MP Corps' Diverse Capabilities

Written by Erin Flynn Jay

MT2 2011 Volume: 16 Issue: 7 (October)

The Military Police Corps supports the U.S. Army today by conducting missions supporting full spectrum operations including offense, defense, stability and civil support operations.

“These missions span the entire spectrum of conflict from stable peace to major combat operations consisting of lethal or nonlethal engagement against threat forces,” said Colonel Jesse Galvan, U.S. Army Military Police School chief of staff. “The MP Corps’ diverse capabilities are fully integrated at every level and mission within the operating environment. Military police perform five critical functions, which support the full spectrum of military operations in all environments.”

These functions and supporting actions are performed during joint, interagency and multinational operations as well as during operations exclusive to the Army:

• Maneuver and mobility support operations assist in expediting the battlefield movement of combat forces, support units and resources.
• The internment/resettlement operations involve the evacuation, internment and detention of enemy prisoners of war, high-risk detainees, U.S. military prisoners and dislocated civilians.
• The area security operations help protect the force and local populace by providing security for critical sites, assets and high-risk personnel, and through the execution of aggressive anti-terrorism and protection measures.
• The law and order operations provide for the stability and order within a given area of operation through the conduct of law enforcement, criminal investigations, border and customs enforcement, support to dislocated civilian operations and HN policing. Additionally, Galvan said these operations form the core branch competency of every MP officer; these skills are used extensively in training and professionalizing indigenous security and police forces. During peacetime, military police provide security to Army facilities and resources by providing law enforcement and confinement services. The conduct of law enforcement on Army installations and facilities develops and enhances skill sets needed to conduct contingency missions.
• Police intelligence operations (PIO) are critical to supporting, enhancing and contributing to the common operating picture and situational understanding of the maneuver commander. Criminal activity is often inextricably linked to the capabilities of enemy forces. “PIO ensures that intelligence developed during the conduct of the other MP functions is provided to the overall intelligence effort. In peace, PIO provides collection and analysis of police information pertaining to the criminal threat affecting military communities to the provost marshal, garrison commander and senior mission commander,” Galvan concluded. “PIO provides situational awareness and visualization across the operating environment and is essential to the success of Army protection programs and efforts.”

MP Training Needs

According to Reginald Cole, U.S. Army Military Police School deputy director of training, recent trends and analysis demonstrate a need for increased training in:

• Basic law enforcement training (community policing skills)
• Increased marksmanship skill development
• Active shooter patrol response
• Incident command
• Forensic material collection and exploitation
• Training host nation police (building partner capacity)

Many of the initiatives underway to address military police training shortfalls do not generate new requirements or an increase in resources.

“Increasing the quantity and quality of basic law enforcement training requires us to re-evaluate what we are currently training against identified shortfalls, then focus on training priorities and restructuring the curriculum to ensure these priorities are incorporated,” said Cole.

Increasing marksmanship skill development training requires changes in both weapons training tasks and increases in ammunition allocation tables. To accomplish this, Cole said they are developing a strategy that will be presented to the Army for decision in late fall of this year.

Active shooter patrol response training is already underway within the U.S. Army Military Police School, and they have developed an exportable training support package that is available to operational military police units and Department of the Army civilian security guards to training this important requirement. Incident command is a key and critical aspect of ensuring operational control and unity of effort by response forces during a critical incident.

“We have incorporated elements of incident command training into the appropriate leader development and technical training courses at USAMPS,” said Cole.

Forensic material collection and processing are essential elements of both combat and law enforcement operations. Forensics plays an important role in identifying terrorist and criminal threats, networks and devices, and feed military/criminal intelligence collection efforts. To meet this requirement, Cole said they have established the forensics material collection and exploitation course. The course is conducted by mobile training teams that travel to deploying units. Elements of this course are also trained in both basic and advanced military police courses at USAMPS as well.

Training host nation police forces is a critical element of establishing stability and the rule of law in partner nations. To establish this capability within the military police force, USAMPS developed the police transition team/police mentor team course. This course provides essential training in cultural awareness, rule of law, policing and interpersonal communication skills necessary to effectively team with and mentor host nation law enforcement personnel.

“We continuously assess trends and capture lessons learned from current operations in and outside the continental United States to inform and make improvements to training,” said Major Andrea Sampson, U.S. Army Military Police School operations officer. “Much of what we’ve experienced and learned over the past nine years of war has influenced the training we conduct today. The effort to keep our training current is in large part driven by the hand-selected instructors we bring in from the operational force to inform the training development process, and a formal lessons learned integration process established for the sole purpose of improving our training capabilities and products. Further, from a law enforcement standpoint, the investigation and adoption of civilian law enforcement best practices have also helped to improve the training we provide military police soldiers.”

The military police school continuously receives requests for information and new proposals from multiple sources within and outside the Department of Defense, and federal and civilian law enforcement agencies throughout the United States. The requests range from information on military police tactics, techniques and procedures to conducting advise and assist missions with U.S. partner nations.

Blackboard Learn

There is no room for gaps in learning during military police training. “To keep troops at peak performance, many training organizations recognize the benefits of leveraging technology and having programs available beyond the classroom and into the field for ‘on the job’ instruction,” said Kevin Alansky, vice president, marketing, Professional Education, Blackboard. “They use Blackboard Learn to streamline the development and deployment of continuous learning courses and to improve the impact on mission. These include organizations as varied as the Air Force Institute of Technology and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point.”

With Blackboard Learn, training is agile enough to respond to rapidly changing in-theater situations, robust enough to accommodate all the resources needed to facilitate skills mastery, and accessible and intuitive enough to quickly engage learners— no matter where they are stationed.

Today’s military faces challenges that were unknown just a few months ago. The tools required to wage a successful campaign need to be highly sophisticated and rely on innovative technology at unprecedented levels. “Knowledge of strategy and tactics is no longer enough. Rather, a continuous learning environment, like the one fostered by Blackboard Learn, allows personnel to share information and ideas about mission critical duties in real-time,” said Alansky. “Thus, the traditional course has evolved into a strategic engagement with learning communities built around peer-topeer interaction, content and discussion. Learning is no longer an isolated event that occurs within the walls of a classroom, but it is an ongoing process that is not limited by time or distance.”

Blackboard Learn moves beyond a traditional LMS and enables a continuous learning environment. It’s an agile, rapidly deployed learning system that gives both the structure and flexibility needed to accommodate how personnel are actually learning today. It gives them the in-depth, advanced training required when dealing with customized, proprietary content surrounding complex topics and sophisticated instructional scenarios.

Military institutions often use Blackboard’s system as a “reachback solution.” This allows officers in the field to pull information pertinent to in-theater situations, ensuring they receive the latest learning content in real-time and are able to access it immediately and throughout their military careers.

“At the same time, classroom learners are also able to benefit from information that is shared online by their peers. By aligning learning activities with mission critical objectives and battlefield requirements, Blackboard Learn positively impacts speed to competency, which is of utmost importance as troops prepare for rapidly evolving battlefield conditions and immediate mission demands,” said Alansky.

Blackboard Learn fosters social learning communities via wikis, blogs and other applications that connect a collaborative network of mentors and colleagues. Information is shared, real-world experiences discussed, and relationships between instructors and students and alumni developed. Instructors pull information into class discussions and help better prepare current students for the realities they will face tomorrow, while also making the information accessible to officers in the field today.

Blackboard’s system complements traditional classroom instruction by extending the course experience to web-enabled mobile devices, giving soldiers the timely, mission-critical training they need to ensure success. The combination of formal instruction with informal learning and structured social interaction produces a continuous learning environment where instructors can easily create and deliver custom content that can be quickly updated and re-deployed as processes, standards or technology change. These flexible, responsive qualities and functionalities make the integrated learning environment an efficient solution that addresses the training and learning needs of all branches of today’s military.

Quantum3D’s ExpeditionDI

Patrolling bases and being prepared to deal with any scenario requires training, and training military police on any imaginable scenario isn’t realistic without the use of innovative virtual tools. Quantum3D builds virtual training systems that allow military police to train for and experience any possible scenario, but in the virtual world. “Quantum3D’s ExpeditionDI allows a group of military police to be placed in a virtual representation of a base or other real-world scenario, and train for a range of serious problems, enemies or situations that may arise,” said Pratish Shah, director of marketing, Quantum3D. “This training solution is designed to help military police work together to identify and resolve problems, all in the virtual world. This scenario- and team-based training environment better prepares the military police for what they may encounter in the real world.”

As the world evolves and threats change, the military police need to enhance their training to better deal with current and future threats they may encounter. “Scenario- and team-based training platforms, such as ExpeditionDI, are tools that military police are looking to integrate in order to enhance their training and help them identify and resolve any future realities on the ground,” Shah said.

In November, Quantum3D announced new additions to its ExpeditionDI infantry training platform, including a high-resolution head mounted display (HMD) and highly-flexible integrated backpack. These advancements extend the performance of ExpeditionDI, enabling today’s military to easily and more effectively simulate squad-based close-combat exercises.

“While there’s no substitute for real-world combat experiences, ExpeditionDI offers the closest training simulation you can get to the real battlefield,” said Arthur Yan, president, Quantum3D. “With these latest advancements, ExpeditionDI represents a significant turning point in infantry combat training, giving today’s military a highperformance, all-inclusive training solution for improving warfighter readiness.”

The new 1280-by-1024 high-resolution HMD provides a high-fidelity view of the 3-D tactical environment to better immerse soldiers in the virtual environment, while improved visual acuity provides a more real-world perception of simulation scenarios. ExpeditionDI’s advanced correlated motion and integrated sight/sound capabilities enable an infantry squad to move through and interact with a virtual environment while moving, fighting and communicating as they would in a real-world combat situation.

The new wearable computing pack combines all of the system components, hot-swappable battery capabilities and cabling into one easy-to-wear unified package, increasing overall mobility and flexibility for training exercises. In addition, the system responds simultaneously to multiple body and weapon movements, providing an even more realistic, immersive 3-D training experience deployable on base or in theater.

Additional ExpeditionDI features include:

• Head Motion Tracker: Correlates motion similar to the real world; a turn of the head delivers a new view in the simulated environment
• Audio Headset: Delivers surround sound and IP radio, while an integrated microphone supports realistic tactical communications during training exercise and voice recording for after action review
• Hot-swappable Battery: Enables extended use of ExpeditionDI with a hot-swappable battery compartment built into the wearable computer pack; batteries can be quickly replaced without interrupting system operation.
• Weapon Subsystem: Ensures infantry train with weapons depicting realistic shape, weight and feel; weapon aiming is also controlled by the weapon’s orientation—fully independent of the warfighter’s head or body positions
• Embedded Computer: Integrated into the wearable computer pack, the embedded computer processes all graphics and simulation in a self-contained platform; rugged enough to withstand even the most severe field conditions. ♦

 

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