FORT RILEY, Kan. -- Fort Riley's Mission Training Complex hosted the annual MTC User Conference, for the first time Aug. 14 through 16. Training chiefs from each of the Army's 37 MTCs met to share lessons learned, explain new training models, discuss emerging technology and networked with one another.
This is the only time in the year when so many experts from various MTC locations are able to converge in one place to examine the most efficient, safe and economical methods for training Soldiers, said Randy Ruhl, chief of Mission Training Complex Fort Hood, Texas.
"Once a year, all of the mission training complex chiefs -- the directors -- we meet from across the Army, all 37 of us," he said. "We share best practices, lessons learned, how we do business and how we can do better."
What is it?
Army mission training complexes each have specific capabilities, and each plays a crucial and unique role in Army readiness, according to Ruhl.
Although each MTC is tailored to meet the training needs of the units at that particular installation, they all have the same basic capabilities, he said.
"An MTC does primarily four things," Ruhl said. "First off, they teach the individual mission command systems. They teach the operators and the leaders how to use that. Secondly, they train small units -- squads to company level -- using gaming and virtual technology -- how to conduct their trade.
"Thirdly, they teach battalion and brigade staffs," he added, "on how to use the digital systems to assist in their warfighting functions. From the current operations, military decision-making process, intelligence preparation of the battlefield for the intel folks, building that up to small simulation-driven collective staff training events to train the staffs how to do their business. And then the fourth thing that they do are the large division and corps level warfighters where the brigade and the division and the corps commanders are fighting a simulated battle based on constructed simulations."
Benefits
Mission training complexes are where Soldiers and entire units receive virtual training before heading into live-action exercises or the real battlefield. Having an opportunity to ingest complicated training virtually, before an evaluation or costly live-fire exercise, is important for many reasons, said Patrick Lynch. Fort Riley's MTC computer-based training expert and gaming lead.
Lynch is responsible for guiding Soldiers through game-based training experiences such as collective tasks like driving a Bradley or flying a Black Hawk, or in individual tasks like land navigation. He sees first-hand the importance of focusing on duty specific skills in a controlled environment before releasing Soldiers into the field.
"The best way to look at this is: there are procedures that need to take place when you do complicated tasks," Lynch said. "This type of training environment, a synthetic training environment, allows you to rehearse those procedures at little to no cost over and over and over so the procedural part is understood. When you go out into the field you're not rehearsing the procedural part. You'll understand that. So you're able to execute more efficiently and therefore get further in training."
The furthering training is beneficial to individual Soldiers and their units, but also to the Army and Department of Defense.
According to Ruhl, the Army's mission has been changing over the last several years from a counterinsurgency focus to decisive action which Ruhl described as maneuvering across large open spaces or fighting mobile warfare; retraining Army forces in MTCs is critical for a strong national defense.
Aside from the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California, The Joint Readiness Training Center, Fort Polk, Louisiana, and Fort Riley, there are no military training facility for U.S. forces capable of supporting brigade-level, live-fire exercises anywhere in the world and for units located overseas, preparing for, coordinating with and getting to NTC is an immense undertaking both physically and financially, said Joe Jurkovac, military analyst at the National Simulation Center at Fort Leavenworth.
"One thing that the MTC does that you can't do in the field, because there is no piece of ground big enough, is when you do your division and above exercises -- division, corps, Army or your bigger joint exercises with other services or even other countries. Because there isn't a training area big enough to put an entire division out on the ground, turn on the radios and do a division size mission," he said. "The only way that you can train the division, corps, Army staffs and the joint staffs is to bring them into a mission training complex and then use computers and simulations to simulate a pretend battle or a pretend fight somewhere else in the world."
Lynch said reliable and effective communication has always been a struggle to coordinate, especially when combining ground forces with air support. By training pilots side-by-side with tankers and forward observers in a simulation, many of the technical barriers are overcome allowing the eventual live exercises to be more productive.
"Nine times out of 10, the problem is communication," he said. "I think that's true in everything that we do … that can't be any more true than in the military."
Mary Kathryn Barbier writes in her article, "George C. Marshall and the 1940 Louisiana Maneuvers," that, in 1941, the U.S. was preparing to enter World War II, and the largest military exercise in U.S. history was being planned. Barbier writes that during the months of August and September, more than 450,000 troops were sent to Louisiana.
The objective of the exercise was to create a realistic war environment that challenged commanders to communicate with one another and organize their troops to react to air attacks while also fighting an opposing ground force. The exercise exposed a U.S. military not ready for battle. Communication was a barrier to effective maneuvering of so many troops and artillery at one time and the Army recognized the need to continue to improve their warfighting games and Soldier skills, according to Barbier.
Although the Army's training methods have changed since the Louisiana Maneuvers, the intent hasn't. Mission training complexes now allow the Army to engage in virtual, full-scale exercises that involve multiple units from anywhere in the world in real time, Jurkovac said.
Better training through virtual
Benefits of virtual training to Soldiers and units goes beyond creating large scale drills. Being able to train Soldiers in a virtual environment allows commanders to build the simulation to meet the needs of their Soldiers and adjust them to represent changing threats.
"Another big advantage of a synthetic training environment that we create is the complexity of the scenarios," Lynch said. "Short of the Joint Readiness Training Center, Joint Modernization Command and National Training Center, and even to be honest those can't create, without the assistance of simulation, as complex an environment as you can in simulations. We can just create more. If you go out into a live environment, you couldn't afford to bring in the amount of people to have a whole city of people interacting with movement. So, if we want to do convoy training and they're rolling through a congested city, that's a complicated task. Rolling a convoy through a city that has no restriction on travel except for its local civilians is very complicated. You can't replicate that. And nobody wants to go to downtown Junction City and replicate that. You couldn't do it."
Why user conference is important
Joel Williams, director Joint Base San Antonio Training Complex, was one of the attendees this year. His MTC is different from others in that it is the only MTC dedicated to the U.S. Army Medical Command. Williams said the chance to visit Fort Riley affords him the opportunity to understand how the 1st Infantry Division, one of the Army's fastest deploying divisions, works.
"I get to cohort with my peers," he said. "I get a chance to understand how they do business, they get a chance to understand how I do business."
The transparency among MTCs is an important component because as Williams explains, "For example, Fort Campbell -- Bill Robins says, 'Joel, I've got a brand-new medical unit and I don't know anything about the Army's Medical Communications for Combat Casualty Care. MC4 is medical command and communications for the medical community that is not considered to be a mission command system but still has to be able to interact within the same war fight. That's my excellence. Now, I share with him scenario, architecture, database and give him an understanding of how to support medical units in his area, and so that kind of relationship works."
Williams said that meetings like the user conference are essential pieces instructors and directors need to develop and maintain effective, relevant training centers Army wide. He said the most beneficial part of this year's conference was sharing each of their best practices.
"When I come here, I understand how you would build training directly for the warfighter, and then that best practice has to come to those of us who are in the sustainment community who say, 'How do I support that warfighter who is going to war with my medics, with my defense support to civil authorities, with my Army -- because it is one team, one fight always," he said, "I cannot support any differently if I don't know how my warfighters are fighting. And so, I have to roll with the same best practice that all the other MTCs are using."
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