Lt. Col. David Lowber (right), Deputy Commanding Officer of the 301st Maneuver Enhancement Brigade, discusses planned operations with Capt. Kelly Robinson during their command post exercise-functional event. The 301st MEB is an Army Reserve brigade based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington. It has command and control of three engineer battalions and approximately 2,700 soldiers. The 301st MEB headquarters element conducted the December CPX-F in preparation for an overseas mobilization that will begin sometime next year. (U.S. Army photo by Capt. Ernest Wang)
Lt. Col. David Lowber (right), Deputy Commanding Officer of the 301st Maneuver Enhancement Brigade, discusses planned operations with Capt. Kelly Robinson during their command post exercise-functional event. The 301st MEB is an Army Reserve brigade based at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington. It has command and control of three engineer battalions and approximately 2,700 soldiers. The 301st MEB headquarters element conducted the December CPX-F in preparation for an overseas mobilization that will begin sometime next year. (U.S. Army photo by Capt. Ernest Wang)
Staff members of the 301st Maneuver Enhancement Brigade war-gamed a command post exercise-functional (CPX-F) this December. In a simulated tactical operations center, Soldiers briefed elaborate graphics on PowerPoint slides, and shared mission products through email and cloud-based services. Lengths of network cables and cords draped their workstations. Multiple monitors stacked each desktop.
Amid the sea of hardware, senior staff members recalled a time before computer processors, when all products were hand-drawn.
“When I first came in, it was analog maps, radios, telephones, and runners. All your status boards were manual,” said Master Sgt. Travis Austin of Tacoma, Washington, who acted as the operations non-commissioned...
12.18.2019 | JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, WASHINGTON, US |
Story by Capt. Ernest Wang
