FORT CARSON, Colo. — Building team and unit cohesion are keys to success within any organization, however, it is especially critical when conducting multi-domain operations. To achieve strategic objectives such as neutralizing enemy long-range systems or disintegrating an enemy’s anti-access/area-denial systems require an organization to develop leaders and practices that exercise effective communication and meticulous coordination.
The 4th Infantry Division staff conducted a combined staff development exercise and command post exercise at the Mission Training Complex at Fort Carson from February 12-14, 2024, to formulate comprehensive systems and processes across each command cell.
The goal of Ivy Sting II was to practice feeding information into the division’s 72-hour targeting cycle, where the strike, joint air ground integration center, and plans cells work to shape the division deep fight while the current operations cell fights the brigade’s close fight. The three-day staff exercise helped the division leadership refine their planning processes for this summer’s upcoming joint-live fire exercise, where the division command post will fire rocket artillery, control close air-support and call for indirect fire.
According to Maj. Jonathan Hudson, a division future operations planner, part of the development process for the division staff really comes down to “form over function” and how to best present data to the commander. In the commander’s visualization synchronization, the future operations and intelligence cells help provide the commander with a situational understanding of the battlefield and aids his ability to envision the sequence of events that his forces need to achieve the overall end state. To do so requires “the division to maintain its operational tempo by using specific triggers and methods that control and shape the battlefield,” stated Lt. Col. Daniel Leard, the division G3 operations officer.
“Right now, we are fighting a team of teams and working to figure out how to best set up the brigades for success with how well the division plans and coordinates across the formation” said Col. Michael Wagner, the division chief of staff. During the exercise, he also emphasized how the quality and type of rehearsals the division conducts directly correlates to the success of the individual unit or Soldier on the ground.
The goal of these exercises is to help the division staff build confidence in analyzing and presenting data to the division’s senior leaders by completing repetitions of the targeting cycle. From these practice sessions, each warfighting function was able to increase their productivity and refine their reporting processes. Being able to effectively synchronize and employ assets from space, cyber, air and land in an efficient manner takes time and extensive planning. Ivy Sting II provided the training audience the conditions for this to occur.
The complex problems the division will face in a multi-domain environment calls for leaders at every echelon to think critically, communicate effectively and build systems that convey a clear picture of the battlefield to units above and below. Col. Buddy Ferris, the division deputy commander, emphasized that “if you don’t pull the fight forward, you will get stuck in the close fight … and this type of staff training helps the division stay ahead and strike targets 96 hours out.”
For brigades and battalions to truly reap the benefits of convergence windows and periods of relative advantage, information from the division staff needs to be outlined in a way that is easily understood by everyone in the chain of command.
By conducting events like Ivy Sting II, the 4th Inf. Div. continues to build lethal teams and ready people by facilitating various command post exercises that prepare the division and the brigades for continued rotations to CTCs and a culminating joint live-fire exercise this summer at Fort Carson.
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The 4th Infantry Division is the Army’s marquee multi-domain operations division. As the most agile and lethal division in the U.S. Army inventory, it has served in every major U.S. conflict since World War I.
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