Full spectrum training underway for US Army Europe soldiers, multinational partners

Photo By Sgt. Ginger Roberts | U.S. Army Maj. Gen. James C. Boozer and U.S. Army Col. Andrew Rohling discuss upcoming plans during a training exercise at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center, Hohenfels, Germany, Oct. 6, 2011. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Ginger Roberts)  

BW, GERMANY

10.07.2011

Story by Lynn Davis 

U.S. Army Europe and Africa     

HOHENFELS, Germany – After jumping into the training area at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center here, participants of U.S. Army Europe’s first Full Spectrum Training Environment are in action.

This exercise, which runs through Oct. 25, marks the beginning of a different approach to ensuring Soldiers are ready to face any type of enemy they may come in contact with.

“This rotation enables us to transform the institutional Army by refocusing our training infrastructure on the Army's new operation concept of Wide Area Security - Combined Arms Maneuver, which is the fancy way of saying Full Spectrum Operations,” said Col. David McBride, U.S. Army Europe G3 training and exercise branch chief. “This new concept, in essence, addresses two distinct types of fighting: the combined maneuvering concept which let us successfully invade Iraq and capture Baghdad in 2003, and the Counter Insurgency concept, which we used after the fall of Baghdad from June 2003 until present. Under CAM-WAS, these two fundamentally different approaches to fighting may both be anticipated to happen on a single battlefield, with no clear delineation between them.”

For many young soldiers, this is not only a new way of training, but a new way of thinking.

“It will be great to learn something new, all of our experience is the COIN fight, working with the local populace and trying to get involved,” said Spc. Jeffery James-Potts, an intelligence analyst with the 173rd ABCT. “Here we will be fighting a conventional force and that will be great experience on my level, to see the different kinds of tactics and methods that we use. This will definitely be an interesting and beneficial experience.”

The FSTE also gives U.S. Army Europe Soldiers yet another opportunity to work with several multinational partners and continue building upon mutually beneficial relationships.

“USAREUR is training with and building tomorrow's coalitions today at JMRC,” McBride said. “Our forward presence in Europe allows us to habitually train with and potentially deploy with our coalition partners. We have trained and fought alongside Poland downrange for several years. The 6th Airborne Bde out of Poland and the 173rd ABCT, who are training alongside each other today, will be fighting alongside each other next summer in Afghanistan.”

As the FSTE progresses, participants will be faced with real-world based scenarios as well as situational training exercises and a command post exercise testing knowledge, skills and abilities to fight conventional and non-conventional enemy forces.

• Date Taken: 10.07.2011
• Date Posted: 10.07.2011 12:30
• Story ID: 78172
• Location: BW, DE