communications systems are designed for mounted forces in vehicles," Willis said. "Getting information to them is crucial and is our biggest challenge."

A system for addressing this challenge already exists, but Willis and others are working to improve upon it.

Nett Warrior is a system that can provide data on where other friendly forces are located. But, it has to be linked to a radio that a Soldier carries in order to work. Willis and his team are working on getting 4G LTE capabilities into those cell phones to simplify their use.

Once capabilities mature at the most challenging level - dismounted squads - it will be relatively simple to expand into mounted applications.

"If I can take a photo of a tank and send it to someone else on the battlefield, or know what's over that hill, now I can come up with a plan that increases my chances of success," Willis said.

This is generating situational understanding through material solutions.

In the Maneuver Center of Excellence's professional training for officers, Fort Benning is making smarter maneuver leaders through innovative curriculum changes.

In the Maneuver Captains Career Course, leaders are generating situational understanding by creating company commanders who are better equipped to operate in the complex environments they may encounter in the future. One way they're doing that is with the Combat Leader Speaker Program where they bring in combat experienced leaders, and interagency leaders, to share experience and build relationships with Infantry and Armor captains.

"Our students, [captains] know how to reach out to other agencies," said Col. Tim Davis, MCoE director of training. "One of the things we do with captains is to teach them how to think, plan and make decisions."

The guest speakers provide the captains with better focus on and understanding of regional problems around the world and their talks are planned to tie in with one of the course's learning modules, Davis said.

The Infantry Basic Officer Leadership Course was extended in October 2014 from 17 weeks to 19 weeks to provide time for more in-depth training.

"We want to produce a lieutenant who has mastered the fundamentals," said Lt. Col. John Grantz, commander of 2nd Battalion, 11th Infantry Regiment, which oversees IBOLC. Producing leaders of character and competence, IBOLC students must master the Army's orders process, known as Troop Leading Procedures; they must be individually lethal and be able to build lethal platoons; and they must be physically and cognitively dominate.

To that end, Grantz said, certain parts of the IBOLC training schedule have been expanded or changed. Marksmanship training has been extended from five days to 10, which has led to more than 40 percent of IBOLC lieutenants achieving expert marksmanship qualification, compared with less than two percent before the change. Land navigation training, which had been conducted on the same terrain for many years, is being revised to include a different course where lieutenants will have to react to surprise scenarios.