Joint-service needs shape Marine training programs.

The Marine Corps is taking steps to align its training programs with joint requirements, officials said. Under the Defense Department's umbrella project called the Joint National Training Capability, the Marines are, for the tint time, investing in technologies such as range instrumentation, to ensure they can participate in JNTC training events.

According to Col. Walter Augustin, the head of Marine Corps training systems command in Orlando, Fla., JNTC will guide future procurements of training equipment.

"Specifically, we are focusing on the joint interoperability and networking capabilities of our training systems to try to remove the seams between our live, virtual and constructive training efforts," he told National Defense.

The instrumentation of the 29 Palms live-fire training range in California is a first for the service. Twenty-nine Palms was instrumented as part of the first JNTC exercise held in late January.

The exercise focused on joint close air support and took place mainly on the Western Range with Marine forces on the ground at 29 Palms and Army forces at the National Training Center, Fort Irwin, Calif. Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps assets provided the close air support. (See related story, p. 32)

Marines "never knew how to keep track of the folks on the battlefield because they didn't need to know," said Marine Corps Navy Capt. Howard Thorp, the director of the Joint Management Office for JNTC. "We are turning the corner with instrumentation at 29 Palms."

The instrumentation consists of sensor pods used to keep track of both ground and air forces. JFCOM installed pods on all aircraft at 29 Palms, which in turn were being monitored by the Air Force Air Warrior Center at Nellis Air Force Base, Nev.

Additionally, 175 ground vehicles had instrumentation pods. "We are tracking so that we know where groups or formations are at all times," Thorp said. For the dismounted soldiers, out of 20, only one may be carrying a pod. "That is the first step where we are trying to track all the blue forces."

JFCOM was responsible for funding the instrumentation, which cost the command $500,000. While 29 Palms is the first instrumented Marine range, JFCOM is looking at outfitting another 17 bases, according to Thorp. The Marine Corps also has received $48.5 million for the instrumentation of 29 Palms, according to Augustin, who said the Corps was expecting to budget for the instrumentation at all training ranges.

The first JNTC exercise alone cost JFCOM $20 million. "JNTC is spending money to develop procedures, tactical tasks instrumentation that will be used 10-20 times over, so the initial cost of doing something is not the same cost as it would be to have a redundant capability," Thorp said. "That money is going to pay for the terrain data bases, for instrumentation that we are going to use over and over again."

He said the cost of exercises over the course of the years is going to go down, "but you have to put the initial R&D money, [and] intellectual strength," he said.

Augustin said Marine programs will continue to focus on joint training. Examples are the CACC-TUS program--the Combined Arms Command and Control Training Upgrade System, the Deployable Virtual Training Environment, the Marine Air Ground Task Force tactical warfare simulation and enabling technologies for JNTC.

CACCTUS is an upgrade for the Combined Arms Staff Trainer and provides command and control integration and fire support coordination training for Marine Air-Ground Task Force (MAGTF) staff up to Marine Expeditionary Brigade level. It provides two- and three-dimensional visualization of the battle space.

DVTE is a prototype system that addresses training at the individual, team and unit levels. It consists of two parts--the combined arms network and the infantry tool kit. It is composed of commercial technology and is hosted on a self-contained network of configurable laptop computers. DVTE also emulates a tactical communications network and provides after action review.

The cancellation of the Defense Department's Joint Simulation System, a federation of service-specific simulations, is causing the Marine Corps to reinvest in the MAGTF constructive simulation, according to Augustin.

"We also have increased our focus on our training ranges with the establishment of the ground range sustainment programs," Augustin said. His procurement budget for ground training systems is $140 million.

The most significant advantage of having his office located in Orlando, Fla., is his ability to work closely with the co-located training-systems acquisitions organizations of the other services, he noted.

The Marine Corps and the Army co-developed a moving target simulation. Tim Marines are leveraging the Army's development of the One Semi-Automated Forces program, which they are inserting into their dosed-loop artillery simulation system, CACCTUS and DVTE.

"We leveraged the Army's investment in their advanced gunnery training system, and we have taken their technologies and modified them to meet our combat vehicle training system requirements," he said. "Literally, 100 percent of our aircrew training systems are co-developed with the Navy through the Naval Air Systems Command." Now, the service is looking closely at the Air Force's C-130J aircrew training systems for potential application in the Marine Corps.

Furthermore, the Marines have developed a signature management training program, which they are going to field to the Special Operations Command, Augustin said.

"We work with all of our joint counterparts on joint advanced distributed learning co-laboratory we also share technology with our service counterparts overseas specifically with the U.K.," he said.

Meanwhile, the Marine Corps is looking to upgrade its flight simulators, which have been in service for 20 years. An aviation training steering committee has identified configuration control and technology obsolescence as the two primary factors that, if left: unchecked, "will hamper the effectiveness of our legacy systems," he said. "We are working through the Naval Air Systems Command to focus our resources to mitigate these shortfalls, as we upgrade or replace our legacy systems."

The service also is investing in new state-of-the-art flight simulators that will accompany the fielding of a new aircraft generation, specifically the MV-22, Joint Strike Fighter, C-130J, UH-1Z and UH-1Y.

The Marine Corps already has fielded several MV-22 simulators to New River and Patuxent River air bases for the preparation of the fielding of the actual aircraft. Trainers for the UH-1Y and Z are not on contract yet, while the KC-130 simulator is being purchased through the Air Force.

Joint Forces Command

The ultimate goal in JNTC is to allow forces from different services in tram together as they would actually fight once they are deployed.

"If there is a rotation that has to go relieve forces in place, then they are the first to get trained," said Thorp.

The most challenging piece in joint mission rehearsal is being able to align training schedules. At the beginning of the training cycle, services are supposed to put their training objective on the table. JFCOM then analyzes each service's training goals and tries to find a common thread to be able to do the training jointly, he said.

"The next step is in tell them what we want or what the combatant commanders tell us what they need, so we have to then change the training objectives at the very beginning in address all those needs."

Soldiers do not get exposed early enough to joint warfare, said Thorp. "What we have in make sure is that [JNTC] starts to transcend training so that a person's career is exposed to the joint community sooner."

Typically, each service has a "training pipeline" that does not give junior officers opportunities in participate in joint operations. When Thorp flew combat missions in Desert Storm/Desert Shield as a junior officer, he "had no clue how to deal with the Air Force."

"When you start in look at the continuum of training, what JNTC has to do, it has to relieve the services of trying to figuring out a slot in their career and expose them [to a joint environment]," he said. "Even the war colleges need to be reexamined so that it becomes an opportunity sooner in an officer's career."

The forces that deployed to Afghanistan and Iraq, for example, were well trained in their own "core competencies," but not necessarily in joint operations.

"Even though they are ready forces, there was time that needed to be taken to figure out how to integrate these forces," he said. This type of problem can't be fixed in the middle of a conflict, so it needs to be done before they are deployed.

"There are things that we are discovering just in the training environment that lead us to believe that we have a huge undertaking on our hands," he said. The Air Force may train with the Army, and the Navy often trains with the Marine Corps. "But two services working together is not necessarily joint operations."

The concept of joint operations means the integration of those forces so that they can do the same missions at the same time. "Those gaps and seams are what we are working on in the training environment," Thorp said.

For example, soldiers still need in learn how in do an air tasking order to call in air support. The current training does not prepare them to deal with the obstacles often encountered in combat, such as incompatible communications systems or the confusion that creates a fog of war.

Issues also can become as complex as leadership policies under which certain commanders have requests for specific technologies, such as equipment on an aircraft, If a service does not own that equipment, it can create problems.

In Iraq, staffs have to integrate their capabilities and abilities so that "we can get the most bang out of the resources that are out there, because we do not have enough resources to do everything for all people all the time," he said. "There are many more partners on the battlefield ... All those partners are resources on the battlefield."

JFCOM is going to conduct three more JNTC exercises this year. The next is coming up in June. Focal areas in the following events include information assurance, humanitarian assistance and military operations in urban terrain.

"We are not tasked to do that training yet, that will be on our plate next year or so," Thorp said. "The chief of naval operations is doing a study, and when the study is done, that will provide us with the vision that we need in go forward with." The study is supposed to be finished by May.

Ultimately, if JNTC is successful, the command should be able to publish a joint doctrine to specify a common language for all services, particularly in close air-support missions. "Everybody should learn it from day one, not when they first get into an exercise but from day one," Thorp said. "Everybody kind of wished it away in the planning process and now they are out there and the airplane comes and goes and never drops the weapon because you did not ask it to do the right thing."