FORT POLK, La. - Planning and coordinating the final validation training event for Army National Guard and Reserve units preparing to deploy overseas normally requires from four to eight months. But what do you do when your timeline allows only 75 days to create, plan and synchronize all the scenario-driven events required to conduct a brigade staff-level training exercise?
Planners and trainers from First Army's 205th Infantry Brigade, located at Camp Atterbury, Ind., faced such a challenge when tasked to create a culminating training event (CTE) to test the headquarters staff of the Indiana Army National Guard's 76th Infantry Brigade Combat Team on an unfamiliar mission prior to their deployment to Afghanistan.
First Army's solution was focusing their efforts on assembling--and leading--a team of seven skilled training enablers to build and conduct the exercise in support of the 76th IBCT's training objectives.
Assembling the intelligence database to build the scenario is a required step before the planner could develop the exercise. Planners from the 205th turned to the Training and Doctrine Command's the Training Brain Operations Center (TBOC) for assistance.
The TBOC is a self-described facilitator and enabler that uses technology to build live, virtual, constructive and gaming environments in an effort to accurately replicate downrange events for scenario-based exercises.
TBOC accomplishes this by accessing classified data from ongoing worldwide operations, and converts it to exercise intelligence and operations reports that can be used as the basis for replicating the operational environment.
"We start off with the real world data and focus on the projected area of operations. We bend it in time and provide them with a historical intelligence database to drive the exercise," said Jeremy Haley, deputy for the Army Training Team at TBOC. He said they provided information from real-world events in Afghanistan ranging from key leader engagements to IED incidents to direct and indirect fire attacks.
The 76th's CTE focused on real world actions in the Uruzgan province in Afghanistan. "The products we provide depend upon the type of exercise," said Haley, noting that TBOC can add additional intelligence reports and additional layers of complexity to an exercise to focus staff members on certain unit training objectives.
Including TBOC as an enabler in the 76th IBCT exercise not only provided a more relevant and real-world experience for the training unit, but also helped First Army planners and trainers better understand the resources and support TBOC provides.
"TBOC is a new training enabler for First Army," said Mr. James Clark, exercise planner for the training division at First Army Headquarters. "We were particularly excited to have them involved in this exercise so we could work closely with them, watch what they do, see how they interact with the other enablers, and find out more about their capabilities and products."
Haley explained that the process of preparing for the 76th exercise began after the main planning conference in early January. "We worked with First Army to make sure our actions were synchronized with the operational plan and to de-conflict resources, such as time, to make sure we had the right people available to meet the requirements," said Haley.
TBOC's ability to provide data for exercises using real world data enhanced the level of realism for the Soldiers being trained and helped First Army planners and trainers focus their limited time on other synchronization tasks.
"The work TBOC does is of real value to all of us involved," said Clark, speaking about the savings in time and effort required to build scenario events. "In the past, we have had to do a lot of difficult and very time consuming work to either dig up information for the events from real world systems or make up situations to fit the unit training objectives."
Col. Timothy Newsome, commander of First Army's 205th Infantry Brigade and the exercise director, was impressed with TBOC's expertise and understanding of the exercise intelligence data requirements.
"TBOC came up with a number of situations, events and problems sets that fit into the scenario and that we wanted the 76th to solve or address as part of their training,' said Newsome. "They have made sure that all of the Afghan leaders in these scenarios use the actual names and personalities as those in country.
Newsome concluded, "What TBOC has done is taken actual situations from within theater so we are not just making this stuff up cold, and that speaks to the relevancy that we want in the exercise," he said. "I am very impressed with what they were able to do for us."
In addition to real world intelligence messages and reports, Haley said that TBOC can also provide real world area-specific graphics rendered into a geographical training environment, including operating environment analysis and storyboards on exercise enemy networks, opposing force direct and indirect fire targeting data, and background information on real world leaders for key leader engagements.
Haley noted that TBOC's array of operational environment defining products can be used individually or in combination with each other depending on the needs of the training unit.
Exercise participants agreed that including TBOC and its products was value added to the training event and enhanced the experience of the 76th's staff.
"TBOC's capability of shaping data to stimulate the intelligence cell has been very impressive," said Maj. John Hall, exercise project officer from the 1st Brigade, 75th Training Division (Mission Command). Hall suggested that using TBOC data to build the exercise added a new dimension to accomplishing the commander's training objectives.
"TBOC brought a lot of validity and fidelity to the exercise," Hall said.
Other key enablers present at the 76th's training event included representatives from First Army Headquarters providing exercise support; planners from 1st Battalion, 290th Field Artillery Regiment to synchronize and control the exercise; personnel from 1st Brigade, 75th Training Division (Mission Command) to design the simulation architecture for the exercise; enablers from the Command Post Staff Support Branch from Fort Leavenworth, Kan. to create scenario events and insert TBOC data into them; and Observer Controller/Trainers from the Indiana Army National Guard's 38th infantry Division Headquarters to evaluate staff performance in the exercise.
76th IBCT Mission in Afghanistan
In late 2012, more than 70 76th IBCT Soldiers, or about half of the brigade headquarters staff, were tasked to work with an Australian military unit as part of Combined Team Uruzgan. The CTU is a multi-national brigade level headquarters composed of staff officers responsible for planning and coordinating population-centric, counterinsurgency operations and mentoring Afghan National Security Forces within Uruzgan province.
First Army Mission
First Army advises, assists and trains Reserve Component units during pre-mobilization periods. Conducts mobilization, training support, readiness validation, and deployment of alerted forces. Conducts demobilization of Reserve Component forces in accordance with Department of the Army, and FORSCOM directives. Provides trained and ready forces in support of the Army Force Generation model. As directed, provides training to Joint, Combined, Interagency, and Active Army Forces.
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