National Guard: state units test portable combat training program.

The National Guard--under pressure to keep supplying thousands of troops for Iraq and Afghanistan--is pioneering what it says is a more efficient, less expensive way to train those soldiers for combat.

The goal is to provide a possible solution to a growing problem for all U.S. ground combat forces, explained Col. Philip A. Stemple, chief of the National Guard Bureau's training division, headquartered in Arlington, Va.

Transporting large organizations of soldiers, their equipment and vehicles thousands of miles to the Army's major combat maneuver training centers at Fort Irwin, Calif.; Fort Polk, La., and Hohenfels, Germany, to fine-tune their war-fighting skills before deployment is both time-consuming and costly, Stemple told National Defense.

Also, the centers can't keep up with the demand for training, he said. "They can do 22 brigade-size exercises a year. The Army requirement is 34 a year. So we asked ourselves, 'What can we do to mitigate this?'"

The Guard has come up with a program--called the exportable combat training capability, or XCTC--that conducts the schooling at bases in the soldiers' home states. "The key word is 'capability,'" Stemple said. "These aren't centers. We take the training to the unit."

It's largely about money, he said. "In today's constrained environment, we can save money by focusing on training and not troop movements. It's a real no-brainer. All I'm trying to do right now is get the idea institutionalized."

The Guard developed the portable training concept in 2004 in cooperation with two California companies, SRI International, of Menlo Park, and Cubic Corp., of San Diego.

SRI provided electronic training technologies, including video cameras and global positioning system instrumentation that record the whereabouts of all soldiers, civilians and military vehicles on the battlefield, and two and three-dimensional displays that allow each training event to be replayed for analysis.

Cubic contributed realistic battlefield effects, including pyrotechnics, role players acting as insurgents and civilians on the battlefield and close-up video recorded during mock encounters between U.S. forces and the role players.

The first exercise was conducted in 2005 in Kentucky, a second took place this summer in Indiana, and a third is planned for next July at the Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center in Bridgeport, Calif.

Eventually, the Guard intends to hold six XCTC exercises up to brigade level in size per year at state installations across the country. Although the training can accommodate organizations as large as brigades, it has been provided so far only to at the battalion level. The Guard plans, however, to offer the schooling to larger units.

"Indiana wants us to come back in 2008 and train a whole brigade," Stemple said.

So far, the reaction from Guardsmen participating in the exercises has been positive, said Lt. Col. Tom Hestin, chief of collective training. "They really get a lot out of it without having to leave their backyards."

At least one sticking point, however, remains currently to be resolved: Who will foot the bill? The Army still considers the programs to be experimental and won't fund them until the concept has been validated. Right now, "we're paying for them out of our own hide," Stemple said.

Validation could come soon, he said. Generals William S. Wallace, head of the Army's Training and Doctrine Command; Dan. K. McNeill, from Forces Command, and Lt. Gen. Russel Honore, commander of the First U.S. Army, have all expressed interest in developing a version of portable training--possibly by 2010--for use not only by the Guard but also active-component Army and reserve units. TRADOC, FORSCOM and First Army share responsibility for all soldier training.

The portable training is not meant to replace the big combat training centers, but to augment them, Stemple said.

In Indiana this summer, 750 Guardsmen from the state's 76th Brigade Combat Team participated in a three-week exercise. Most of the action took place at the secluded Muscatatuck Urban Training Center in the south central part of the state.

The center is an abandoned mental hospital, with 70 buildings up to five stories in height set on 1,000 acres of structures, forests and farm fields. The site, once home to 2,100 residents, has many of the characteristics of a small town, including a school, hospital, church, detention center, power plant, nine miles of roads and 2,900 feet of tunnels. Some of the buildings contain original furniture and working elevators. The center was turned over to the Guard in 2005.

"It's a great place for urban combat training," Stemple said. The base of operations for the exercise was Camp Atterbury, a Guard training and mobilization center about 45 minutes north of Muscatatuck. Driving between the two locations, Guardsmen practiced convoy operations. Helicopters took off from Jefferson Proving Ground, a former weapons testing facility located an hour's drive to the east. They flew to Muscatatuck to insert soldiers for urban warfare drills, then continued on to Attterbury for separate exercises, before returning to extract the troops. A simulated unmanned aerial vehicle flew over the battlefield, collecting intelligence data on enemy forces.

To pull off the exercise, the Guard's training division brought in about 250 trainers, civilian contractors and role players. It was not a difficult move, especially compared to the complexity of transporting a fully equipped brigade cross-country, Stemple said.

"We put all of the equipment we needed in a tractor trailer and two or three smaller trailers," he explained.

During the event, the Guardsmen received schooling similar to that offered at Forts Irwin and Polk. "The focus was on theater-specific training," Stemple said.

The troops practiced a wide range of combat scenarios likely to be encountered in Iraq and Afghanistan, including escorting convoys, conducting company-size patrols, reacting quickly to sniper ambushes, ferreting out roadside bomb makers, cordoning and searching neighborhoods, dealing with civil unrest and meeting with community leaders.

Everything was wired with an electronic package called the deployable force-on-force instrumented range system, or DFIRST, Stemple said. All participants--soldiers, members of the opposing force and role-players--wore GPS and laser-based equipment that recorded each movement. Vehicles, including tanks, humvees and armored personnel carriers, also were equipped with tracking devices.

The soldiers' tracking gear was about the size of the ceramic plates that they wear as part of their body armor. "They could just slip it in to replace of one of the plates," he said. "Once they were wired, we knew exactly who was where and what they did. It was extremely accurate--no more guessing."

The Guardsmen's weapons were equipped with the latest generation of the multiple integrated laser engagement system, or MILES, which simulates live fire and keeps track of who is supposedly "killed or wounded" in the exercise.

The nerve center of the exercise was a mobile command and after-action review trailer, where computers and digital communications equipment displayed real-time data from individual soldiers, civilians and vehicles on the battlefield.

Because so many sensors were used in the exercise, trainers and participants conducting the after-action review were able to view every event from a variety of perspectives, Stemple said. "They could see it from a distance, from the soldier's point of view or from the enemy's."

The data was available quickly. "They could view it in less than 20 minutes after the operation is over," he said. "It takes longer than that for the commanders to assemble their notes."

SRI'S Program Director Mike Boldrick added: "This exercise demonstrated that it is possible to deliver a training experience similar to what active-duty personnel receive combat training centers anywhere, anytime and at a reasonable cost."

Stemple agreed, arguing that the XCTC program can be implemented by Guard units in almost every state. "Most of them have a large installation where they train, except possibly in New England. It gets a little dicey there," he said.

Populations in those states are so closely packed that there is little space for brigade-level training, he said. "Especially West of the Mississippi, though, every state has those kinds of bases."

Portable training also would be useful for Army and Marine Corps active-duty and reserve units, which share the same shortages of large-scale training space. The Marine Corps, for example, has concentrated its major-unit, live-fire, combined-arms combat training at one installation, Twentynine Palms, Calif.

As for the Guard, it badly needs expanded training opportunities, Stemple said. At last count, it had more than 70,000 troops deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, or headed there. And that number could go up in coming months. If the administration decides more U.S. forces are needed to improve security in Iraq, a significant portion of those troops could come from the Guard.

Many of those deploying have been there before, Stemple noted. "Guys are going back two or three times."

The number and pace of deployments is hurting unit readiness, warned Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum, chief of the National Guard Bureau. Two thirds of the Army Guard's 34 brigades are not combat ready; he told a recent gathering of defense writers. They need an estimated $21 billion to replace equipment lost or damage in combat. Without that equipment, it's difficult for the Guard to train its troops, he said.

In addition, the increased pace of deployment is eating away at the Guardsmen's "dwell time," Stemple said. That's the period when they are at their home base, either preparing for an overseas assignment or recovering from one.

By eliminating the need for units to train at some distant base, the portable training could help cut the amount of time that the troops need to be away from home, he said.

Currently; the time between when a unit is mobilized and it actually deploys averages 150 days. "We need to get that down to 60 days," Stemple said.

Portable training also could be useful in helping to Guard cope with its increasing troop strength, Stemple said. The Defense Department had planned to let the Guard shrink to 324,000 members in 2006. Instead, the numbers are going up.

"We're at 345,000 plus now, and headed toward 350,000," he said. "The recruiters are doing a good job, but we've got to be able to train those troops."

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