XCTC Prepares Soldiers for a National Training Center Rotation

Photo By Sgt. Odaliska Almonte | Soldiers with Bravo Battery 1-113th Field Artillery Regiment check their communications at the Fire Direction Control before the M109 howitzer/paladin life fire at a training area near Ft. Bliss, Texas. The 30th Armored Brigade's eXportable Combat Training Capability (XCTC) exercise has over 4,000 Citizen Soldiers from North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia, Minnesota, and the country of Moldova will hone their combat skills of “Shoot, Move, Communicate, and Sustain”. (U.S. Army National Guard photo by Sgt. Odaliska Almonte, North Carolina National Guard Public Affairs/Released)  

FORT BLISS, TEXAS, UNITED STATES

08.20.2018

Story by Sgt. Odaliska Almonte 

North Carolina National Guard

FORT BLISS, TX – Over 3,800 Guardsmen from North Carolina, South Carolina, West Virginia and Minnesota are participating in the 30th Armored Brigade Combat Team’s (ABCT) eXportable Combat Training Capability (XCTC) program in Fort Bliss, Texas from August 6-28, 2018.
The XCTC program, coordinated and managed by First Army and The National Guard Bureau, is a combat brigade size field training exercise designed to certify platoon proficiency.

First Army assigns Observer Coach Trainers down to the lowest unit levels. There they observe the 30th’s Tactics, Techniques, and Procedures and Standard Operating Procedures and determine if they meet the Commander’s training objectives and how well the unit performs during multiple scenario training lanes and live fire exercises.

“Since this is a National Guard unit going through the XCTC, First Army likes to augment the unit with Guard Soldiers because we have that communality with the training unit,” said Capt. Ashley Callahan, Observer Coach Trainer and Logistics Officer from the District Of Columbia National Guard. “We provide a different perspective and understand first had what these Guardsmen had to do to get here and train in this harsh environment”.

The goal of XCTC is to ready the 30th ABCT for its National Training Center (NTC) rotation in Fort Irwin, California. After the NTC rotation the 30th will be validated for potential overseas deployment.

“XCTC greatly benefits us, it simulates the Soldiers and our systems, it stresses the systems that we need to have in place in order to be effective, lethal and successful at NTC,” said Maj. Courtney Bird, 236th Brigade Engineer Battalion S3 Operations Officer.

Compared to the training exercises the 30th ABCT undertakes at home in North Carolina, the land available during XCTC provides a larger maneuver area for operations that are more realistic and aligned with a deployment scenario.

“Out here we can maneuver and operate as a M109 Paladin Battery should, in a wide open terrain,” said Staff Sgt. Jesse Grose, Platoon Sergeant for Bravo Battery, 1-113th Field Artillery. “Here we have more space, more maneuver area. The terrain it’s very difficult but this exercise prepares us more for the force on force type battlefield.”

Over the intense three-weeks of training in the austere desert environment that is Fort Bliss, all 30th Soldiers will hone their combat skills of “Shoot, Move, Communicate, and Sustain”.

“When we went through the NTC rotation in 2009, we were still fighting the counter-insurgency fight instead of the conventional war fight that we’re focusing on here,“ said Bird. “But the basis for what we do it’s still the same, our soldiers and combat systems are being tested and refined here to get us closer to what we’re going to see and accomplish at NTC.”

• Date Taken: 08.20.2018
• Date Posted: 08.24.2018 12:43
• Story ID: 289821
• Location: FORT BLISS, TEXAS, US