This story originally ran in the Dec. 11, 2004, issue of the News-Miner.
Outside the weather dropped to 30 below, but inside the action stayed hot during a simulated combat exercise on Fort Wainwright this week.
The Warfighter Exercise, performed primarily at the Terry Wilson Battle Command Training Center and in a maze of heated tents outside its doors, is testing and training the 172nd Stryker Brigade Combat Team’s leaders on a digital, simulated battlefield.
“It’s one milestone in the Stryker transformation that must be accomplished,” said Capt. Jeremy Schroeder, operations officer for the training team out of Fort Leavenworth, Kan., that’s grading the 172nd command staff during the weeklong exercise. “Everybody has to get a (Battle Command Training Program) exercise as they become Stryker units. This happens to be the 172nd’s turn.”
The brigade should have all of its thousands of pieces of equipment by May, including almost 300 Stryker vehicles and three unmanned aerial vehicles, and take its knowledge and training to Fort Polk, La., where it will put it together for a maneuver before the brigade receives its final certification and become ready to deploy.
When the brigade and its 4,000 soldiers stationed at Fort Wainwright and Fort Richardson will be deployed hasn’t been determined.
“It’s a very fast timeline that they’re being forced to deploy,” Schroeder said. “Even now as we’re speaking they only have a small complement of what they’re supposed to have, but they’ve got enough to do this exercise so we’re driving on.”
Behind him, soldiers were working at roughly 50 centers with three computers apiece that gave them up-to-date information. That same system was linked to a command element across the hallway in the training center and to the hundreds of computers throughout the brigade.
“There’s so many things going on and so many actions taking place and there’s so many different people that have influence over all of these different things, said Maj. Jude Bilafer, who works for the commander of Alaska’s soldiers, Brig. Gen. James T. Hirai.
“That’s why it’s like an Xbox on steroids because there’s so much going on.”
The soldiers trained and performed mini-exercises leading up to a scenario that had the 172nd as the main brigade trying to help the people of the fictitious country Kazar win independence from the Gordians, who were attacking American soldiers.
The main exercise started Thursday night and was in full swing Friday.
Chris Briggs, a sergeant with the 1st Battalion, 17th Infantry Regiment’s headquarters company clicked a mouse to reveal a vehicle had just emerged from what he speculated was a cave carting 250 pounds of explosives, three AK-47 rifles and some rocket-propelled grenades.
He was at a computer terminal similar to those situated at the back of every Stryker vehicle the 172nd will field, and on desktops in tents housing not only the commanders, but support units.
“This is the first time since we started the first part of the game that I’ve actually seen this happen,” Briggs said, before sending an e-mail notice up the chain alerting his superiors to the suspicious vehicle. “What they’ll do is probably target reference it and hit it with artillery or something.”
Minutes later, soldiers in the brigade’s brain–called the tactical operations center, or TOC–scrambled to don Kevlar vests and helmets at the beginning of a simulated mortar attack.
The fight resumed even though bombs did not drop.
The brigade’s brain center had two large sections for planning and carrying out its operations.
At the middle of the operations, a battle captain was coordinating both what the planning section handed him and what the simulated efforts showed on the field.
“He’s the guy that cracks the whip,” said Capt. Michael Sullivan, the brigade’s information operations coordinator.
It’s not an easy job because the battle captain juggles information that filters in from hundreds of sources. Among them are unmanned aerial vehicles that can spot a moose from 8,000 feet, the infantry soldiers, friendly nationals, or even other branches of the military who help out in a variety of ways such as air strikes.
And everybody involved has to be on the same sheet of music.
It’s done faster with the digital capabilities the 172nd now wields.
For the practice, soldiers used satellite uplinks to talk to headquarters above the brigade level even though they were in the building next door.
“Used to be the communication was done via radio. It was analog communication,” said Maj. Kirk Gohlke, spokesman for Army Alaska. “Now the brigade is communicating through ones and zeros.”
Not everyone in the U.S. military is on the same technological level as the 172nd, the Army’s third Stryker Brigade, which is designed to bridge the gap between a slower, bulkier Army to a more mobile, lethal fighting force.