Full Spectrum Exercise
Written by Rob Saxon, First Army
MT2 2011 Volume: 16 Issue: 8 (December)
Fingers tapped away furiously on computer keyboards while friendly and mock-enemy maneuver graphics flashed across large screens as National Guardsmen from Kansas participated in a ‘first-of-its-kind’ exercise designed to test the full range of their combat leadership and soldier skills.
More than 350 soldiers from the Kansas Army National Guard’s 35th Infantry Division (ID) headquarters recently participated in a newly developed seven-day computer simulations exercise labeled an FSX, or Full Spectrum Exercise, at the headquarters building at Leavenworth, Kan.
Advisers from First Army, headquartered at Rock Island Arsenal, Ill., were on hand to ensure the exercise remained focused on preparing the 35th ID for potential CEF (Contingency Expeditionary Force) missions. This was an important aspect because during the past few years, the majority of Reserve component training focused exclusively on preparing the units for DEF (Deployment Expeditionary Force) missions to Iraq or Afghanistan.
Units preparing for DEF missions are trained for known operational requirements such as Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan. Units preparing for CEF missions are trained to perform such missions as homeland defense and civil support, overseas exercises, institutional support, theater security cooperation events and global response to conduct full-spectrum operations worldwide in support of the combatant commands.
Full Spectrum Simulations
First Army oversaw the development of the new simulations training exercise as part of its mission to advise, assist, train and validate reserve component forces prior to an overseas deployment.
Commander of First Army Division East, Major General Kevin R. Wendel, said the new FSX allows the command to execute the full range of military operations in a realistic, joint, interagency and coalition environment. “My job is to help the division achieve their training objectives and to influence and shape the exercise by working with the team of senior mentors, trainers and support teams.”
Preparations for the FSX began in February 2010 with a series of developmental conferences where representatives from First Army, Mission Command Training Program (MCTP) at Fort Leavenworth, the 35th ID and the National Guard Bureau met to design the scenario, identify personnel requirements and create the simulations facility layout. More than 1,000 soldiers, Department of Defense civilians and contractors participated in the exercise.
The new FSX was designed to train military operations across the full spectrum of potential missions from high intensity conflict and counterinsurgency (COIN) to stability operations using a simulations environment. “In the last two years we have been in stability operations and COIN operations in both theaters of Afghanistan and Iraq,” said David Ruggere, First Army’s lead project officer for the exercise. “Though our soldiers are really skilled at that, the one skill that a lot of maneuver soldiers and staff have gotten away from is major combat operations—a gunfight— what used to be called a Warfighter Exercise (WFX).”
The WFX is a much older offensive and defensive combat simulation that traditionally pitted a corps or division-sized unit against an opposing force in an intense force-on-force simulated battle.
Simulation Expansion and Transformation
Exercise control team chief, James Dumolt, MCTP, said the FSX is the first of its kind in the Army and has expanded simulations beyond the WFX in terms of functionality, “What we have added on to that is what we call PMESII: political, military, economic, social, infrastructure and information aspects of the operational environment.”
According to Dumolt, the Army is transitioning back to a focus on the combat skills trained during the WFX. “We’ve been doing a lot of Mission Rehearsal Exercises in the last few years oriented towards Southwest Asia, and really doing a rehearsal to get us ready to go downrange to Afghanistan and to Iraq. We are taking what we learned at the rehearsals, where PMESII was developed, and add that on to the Warfighter Exercise to create an FSX.”
Another “first” for this exercise was the addition of an active component unit as a training audience with the 35th ID in a simulations exercise. The 555th Engineer Brigade from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash., provided unit members to conduct simulated engineer operations in support of the 35th ID plan.
Lieutenant Colonel Dave Johnson, chief of plans (G-5) for the 35th ID, said it’s not normal for a National Guard legacy warfighter exercise to have an active component unit participate. “We’ve broken some new ground in that aspect as well. We’re learning from each other. They have a really top-notch team and they bring a lot to the exercise that we wouldn’t have had otherwise.”
New Exercise Results
Success of the computer simulation exercise was not defined only in terms of ground gained on the battlefield during the scenario. Lieutenant General Mick Bednarek, commander of First Army and exercise director, pointed to a broader and more important measure of success. “Our Army’s guidance, from the Chief of Staff, was to broaden our aperture and get back to a full range of military operations viewpoint for our Army brigade combat teams, divisions and corps.”
Bednarek said that this first-of-its-kind exercise accomplished all that and more. “This was a scenario developed to get after the full range of military operations as opposed to counterinsurgency ... to accomplish training objectives such as the integration of all of our joint enablers and integration of targeting at the division level while learning how to resource what the division fight is, versus a brigade combat team fight.”
The 35th ID set the template for the Army’s division warfighter of the future, according to Bednarek. “This was a tremendous opportunity we had in First Army to support our Army and a National Guard division [35th ID] by running this simulation exercise in a full spectrum context.”
The Future of the FSX
The soldiers and leaders associated with the 35th ID exercise see this new full spectrum simulation as a unique challenge and a means of shaping training for future reserve component units. “This is really the proof of principle test for the Army on the FSX construct as well as the National Guard variant of the FSX. In the long run, we hope that our lessons learned will help others,” said Johnson. “If we come out of this as a better unit and the Army learns from our actions, and in some cases mistakes, then we’ve all won and we are all better for it.”
Wendel echoed those comments and said he views the new FSX as a critical step forward in First Army’s efforts to better prepare reserve component units for a wide variety of future missions and deployments. “Exercises like these significantly increase readiness and provide opportunities for leaders at every level to sustain and improve critical war fighting skills.”
When asked if the FSX has a future in training reserve component units, Bednarek said, “It absolutely does! And this applies regardless of component, both active component and our reserve component team.”
Bednarek views the FSX as an excellent means of integrating all of the enablers necessary and focusing on the training objectives the division commander wanted accomplished while maximizing limited unit training time.
“Many of the tactical and operational lessons that the division learned, such as staff integration, synchronization, battle rhythm, targeting, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, are the types of war fighting functions that any division and any brigade—regardless of component—all have to deal with because they don’t have an opportunity to exercise them as often as they would like to.” ♦