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Army National Guard's Mission Command Training Support Program

Friday February 7, 2014

What is it?

During pre-mobilization periods of Army National Guard (ARNG) units (battalion and above), the ARNG Mission Command Training Support Program (MCTSP) provides mission command (MC) and staff training support in a digital environment . MCTSP objectives are to:

  • (1) Efficiently reduce pre and post mobilization training time periods
  • (2) Achieve ARFORGEN aim points
  • (3) Support the commander’s training strategy
  • (4) Develop proficient staffs and trained MC systems operators

Why is this important to the Army?

It improves readiness and saves the Army training/travel dollars while providing an innovative way of reducing the time and complexity of pre-mobilization training needs.

Because the ARNG provides a substantial number of Army units to support world-wide missions, the MCTSP enables the ARNG to capitalize on its geographic dispersion and its limited training time and resources for travelling to ARNG Mission Training Centers (MTC’s) by:

  • (1) Employing mobile training teams to take MC training to the unit’s home station
  • (2) Providing units trained to the same mission command standards as active component units

Without this efficiently distributed MC training capability, the Army would have to fund burdensome travel requirements or worse, additional post-mobilization training time to achieve standards.

What has the ARNG done?

The MCTSP optimizes ARNG unit ability to meet ARFORGEN’s staff training aim points. Instrumental to this success was the ARNG’s development of the following programs tailored for the ARNG training environment over the last 20 years:

  • (1) Mid 1990’s - Leader and staff development training and WARFIGHTER exercises
  • (2) 1998 - The Distributed Battle Simulation Program
  • (3) 1999 - The Army Battle Command Systems training team
  • (4) 2001 - The Battle Staff training team

What continued efforts does the ARNG have planned for the future?

The ARNG will continue to resource this program through the Army Program of Memorandum (POM) process. The ARNG is striving to achieve the right balance of MC training capability in light of constrained resources and changing force structure. Two additional ARNG MTCs (Camp Atterbury, Ind. and Gowen Field, Idaho) are in the process of achieving initial operating capability. The ARNG is also conducting “proofs of principle” for distributing constructive exercises over various networks while it continues to explore further improvements to efficiently implementing all the elements of the Integrated Training Environment.

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