AWFE '01 cemented a habitual professional relationship between the Army Materiel Command and the supported commands in Korea.
Army Materiel Command (AMC) Warfighter Exercise 2001 (AWFE '01) demonstrated AMC's ability to support today's warfighter. The exercise was conducted last August in conjunction with Ulchi Focus Lens 2001 (UFL '01) in South Korea. During the exercise, AMC manned its wartime positions in direct support of the 19th Theater Support Command (TSC), which provides robust logistics support to the Eighth U.S. Army operating on the Korean peninsula. The execution of an integrated AWFE '01 and UFL '01 oriented command and staff personnel in the Korean theater about AMC's worldwide mission capabilities and trained them on AMC procedures for providing timely and adequate wartime support in Korea.
In 1999, a computer-assisted tabletop simulation warfighter exercise was held at the Army War College at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, to evaluate the Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP). Although missions in the Balkans, South America, Southwest Asia, and Africa had tested LOGCAP in real-world contingency operations, the need remained for appraising procedures and mentoring personnel in a controlled environment.
The exercise used a crisis scenario based in a fictional sub-Saharan African nation as a forum for doctrinal assessment and training for some 150 Army military and civilian personnel. Participants came from the AMC Program Management Office, LOGCAP; the Army Corps of Engineers; the Defense Contract Management Agency; the Army Reserve; various U.S. commands and agencies worldwide; and the Australian, Canadian, and New Zealand Armed Forces. The exercise concluded with an after-action general-officer review, chaired by the commanding general of AMC, the LOGCAP sponsor. At this briefing, the general decided that the highly successful training regimen demonstrated during LOGCAP Warfighter Exercise 1999 could be improved by annual AMC participation in the more sophisticated global unified command commander-in-chief-level exercises, beginning in 2000.
The unprecedented success of the first exercise
resulted in institution of the AMC Warfighter Exercise
as an annual event. Still centering on LOGCAP,
AWFE '00 expanded to include support of an actual Army
service component commander and a major theater of war operation plan. AWFE '00 was hosted jointly
by Headquarters, Army Central Command (ARCENT), Third U.S. Army, Fort McPherson, Georgia; and
Headquarters, 377th Theater Support Command, in New
Orleans, Louisiana. AWFE '00 was incorporated into
the ARCENT Lucky Warrior Command Post Exercise,
and participants exercised LOGCAP capabilities and
procedures in support of a classified Southwest Asia
major theater of war operation plan.
Building on the achievements of the first two warfighter exercises, the AMC commanding general again expanded the scope of the exercise to embrace all logistics elements in AMC. Thus the LOGCAP Warfighter evolved into an overall annual AMC Warfighter Exercise, with LOGCAP as one of many AMC functional support components.
Following the inclusion of AWFE '00 in the ARCENT Lucky Warrior '00 Command Post Exercise, the AMC G4 directed planners to expand AWFE '01 from command post exercise simulations to support of a larger field training exercise (FTX). AMC personnel would deploy to the site of notional hostilities to coordinate with actual in-country units that may request AMC support in a future crisis. Because including AWFE in a preexisting exercise had worked so well in 2000, it would be included in 2001 in a more complex combined and joint simulation. It was decided that the focus of AWFE '01 would be support of the Eighth U.S. Army during UFL '01, the largest annual U.S. military exercise held on the Korean peninsula, which was scheduled for August. UFL is a computer-based simulation involving U.S. personnel who are stationed in the Republic of Korea to perform peacekeeping duties in support of the 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War. UFL gamers, controllers, and supporting software tools permit the synchronization of complex player input on the actions of ground, naval, and air forces.
Planning for the combined exercise began in January 2001. The benefits of playing AWFE '01 simultaneously with UFL '01 would further enhance the simulation's depiction of real-world requirements that involved a broad spectrum of AMC customers and providers, including LOGCAP.
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| The command and control center's access-control tent. | The operations tent. | The communications vehicle. |
The association of AWFE with UFL more than doubled exercise participation from the previous year. The participants included personnel from AMC Forward-Far East in Korea; Headquarters, AMC; AMC major subordinate commands (MSCs) within the continental United States (CONUS); the Army Corps of Engineers in Korea; and the offices of the G3 and G4 at Headquarters, Department of the Army. Participants ranged from Active and Reserve component military personnel to Department of the Army civilians and contractors. AWFE '01 trained its participants through scenario events related to the UFL warfighting script and other "off-line" requirements that were generated from the larger UFL host simulations and player interactions.
In the planning stage, AMC coordinated with UFL participants to ensure that AWFE '01 would enhance, rather than detract from, UFL play. One of the key coordination stops was with the commanding general of the 9th TSC, Major General Barry D. Bates. At in-progress reviews and other briefings, General Bates became increasingly enthusiastic about the logistics support that AMC planned to bring to the Korean theater for the 19th TSC's major theater of war mission.
To position themselves for the exercise, AMC personnel, complete with battledress uniforms, deployed to Camp Henry in Taegu with the 19th TSC. For the first time since its inception, AMC Forward-Far East stood up a command and control center that included much of its own communications equipment. With this setup, AMC could consolidate all AMC exercise support operations at one location instead of having to spread its operations among liaison positions at Camp Henry and at several other sites on the peninsula. The command and control center was established along the first base line of the Camp Henry Victory Field baseball diamond. Encircled with concertina wire, the site comprised an access control tent, an operations tent, and a communications vehicle.
AWFE '01 was the first time AMC, as a whole, exercised as it would organize and fight with the 19th TSC in a war. During wartime, AMC Forward-Far East comes under the operational control of the 19th TSC in direct support of the Eighth U.S. Army. In keeping with its "train as we fight" directive, AMC Forward-Far East then transforms into the Logistics Support Element-Far East (LSE-FE). This element is responsible for coordinating all of AMC's logistics support within the theater to respond to 19th TSC warfighting requirements, including any necessary augmentation from CONUS of AMC capabilities.
AMC and its MSCs provide logistics support for the Army worldwide. Rather than the warfighter having to know which AMC MSC performs a certain mission or provides a certain class of supply, 19th TSC support operations worked during the exercise with LSE-FE liaisons, who passed peninsula requirements to the AMC Operations Support Command (OSC) Emergency Operations Center (EOC) in Rock Island, Illinois.
The role of the OSC EOC was to provide one "AMC face forward" for the warfighter. Through the LSE-FE, the OSC EOC tapped into the vast support resources of all of the AMC MSCs in CONUS to provide offshore support for the Korea warfight. The OSC EOC continued to work with the AMC MSCs until the logistics requirements were met. Each MSC stood ready to provide reach-back logistics support from CONUS to the 19th TSC and Eighth U.S. Army. In-country subject matter experts from AMC MSCs deployed to Korea to provide logistics support during the armistice, along with their MSC counterparts in CONUS, added to the robustness of AMC's support of the 19th TSC and Eighth U.S. Army throughout the exercise.
The LSE-FE command and control center maintained continuous communication with the 19th TSC; Eighth U.S. Army; AMC Headquarters in Virginia; and the MSCs in Alabama, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, and New Jersey. These communications systems used a combination of terrestrial hardwire and a mobile satellite uplink unit known as the AMC "fly-away package." This combined package, called a Multimedia Communications System (MMCS), was provided by the AMC Communications-Electronics Command. It consisted of a high-mobility, multipurpose wheeled vehicle (HMMWV) containing the communications equipment, a briefcase-shaped tactical video-teleconferencing (VTC) unit, and a 2.4-meter satellite dish. Highly mobile, the entire system can be operational within 1 hour after arrival at a site and packed up in 30 minutes. Most of that time is spent constructing or dismantling the collapsible dish.
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The collapsible 2.4-meter satellite dish used with the Multimedia Communications System. |
Packed with electronics, the MMCS can support up to 100 telephonic and 350 Internet connections. Through the Internet, the MMCS can provide real-time data, voice, and VTC capabilities to any place in the world that has an Internet protocol address.
Although commercial power was used for AWFE '01, the system also was configured for generator support, which provided internal equipment with an uninterrupted power supply. If separated from an external power supply, the system could continue to function for up to half an hour by self-generation.
Inside the command and control center operations tent, the VTC unit sat open on a table with a monitor, microphone, and digital camera affixed to the inside of the case lid. Throughout the exercise, the system provided reliable voice and video contact with logistics commands in CONUS and throughout Korea. This command and control center communications capability was used internally to train AWFE '01 participants, as well as to provide a broad range of logistics information to the supported UFL '01 forces.
During the UFL `01 exercise, the controllers in the Korean Battle Simulation Center inserted tasks from the master scenario event list (MSEL) at prearranged times. The 19th TSC battle captains responded to the taskings by designating the appropriate staffs to take action. As part of the 19th TSC battle staff, the AMC LSE-FE liaison officers passed the 19th TSC support requirements to the team chief in the LSE-FE command and control center. The control center then coordinated incoming issues, tasks, and requests for information and mobilized AMC elements to meet the warfighters' needs. To keep abreast of these requirements and exercise developments, AMC LSE-FE representatives participated in the daily updates by the commanding general of the 19th TSC and the shift-change briefings in the 19th TSC battle staff bunker.
During the UFL '01 exercise, AMC was able to insert separate events from the MSEL that were within the context of AWFE '01 but were not part of UFL. These events exercised and trained other elements of AMC that would not have been exercised by UFL only. AWFE '01 event play followed the same battle rhythm of UFL '01, except that the results of the play remained within AMC. These events allowed AMC to test operational procedures, review operational plans, and train commands and their staffs. These internal AMC training events centered on command, control, communications, and integration of logistics support among AMC Headquarters, AMC LSE-FE, OSC, and the other MSCs. Since the 19th TSC was able to observe the AWFE '01 internal play and training, the 19th TSC gained more insight about how AMC LSE-FE responds to logistics requests and other issues.
During the exercise, the 19th TSC learned that AMC is capable of more than they originally thought. "Play was truly excellent," said Lieutenant Colonel Sherry Holiday, Chief of the Plans and Exercise Branch, Eighth U.S. Army . "Players have learned a lot about [AMC] capabilities and functionalities. . . . We ought to do [this] every year."
At the conclusion of the exercise, General Bates said he was pleased with the training opportunity that his command had experienced with AMC. For the first time, AMC and the 19th TSC had worked together as a team to support warfighters. Both the AMC and 19th TSC staffs walked away with a more thorough understanding of their mutual support relationships and capabilities that had been demonstrated in the integrated exercise. Everyone benefited from the positive and constructive dialogs that had occurred among all participants.
Without qualification, AWFE '01 was a resounding success. AMC confirmed that its organizations, both on and off the Korean peninsula, provide substantial support to the theater, while warfighters in Korea learned more about the enhanced capabilities of the Army's premier logistics provider. A habitual professional relationship between AMC and the supported commands in Korea has been cemented and will keep improving by continuing the "train as we fight" mindset in realistic wartime environments. The unprecedented integrated exercise in 2001 will serve as the standard-setting baseline for future AMC Warfighter Exercises. ALOG
Michael L. Noll is the acting program manager of the Army Materiel Command (AMC) Logistics Civil Augmentation Program (LOGCAP). A retired Army Reserve colonel, he oversees the development, maintenance, and exercise of numerous LOGCAP support plans worldwide. He was the executive agent for the integrated Ulchi Focus Lens/AMC Warfighter Exercise 2001 and has conducted LOGCAP contingency support operations in East Timor, Haiti, the Balkans, South America, and Central and Southwest Asia.