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The Global War on Terrorism in Afghanistan and Iraq saw the rise of forward operating bases (FOBs) and the nature of that war led to a different style of fighting and operating. Soldiers weren’t fighting a uniformed, large enemy force. America’s Army was conducting counter insurgency (COIN) operations, and that’s what it prepared itself for.
The war in Ukraine was a harsh wake-up call for the Army leadership. For the first time in decades there was a possibility that the United States could fight a well-outfitted, near-peer army. How does an army who has executed COIN from FOBs for the last twenty years prepare itself for a maneuver fight against an enemy peer?
“We woke up to the fact that we have not mobilized the Army at scale in many decades,” said U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Stephen P. Case, deputy commanding general of 88th Readiness Division, assumes the role of the DCG of mobilization under First Army during Large Scale Mobilization Operations (LSMO) on Fort McCoy. “We are un-shelving our doctrine on large scale maneuver fights, and how to mobilize the entirety of the Army for such a war.”
The Army has perfected deploying singular units to support regions in the Middle East and elsewhere in the world, but it has not had to quickly deploy exceptionally large numbers, something that would be required in large-scale conflict. So, what is the deployment capacity of an inactive Mobilization Force Generation Installation (MFGI) like Fort McCoy and how does it compare to active MFGIs?
“When I first came into this position as the DCG Mob for Fort McCoy, I examined the capacity of Fort McCoy,” said Case. “It’s got an amazing capability and capacity here, comparable to Fort Cavazos. It has a lot more than what folks in the Army realize for training and mobilization support. In fact, Fort McCoy can support the mobilization of well over 10,000 Soldiers simultaneously.”
Fort McCoy demonstrated its ability to support large numbers of personnel with Task Force McCoy, which supported Operation Allies Welcome (OAW) to temporarily house, feed, clothe, provide medical care, and process for immigration nearly 12,600 Afghans. Despite that achievement, its capability to mobilize units at a similar scale has not been tested in recent decades.
“It is not only the quantity of thousands of Soldiers that we need to process through Fort McCoy, but also the rate of throughput of hundreds per day that will stress the mobilization task force. This is an order of magnitude greater than we have experienced, so we are not currently familiar with our gaps and weaknesses,” said Case.
Previous exercises at Fort McCoy did not stress this capability or capacity in intensity, nor frequency. This led to the creation of the Mobilization Support Force – Exercise, which seeks to prove and test the capability of the enterprise to support and process large amounts of Soldiers at Fort McCoy. The exercise was conducted from July 28 to August 3, 2024.
“This year’s MSF-EX saw about 1,200 Soldiers go through a mock mobilization prior to their units’ exercise at CSTX as a proof of concept. Next year, we aim to multiply that by five,” said Case. “Moreover, we want to do this every year to get the ‘reps and sets’ necessary to execute the MFGI mission in time of need without hesitation.”
This MSF-EX, the Fort McCoy enterprise worked together to perfect their techniques and procedures to improve capabilities while also producing information on conducting LSMO on base. Five separate entities, 88th Readiness Division, 641st Readiness Support Group, 86th Training Division, Fort McCoy Garrison, and 181st Infantry Brigade (MFTB), First Army Division West, shared units, contracts and other assets to work together to make the MSF-EX successful.
“I've been really happy with seeing the coming together, the willingness, and the desire to improve the Army from each of these separate organizations,” said Case. “Everybody continues to come together under that U S Army name tag, and they've been really impressive. Regardless of their unit patch, they're all working towards a common goal. Relationships matter, and the relationships here at Fort McCoy between all these entities is very strong. Without that coalition, I don't think we'd have the success at the massive scale required for LSMO.”
The MSF-EX tests the MFGI enterprise, and it also goes a long way towards supporting the units in the exercise, so they meet their readiness goals.
“We go from receiving the unit at Fort McCoy and giving them all their in-briefs, SRP, Medical SRP, weapons qualification, driver’s and night drivers checks, communication skills refresher, and digital systems checks before we send them into the box for an exercise that will test their ability to competently execute their unit wartime mission,” said Case. “At the end of that we can validate, we can say, ‘yes, this unit is ready for war,’ and that's a big deal for the Army to know that its units and Soldiers are ready. This is all about building wartime readiness at the individual and collective level.”
The units who were processed during MSF-EX followed it with a Combat Support Training Exercise (CSTX), which examined the units at the collective level in a maneuver warfare scenario.
“In the scenario, units mobilize and then move into theater, what we call, ‘the box,’” said Case. “Once inside this marvelous training area of Fort McCoy, First Army and United States Army Reserve Command can get a good look at the unit as a whole to see if it can complete its collective and mission essential tasks.”
By working together, the units at Fort McCoy can use existing exercises, like CSTX in which the U.S. Army Reserve Command already planned to bring about 90 units to Fort McCoy, and base facilities already prepared for an MFGI to support the MSF-EX with little additional cost. That dollar goes far for the Reserves, because MSF-EX 24 impacted the readiness of almost 30 reserve units. In addition, the Soldiers participating in MSF-EX also get to train in their Military Occupational Specialties (MOS) and train to do the mission they’d face in real life.
“We’re using organic Army teams who are trained, credentialed, and licensed for dental, medical, and administrative support,” said Case. “Using our organic capability that the taxpayer has already funded, we can affect Army Reserve mobilization during LSMO with speed while contracted assistance builds up to eventually free up those supporting units so they themselves can deploy.”
The personnel and resources are already in place for MSF-EX, but they need to be thoroughly tested, so they’re ready for future LSMOs.
“Stressing Fort McCoy at magnitude, stretching the systems, and pressuring our supporting force so we can find where we break,” said Case. “Now using a sample set of thousands, we’ve been determining how long it takes for one Soldier to go through any one station. This is information that will inform the MFGI enterprise, First Army and Forces Command, so they can calculate what support is actually required for any force projection platform to meet the needs of the Combatant Command (COCOM) in time.”
Combatant Commands have broad, continuing missions and are often composed of forces from two or more military services. They are responsible for producing plans for the employment of armed forces to execute national defense strategies, so they require a lot of support from units in the rear to conduct missions like LSMO to provide manpower.
“The dangers that are in the world today are evident. LSMO is now an enduring priority,” said Case. “Strategically speaking, this is all about getting forces forward faster. Every tactical detail in this exercise is aimed at reducing the risk to the time associated with battlefield advantage, giving every little bit of it we can to our Soldiers and the COCOM Commander.”
| Date Taken: | 08.05.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 09.24.2024 11:18 |
| Story ID: | 481613 |
| Location: | FORT MCCOY, WISCONSIN, US |
| Web Views: | 69 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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