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It is hard to find a buzzword that does not apply to the massive military exercise that took place in northern Michigan throughout most of August.
Live fire. Close air support. There were general officers talking about the Baltic nations; Marines storming bridges; and some 22,000 meals-ready-to-eat provided.
“From the squad level, all the way up through the brigade, then you add in the air piece – Northern Strike 16 was as complex an operation as can be put together with-out going to (one of the two combat training centers in the U.S.,” said Maj. Gen. Gregory J. Vadnais, the adjutant general of Michigan.
Northern Strike brought together more than 5,000 soldiers, Marines and Airmen – as well as exactly 56 sailors – to operate in the combined 13,000-square-mile military training space in northern Michigan. The exercise, the sixth annual such iteration of Northern Strike, has evolved to become the most complex Reserve-component led training exercise in the United States. As testimony to its important, this year two of the five members of the military joint chiefs of staff – Gen. Robert B. Neller, the commandant of the Marine Corps, and Gen. Joseph L. Lengyel, an Air Force officer who serves as the chief of the National Guard Bureau – attended part of the exercise, along with the third 4-star general, the commander of the Army’s Forces Command, Gen. Robert B. Abrams. The Secretary of the Army, Eric K. Fanning, also toured the exercise.
One of the take-aways for the senior leaders at the exercise was the unique capabilities that Michigan’s Camp Grayling Joint Maneuver Training Center and Alpena Combat Readiness Training provide. Camp Grayling offers some 147,000 acres of land, spread over parts of three counties and filled with dozens of firing ranges. Alpena – 70 miles as the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter flies from Grayling – offers the largest single piece of air space for military training use east of the Mississippi.
“The true benefit of here is that the land ranges and the air space overlap,” explained Major John Rubin, a Michigan Air National Guard A-10 Thunderbolt II attack aircraft pilot who served as the director of the air portion of the exercise. “The soldier or Marine on the ground, the pilot in the air, they are directly linked up in a live fire, joint service scenario.”
Northern Strike was, in other words, an opportunity for the four dozen or more different units from some 20 different states and four foreign nations to “train the way they are going to fight” in a combat scenario.
“While the U.S. military is likely to still be engaged with counter-insurgency missions for many years to come, this exercise allows us to gain a high-degree of readiness if we need to roll out and fight a war against a near-peer adversary,” Vadnais said.
Northern Strike was created in 2010 as a small, Air National Guard-only exercise, that incorporated fewer than 100 airmen. Over the years, the event has grown exponentially to become the multi-service exercise it is today. In addition to American forces, Joint Terminal Attack Controllers – airmen who work with ground forces to direct air strikes – from Latvia, Poland and Lithuania and some Canadian aircraft supported the exercise.
Michigan, which has been partnered with Latvia for more than 20 years in the State Partnership for Peace program, has long worked on joint training exercises with the Latvians in both the U.S. and in Latvia. Earlier this year, hundreds of Michigan National Guard soldiers and Airmen traveled to Latvia for the annual Saber Strike.
The Michigan-Latvian partnership has taken on a new importance in light of recent concerns about aggressive actions taken by Russia against some of its neighboring nations. Vadnais noted that the terrain of northern Michigan is very similar to the terrain of the Baltic Sea nations of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, all of which were former republics of the Soviet Union. The Latvian presence at the exercise also included Lt. Gen. Raimonds Graube, the Latvian Chief of Defense of Armed Forces.
Each year, Northern Strike has added new elements. Chief among those in 2016 was the presence of the 25th Marine Regiment, a USMC-Reserve command based in Massachusetts, which conducted a series of amphibious landings in Lake Margrethe at Camp Grayling’s main cantonment. It marked the first time such landings have ever taken place in the 103-year history of the camp.
“We learned some hard lessons during the exercise,” Vadnais said. “We struggled with a number of communications issues, but this is the place to work those issues out – not when you are deployed to the combat environment.”
In fact, the general said, the communications challenge may have led to one of the centerpiece moments of the entire exercise.
“There we had an Air Force communications unit from Illinois, working to allow Marines from the East Coast and soldiers from Michigan to be able to communicate through their different systems,” he said. “To work through those challenges is invaluable.”
Northern Strike 2016 took place Aug. 1-20, 2016. It is similarly scheduled for several weeks in the summer of 2017, again based at Camp Grayling and the Alpena CRTC.
What’s Next?
With Northern Strike 2016 just winding down, exactly how Northern Strike 2017 will look is still to be determined.
But Major Gen. Gregory J. Vadnais, the adjutant general of the Michigan National Guard, said there are several things he’d like to see in future iterations of the exercise:
A littoral component. “We would welcome the U.S. Navy or the Canadian Navy to be a part of a future Northern Strike in the Upper Great Lakes,” the general said. “Believe me, I am working on that.”
A higher headquarter presence. Northern Strike 16 featured a Brigade Combat Team-plus headquarters. “We really would like to see a division headquarters come in here and stand-up for the two weeks,” the general said.
An Army Reserve presence, possibly a component of the Army Reserve Sustainment Command.
A SHORAD, short-range air defense system that could be used to add complexity to attack air-craft and helicopters participating in the unit.
Firsts at NS 16
* When a Marine Corps AAVP7/A1 Assault Amphibious vehicle pulled up to the shore of Lake Margrethe and 21 Marines from Charlie Company of the 4th Reconnaissance Battalion, Marine Division, began to secure the beach just after 10 a.m. Thursday, Aug. 11, a new chapter was opened in the long-history of the Camp Grayling Joint Maneuver Training Center. The landing, which was quickly followed by another 11 AAVP7s, marked the first time an amphibious assault had taken place at the camp, which has been used for military training since 2013. Over the course of the next week, the Marines not only conducted repeated amphibious landings at the beach, but para-chuted into the lake from CH-47 Chi-nook helicopters and C-130 Hercules fixed-wing aircraft and then made their way to shore. In addition to the Marines, 126 Infantry Regiment, a Michigan National Guard unit, joined the Marines for part of the amphibious training and also made several landings on Lake Margrethe. Video and photos, captured by both Marine Michigan Army National Guard public affairs specialists, documented the landings and is available on the Michigan National Guard web site, www.minationalguard.com
* The 4th Platoon of the 1431st Engineering Company (Sapper) from Calumet of the Michigan National Guard became one of the first units to utilize Range 21 at Camp Grayling. The range opened for operation during Northern Strike 16. The range, built in eight months at a cost of $750,000, is used for small-scale demolition training.
Northern Strike By the Numbers
2: Number of remote FOBS operating during the course of the exercise
3: Number of four-star generals who attended part of Northern Strike
6: Number of state adjutant generals who attended part of Northern Strike (Michigan, Indiana, Minnesota, Illinois, Kansas and Wisconsin)
8: Training lanes for ground forces
21: Number of Marines (plus 3 crew) aboard an AAVP7/A1 assault amphibious vehicle used during landings on Lake Margrethe
50: Range number of the Grayling Air Gunnery Range. Incidentally, this is also the number of 30mm rounds an A-10 Thunderbolt II fires in the first second of firing. The weapon then accelerates to 65-70 rounds per second
180: Rotary wing sorties
190: Fixed wing sorties
464: Number of photos posted by Public Affairs soldiers and airmen to military web sites regarding Northern Strike 16.
22,000: Number of MREs consumed by soldiers at Camp Grayling, not counting MREs consumed by Ma-
210,000: Approximate number of dining facility plus MRE meals consumed
245,000: Approximate number of gallons of ground and aviation fuel used.
1.1 million: Approximate number of ammunition rounds expended
| Date Taken: | 08.17.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 12.23.2016 10:23 |
| Story ID: | 218566 |
| Location: | MI, US |
| Web Views: | 219 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Northern Strike facilitates combat training, by SMSgt Daniel Heaton, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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