FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kan. - Training is a necessity to remain a versatile and relevant fighting force. Training allows Soldiers to expand upon their own skills and gives unit leadership the opportunity to improve overall unit capabilities. Members of the Army National Guard's 35th Infantry Division recently conducted a first-of-its-kind warfighting exercise to better test and prepare its troops for potential future missions.
The 35th conducted the 2015 Santa Fe Exercise with a training scenario utilizing a live simulation. The simulation was provided by the Global Simulation Capability (GSC), a section of the National Simulation Center (NSC) at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. While live simulation exercises are typically built to span one to two weeks at a time, the 35th Infantry Division modified the timeline in order to successfully complete the exercise in a single drill weekend.
“We are the first National Guard division to have utilized the Global Simulation Capability and complete it within a drill weekend,” said Maj. Gen. Michael D. Navrkal, commander of the 35th Infantry Division. "Although the GSC has worked with other units before, they have typically been active duty units or National Guard or Reserve units in a longer annual training status."
By completing the process in a weekend, the 35th ID was able to look at their war-fighting functions and how they act with one another. This training will in turn help the 35th Division with their upcoming annual training mission in June and beyond.
The training scenario was largely successful due the military’s new WARSIM Federation, a group of constructive simulations that collectively simulate military operations and stimulate Mission Command Systems (MCS).
“The WARSIM Federation is the 'optimal' tool for division and higher command post exercises,” said Col. Charles Allen, the chief of Global Simulation Capability Division National Simulation Center at Fort Leavenworth. “Normally the WARSIM Federation requires a lot of overhead, but through 35th Infantry Division and GSC’s combined planning effort, we demonstrated that the WARSIM overhead can be greatly reduced, but still meet 'focused' training outcomes.”
Allen added that the GSC looks forward to working with 35th Infantry Division in the future and other Army National Guard divisions to meet their training objectives.
Maj. Jason Inskeep, training officer for the 35th Infantry Division, noted that one of the more beneficial aspects of the exercise was that it provided additional training time for their command staff to operate through a unit Command Post Exercise, allowing for further enhancement of their battle drills.
"Having a scenario that is played out in real time allows troops to ‘fight the deep fight’ using the Fires and Targeting sections specifically, but also having the air/ground coordination," said Inskeep.
Also in attendance, were coaching mentors from the Army's I Corps out of Joint Base Lewis-McCord in Washington, who advised and shared thoughts with members of the 35th on ways to improve future processes.
"The organizations are about the people, the processes, the systems and the structure," said Navrkal.
“We were able to touch on all of those with this training and most impressively, we were able to advance our readiness while keeping our Soldiers, equipment and resources at home station,” Navrkal continued.
Though the simulation only spanned 12 hours of operations over a two-day period, it involved months of planning, coordinating and utilizing resources within condensed time and budgetary constraints.
“When you haven’t used this type of simulation in this capacity before and you have coordination among the unit, the GSC and the Mission Training Complex (use of their rooms, network and some of their equipment), there is a lot of communication that needs to happen,” said Inskeep.
After completion of the exercise and a thorough group after action review, Inskeep is certain that the division can now narrow future planning for similar exercises down from six months to a mere 100-120 day planning cycle.
“We’re the first division to take advantage of what I believe is a great opportunity and partnership with the Combined Arms Center training area on Fort Leavenworth,” Navrkal said. "We'll only continue to grow this partnership and build better more collaborative training."
| Date Taken: | 03.09.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 04.08.2015 15:42 |
| Story ID: | 159448 |
| Location: | FORT LEAVENWORTH, KS, US |
| Web Views: | 229 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
This work, 35th Infantry Division conducts accelerated training exercise, by SFC Jennifer Milnes, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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