Joint Warfighting Assessment 20 in final preparations

Photo By Jonathan Koester | Joint Visitor Bureau and Public Affairs activities are discussed during a breakout session of the final conditions check of Joint Warfighting Assessment 20. The final check took place Feb. 18-21 at Grafenwoehr, Germany.  

EL PASO, TX, UNITED STATES

03.10.2020

Story by Jonathan Koester 

Joint Modernization Command

After a final conditions check that took place in February in Grafenwoehr, Germany, Joint Warfighting Assessment 20 has moved to final preparations.

More than 300 Soldiers, civilians and contractors attended the final conditions check for JWA 20 from Feb. 18-21 in Germany. The final check confirmed that the U.S. Army Joint Modernization Command is ready for JWA 20 from May 2-12, 2020, in Germany and Poland. JWA 20 is the Army’s largest annual live, multinational experiment, focused on Multi-Domain Operations. JWAs focus on refining concepts, capabilities and formations through soldier and leader feedback at live experiments.

During JWA 20, personnel from the U.S. Army Joint Modernization Command will assess nearly 40 concepts and capabilities to help the Army’s future fight. JWA 20 is the command post exercise for Defender 20. It will be the single largest CPX the Army will run this year.

Defender 20 is an exercise that will include 37,000 allied and U.S. service members. About 20,000 U.S. service members will deploy from the continental U.S. to Europe for the exercises, including active-duty units from multiple Army divisions, National Guard units from 11 states, and seven U.S. Army Reserve units, making Defender 20 the largest deployment of U.S.-based Army forces to Europe in 25 years.

Douglas Fletcher, chief of JMC, noted that participation in JWA 20’s final conditions check included 17 multinational countries, U.S. European Command, U.S. Army Europe, U.S. Air Force Europe, U.S. Navy Europe and Special Operations Command Europe.

“Participants in the JWA 20 final conditions check represented the better part of the Future Force Enterprise,” Fletcher said. “What’s really important is U.S. European Command, which is the global combatant command, is providing the higher command for the CPX. All joint components are part of the CPX now, which includes two corps, five divisions and more than 28 brigades.”

Maj. Curtis Jones, JMC plans officer, agreed that the final check paved the way toward a successful JWA 20.

“I think the two biggest things we accomplished were, one, having the higher commands meet up, so there was an element from U.S. European Command and Allied Joint Force Command Brunssum, and they worked through how they are going to look during the exercise,” Jones said. “The second was, in a separate simulation we were able to run through what will be the starting conditions for JWA 20. We can now have it in a format we can give to the training audience with all the battle damage estimates and every other thing you’d expect to be reported on.”

• Date Taken: 03.10.2020
• Date Posted: 03.10.2020 11:21
• Story ID: 364873
• Location: EL PASO, TX, US