Photo By Maj. Tifani Summers | U.K. Maj. Christopher Wiggins, 3rd U.K. Division, briefs Allied military and civilian...... read more read more
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By Maj. Tifani Summers, III Armored Corps Public Affairs
FORT CAVAZOS, Texas – III Armored Corps concluded its final planning event (FPE) Nov. 22 in preparation for the upcoming Command Post Exercise II (CPX II), to be held this February.
The five-day FPE brought together over 100 military and civilian planners from across the globe to refine exercise design, scenario development and solidify training objectives. CPX II, a form of computer-based wargaming, serves as a rehearsal for the culminating, computer-simulated warfighter exercise (WFX), WFX 25-4, which will begin here this spring.
“This upcoming planning event is about setting those final critical conditions to enable executing our CPX II rehearsal in February,” explained Maj. David Clouse, III Armored Corps lead exercise planner.
III Armored Corps, tasked by its higher headquarters U.S. Army Forces Command (FORSCOM) to execute a warfighter with three NATO divisions, aims to enhance interoperability between its allies to prepare for large scale combat operations.
Clouse elaborated on the exercise objectives, saying FORSCOM’s focus was on the tactical requirement of certifying its divisions and corps. III Armored Corps, Department of the Army, and the French, German and U.K. equivalents strategic interoperability outcomes were agreed upon during previously held country-to-country staff talks.
He also emphasized the importance in building human and technical interoperability while planning together to ensure a cohesive fighting formation during conflict. During this warfighter iteration, for the first time, five NATO allies will participate — four exercising from Europe and one here at Fort Cavazos.
Clouse went on to discuss some challenges planners encounter when preparing for a multinational exercise.
“There’s a lot of complexities with time zones, with language, with our communication equipment, our mission command information systems — all of which have different ways that they communicate, which require different cross-domain solutions or technical things to enable us to be able to talk and execute a simulated warfighter together,” Clause said.
“So, CPX II and this planning event is about finding where all those friction points are and finding ways to mitigate those, so that we can actually go into a war simulation and fight together.”
Earlier this year, 1st Armored Division’s trained at Fort Bliss during WFX 25-1, while III Armored Corp exercised mission command from here. This training event allowed III Armored Corps and 1st Armored Division to validate its standard operating procedures, communication platforms and assess identified training objectives.
III Armored Corps will switch roles during CPX II from being a higher command (HICOM) and become the training audience with U.S. Army Europe and Africa serving as the HICOM, along with observer-controller support from the Mission Command Training Program at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
While the culminating warfighter will be computer simulated, over 1,000 personnel from the U.S., Germany and France will converge to work side-by-side to operate as red and white cells, as well as role players during the simulated scenario.
“The warfighter series is a great opportunity for us to train from the division level under the corps level,” said German army Lt. Col. Michael Spannaus, Germany’s lead exercise operations planner, assigned to 10th Panzerdivision. “This is actually one of a kind for us.”
Spannaus previously served with U.S. forces at U.S. Army Europe and Africa (USAREUR-AF) Headquarters in Wiesbaden, Germany, where he was fully integrated with the staff. According to Spannaus, this experience at higher echelons helped him understand U.S. Army procedures, and he believes increased understanding of each other’s culture, language and doctrine helps formations adapt faster when a mission arises.
Field Manual 3-0 states corps and divisions are the formations central to the conduct of large-scale combat operations (LSCO) and how these operations should integrate joint capabilities, allies and partners, and conventional and irregular forces to achieve success.
“Having multinational partners like the French and also the British, who have already experienced the warfighter exercise series in the past, provides a great input for 2025 for us to learn as a response cell,” Spannaus expressed.
Warfighters aim to stress the corps and its divisions to prepare their formations to deploy and fight adversaries in a contested theater with synchronized multidomain effects.
“It’s best that we train as we fight,” said Maj. April Howard, a III Armored Corps logistics planner. “We will most likely fight in a joint environment with our NATO allies, and we need to have a shared understanding of how they operate and how we can streamline our reporting and our logistics systems no matter where we are in the world.”
Howard participated in the III Armored Corps Sustainment Integration Center during the FPE. The center’s priority for the working group was to exchange knowledge with NATO allies to ensure a comprehensive sustainment strategy in preparation for multidomain and (LSCO). During the FPE, participants shared their methods, systems and processes of supporting their perspective warfighters.
“We’re integrating our allies’ capabilities into the war simulation to create the most realistic scenarios and create a single logistics operation picture,” Howard explained. “This forum is crucial for addressing questions and developing solutions to friction points.”
| Date Taken: | 11.22.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 12.10.2024 12:13 |
| Story ID: | 486001 |
| Location: | FORT CAVAZOS, TEXAS, US |
| Web Views: | 134 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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