HOHENFELS, Germany -- Cadets from both the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (RMAS) and the United States Military Academy, West Point (USMA) participated in Exercise Dynamic Victory July 4-18 at the U.S. Army's Grafenwoehr and Hohenfels Training Areas.
Exercise Dynamic Victory's i to test each of the RMAS cadets with different combat and leadership scenarios over the course of two weeks. These scenarios are both urban and rural based and challenge the cadets by testing the leadership skills they've gained over the past two years.
Capt. Richard Grimsdell, RMAS Instructor explains, "Dynamic Victory is the senior terms confirmation exercise, it's their final exercise. So everything they've done up till now boils down to a two week package. They get tested on everything they've done from absolutely basic soldiering that they learned all that time ago to complex training all the way up to company level, finally finishing with a battle group level attack." Grimsdell continues, "Once the cadets finish this exercise and they're on the verge of graduation and commissioning. They'll then move on to their respective regiments and battalions to conduct their phase II specialist to arms training." Successful completion of the exercise also allows the West Point cadets to proceed to their senior year.
Participating alongside the cadets from RMAS are 45 cadets from the USMA, West Point. Capt. Robert Barno, an instructor West Point feels this training "is a phenomenal opportunity to integrate with the British, both on the tactical level and the personal level." The cadets from USMA didn't just get to observe the training and watch how RMAS cadets work, they participated in all the same training and scenarios.
"This has been a challenging exercise for the cadets. It's a long field problem and they're definitely pushed to the limits on this as far as operating off of what they're carrying on their back, living in relative austere environments, and doing that for prolonged periods of time; which ends up resulting in less sleep when you're making decisions. It's a great test of their leadership abilities under these stressful conditions to see how they're actually going to act." Barno said.
While the exercise is challenging for the cadets, it does come with some rewards, as West Point Cadet Captain Kate Kinley explains, "It's awesome! It's a really good opportunity. We've definitely never integrated with a foreign military. It's really interesting to compare our tactics versus theirs. We have different acronyms for things, but for the most part our concepts are the same, so it's a little interesting."
The training and experience during Dynamic Victory is meant to be as close to real world actions as it can get in a training environment. With the different scenarios the instructors implement, it is up to the cadets to push themselves and learn as much as possible before commissioning as an officer in their respective militaries.
"This has been a great opportunity working with the British as well as being able to train in an actual deployment, the way they organize their training and actually facilitate international travel, staging at the Royal Military Academy first," said Barno, "and then going through the process of what a unit goes through to deploy, stage somewhere and go out and start conducting operations; and then consolidate and comeback. It's a huge benefit as well for these cadets to see".
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