Photo By Sgt. Jose Escamilla | U.S. Army Sgt. Maj. Kenisha Andrews, G6 mission command, III Armored Corps, mentors a...... read more read more
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Over 800 personnel from the United States, France, Germany and the United Kingdom completed a 5-day computer simulated Command Post Exercise II (CPX II) here on Feb. 28.
Multinational warfighters of III Armored Corps, 1st Division (France), 3rd United Kingdom Division, and 10th Panzer Division synchronized across multiple nodes stateside and overseas rehearsed combined arms operations in response to enemy threats in a virtual combat zone.
Prior to the official start of CPX II, U.S. Army senior leaders and Allied liaison officers (LNOs) took part in a two-day LNO Academy/Academics 2.0 here at the Mission Training Complex. The objective of the academic portion was to cover a wide range of concepts to include description of duties, share pertinent command and control information (C2) for Liaison Officers (LNO), battle rhythm, and interoperability expected outcomes.
“A good liaison officer will ensure there is never a surprise between the GOC [General Officer Commanding] of his division and the commanding general of the Corps,” said Lt. Col. William Tulloch, CPX II liaison officer, 3rd (UK) Division.
Tulloch went on to say the gold-plated standard of an LNO assigned to a corps headquarters is to communicate to its division commander the corps priorities, the corps’ focus for decisive effects on the battlefield to ensure passage of information up, down and across.
When asked how the exercise benefits junior soldiers and leaders, Tulloch stated, “Fundamentally this is about trying to understand how countries are operating with each other. It doesn’t matter whether you are a general or a private soldier, that’s applicable across the board. We have many years of working together, and I have no doubt we will in the future as well.”
Further emphasizing the importance of human networking, Tulloch concluded that Allies must be able to pick up the phone and ask for help and the relationships built over the last week would make that far more likely to succeed.
CPX II, CPX III and the culminating warfighter exercise (WFX), WFX 25-4, will begin here this spring and aim to stress the corps and its divisions to prepare its formations to deploy and fight adversaries in a contested theater with synchronized multidomain effects.
Leading up to the warfighter, CPX II and III participants will use both secure and unsecure networks as well as a Mission Partner Environment (MPE). MPE is the operating framework enabling command and control and information sharing between partners and coalition forces for planning and execution across the full range of military operations.
“G6 ensures that all users are on the same platforms and networks and that we can communicate efficiently and effectively with our NATO Allies through the multi-domain environment,” said U.S. Army Sgt. Maj. Kenisha Andrews, G6 Mission Command, III Armored Corps.
The “G” of G6 symbolizes general staff at division level or higher and the “6” represents a principal staff section who advises, plans & coordinates information technology and communication actions for the command.
Andrews and her team’s responsibilities during CPX II include collaborating with intelligence staff sections to get security clearances to create multi-partner accounts, bridging communication gaps and establishing network connectivity across various platforms at all locations within the U.S. and abroad.
Another critical component within the CPX II battle rhythm is the targeting working group (TWG). One objective of the TWG was to create a shared understanding of the common intelligence/operations picture (CIP/COP).
“We identify where red would go, and what their key tasks could be, based on blue actions in time and space, which includes forecasting the enemy’s decision cycle, enemy terrain, and incorporating doctrine,” stated U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer 3 Sean Morris, fusion production chief, III Armored Corps.
Morris went on to explain that red is a representation of enemy forces, while blue represents friendly forces. Morris also stated that intelligence analysts frame their assessments with a layered approach which includes analyzing and consolidating signal, geospatial, and human intelligence along with other platforms to provide the III Armored Corps commander a better picture of the overall COP.
“As the fusion production chief, my primary responsibilities are integrating intelligence into the operations environment as well as working with future operations in order to identify plans and give the commander options,” concluded Morris.
One objective of this combined training is to converge multi-domain effects at the corps level to enable freedom of movement for its maneuver elements. During WFX 25-4, III Armored Corps will be the main training audience with U.S. Army Europe and Africa serving as the higher command over III Armored Corps and observer-controller support from the Mission Command Training Program at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas.
“This goes beyond a warfighter exercises. It’s shaping our interoperability with our multinational Allies as a warfighting headquarters,” said U.S. Army Col. John Bradley, Fire Support Coordinator, III Armored Corps.
Bradly explained that warfighting exercises allow participants to understand how to connect mission command systems and enables the training audience to level the bubbles across each one of the subordinate entities. Bradley concluded that these types of combined training exercises prepare multinational corps by creating a common understanding and a common operational capability.
The culminating warfighter will be computer-simulated with over 1,000 personnel from the U.S., U.K., Germany and France. 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.
| Date Taken: | 02.28.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 03.24.2025 13:58 |
| Story ID: | 493579 |
| Location: | KILLEEN, TEXAS, US |
| Web Views: | 45 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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