WIESBADEN, Germany -- U.S. military and interagency planners finished designing the exercise scenario for African Lion 23 at the Gen. John Shalikashvili Mission Command Center on Lucius D. Clay Kaserne here Feb. 6-10.
The group of nearly 100 experts across dozens of joint functions and interagency disciplines developed a robust scenario that they think will test the warfighting capabilities of U.S. Africa Command and its service components, principally the U.S. Army Southern European Task Force, Africa.
U.S. Army Europe and Africa G7 Exercises Directorate hosted the planners on Clay Kaserma, where they culminated months of collaboration on a complex, realistic scenario to capture dozens of training objectives for AFRICOM and the joint force.
Throughout the year-long process to develop the scenario, planners “increased the validity and complexity of a JTF level exercise,” said AFRICOM J37 Exercise Planner Jay Ellingwood.
U.S. Army Europe and Africa hosted the final planning event, while U.S. Air Forces Europe and Africa and the Joint Staff J7 hosted earlier events at Ramstein Air Base, Germany, and Suffolk, Virginia, respectively.
A portion of Exercise African Lion 23 started in January in Stuttgart, Germany. The Joint Staff J7 delivered a fictional scenario to AFRICOM. The AFRICOM staff developed a plan to establish a joint task force headquarters to coordinate joint and interagency efforts across all domains (air, land, maritime, cyberspace, space and the electromagnetic spectrum) in the JTF joint operations area.
All AFRICOM components will be tested in African Lion 23, but the primary U.S training audience for the wargame is once again the U.S. Army Europe and Africa’s Southern European Task Force, Africa, based in Vicenza, Italy.
In March, AFRICOM components will support the SETAF-AF-led JTF command post exercise. Finally, in June, African Lion will culminate with various field, maritime, air and medical training exercises in Morocco, Tunisia, Senegal and Ghana.
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