Many thanks to Paralus for this idea!
By now you've read the story by David Axe over at "War is Boring" Blog about how an Air Force Lt Col practically gleamed with the news that OPFOR kicked the Blue Force's ass and that the A-10 was the only way they were able to win the fight.
One of my readers suggested that the focus of the article was to show the importance of the A-10 to US Army operations.
I can't argue that. But still....
The US Army is trying to get its feet wet in the Pacific. I contend that this exercise is not only a wake up call to the importance of Air Defense Artillery (you can't plan on the air boys always being around) but also a notice to the Army that they should expand their horizons.
Its time to get Marine and Navy Air playing at JRTC. Invite ANGLICO, JTACs and FACs to play simulating naval guns too.
Even if the scenario is landing a Stryker Brigade to push out of a beach head established by Marines or an Airborne Brigade holding prime real estate until they can be linked up with, the working relationships and tribal knowledge could pay off in the future.
Its a modest proposal but I doubt the Army would go for it. Pity. JRTC is close to several Marine and Navy reserve aviation and infantry units that could fill the need even if active duty units couldn't. Naval Aviators would get valuable flight time and if expanded it would be a terrific opportunity for Marine/Army Infantry to start working together even more than ever.
It would be a win win.
By now you've read the story by David Axe over at "War is Boring" Blog about how an Air Force Lt Col practically gleamed with the news that OPFOR kicked the Blue Force's ass and that the A-10 was the only way they were able to win the fight.
One of my readers suggested that the focus of the article was to show the importance of the A-10 to US Army operations.
I can't argue that. But still....
The US Army is trying to get its feet wet in the Pacific. I contend that this exercise is not only a wake up call to the importance of Air Defense Artillery (you can't plan on the air boys always being around) but also a notice to the Army that they should expand their horizons.
Its time to get Marine and Navy Air playing at JRTC. Invite ANGLICO, JTACs and FACs to play simulating naval guns too.
Even if the scenario is landing a Stryker Brigade to push out of a beach head established by Marines or an Airborne Brigade holding prime real estate until they can be linked up with, the working relationships and tribal knowledge could pay off in the future.
Its a modest proposal but I doubt the Army would go for it. Pity. JRTC is close to several Marine and Navy reserve aviation and infantry units that could fill the need even if active duty units couldn't. Naval Aviators would get valuable flight time and if expanded it would be a terrific opportunity for Marine/Army Infantry to start working together even more than ever.
It would be a win win.
I've always wanted to train at JRTC.
ReplyDeleteSo a USAF colonel is bragging about an airplane whose genesis lies in an US Army requirement for fixed wing CAS because the USAF of the day were only interested in missiles and shooting down nuclear bombers, even though the big stick of armageddon would be ICBM/SLBM, is that right? OK then...........
ReplyDeleteIf a unit goes to JRTC and kicks ass, what have they learned?
ReplyDeleteJRTC is meant to be where everything goes wrong, it is where the OC's can magically discount your Arty and Mortar fire so that the Infantry has someone to react against when you clear an objective. The purpose of JRTC is to stress your staff, your support, and Command teams by making so many things go wrong that every day there is equivalent to 2 or 3 weeks of real world operations.
Units do not go to JRTC to prove that they are badasses, units go to JRTC to get better, to test their task organization against a highly trained OPFOR which is made up of US Soldiers who know BLUEFOR TTPs inside and out, and retired/former Military planners who know what trips up a team.
And yes, everytime the OPFOR gets a chance to use that HIND against the BLUEFOR it screws them up. Had a buddy in 2/75 explain to me how they deliberately tasked a platoon to take out the HIND, and the platoon was reduced to a fire team before it was over. Conversely when one of our Apaches engages the OPFOR, you get a similar result. Just for referrence, I've never seen "Stinger Missile" on a BDE MTOE equipment list in the last decade. Which is funny, as I remember the Avenger system being a big part of my first NTC rotation back in 99.
Now I'm all for getting more Marines into the game, but there is definitely some expectation management about what JRTC is, and isn't.
no training is done if the bluefor can do everything right and they're set up to fail. this flies in the face of what was done at NTC and Steel Knight. if the unit were spot on and had their shit in a bag then they could win. sounds like thats not the case at the JRTC you describe.
Deletepity.
if all they're doing is field problems then this is a glorified TBS.....if thats the case then i'm much less impressed by the whole setup.
Solomon, think about how it works. You have a unit that does nothing but defend Fort Polk 11 times a year against everything from a National Guard light infantry Brigade to a Special Forces Group. Those guys know how to defend, conduct spoiling attacks, attack the airfield. They can dominate that terrain whenever they feel like it.
ReplyDeleteThe hardest part about being OPFOR at JRTC or NTC is focusing your efforts to train the rotating unit on the things they need to be trained on. Every month is another 17 million taxpayer dollars gone, so the goal isn't to show how awesome the OPFOR is, but to find all the weaknesses in the BLUEFOR unit so they can get better, come away at the end with a better understanding of their actual capabilities, and tailor their training after rotation to what will be value added instead of just what was on a training schedule.
What the BLUEFOR gets out of it is a LOT of iterations of going through rapid mission planning cycles, conducting operations under the same compressed timeline.
Let me put it to you this way, my last JRTC rotation we found out that we had one very high functioning maneuver battalion and it was the Cavalry Squadron. We had one Infantry Battalion that was ok with deliberately planned missions but floundered when the tactical situation fluctuated wildly away from projections. We had a Support BN that learned the hard lessons on base defense the hard way.
Seriously, if everyone the OPFOR killed "stayed dead" instead of going through the regeneration process (which forces the S1 sections to see how well they can do their jobs) and come back into the fight as "replacements" then all the OPFOR would have to do to end the exercise early is to kill the Brigade Support BN (which they generally manage to do at least once a rotation to see how the rest of the BDE deals with austere logistics support).
That is why there are multiple exercises, generally two, where things get "reset" so the BLUEFOR can practice again (generally not involving another parachute drop for the Airborne though, they normally only get one mass tactical drop per rotation).
JRTC isn't a "war games" where we test out how we'd do against a foreign force, it is a serious training event where we find out how units work together.
When we were working on the Force XXI project back in the late 1990s, we actuall "won" NTC by using first generation UAV's as artillery spotting platforms and killing the OPFOR before they could engage the Infantry units. As a result, the BDE staff and FA BN got good training, but the infantry were stuck sitting around the desert wasting a prime training opportunity. So while we went back to Fort Hood and patted ourselves on the back about how the US Army was going to totally dominate land warfare in the desert from this point forward (and even reduced the number of Tanks in a BCT because we did so well) we didn't realize that the Infantrymen still needed all the training they could get because not every tactical situation is going to let us fight in our preferred manner that maximises our strengths.