National Guard: state units test portable combat training program.

• Author: Kennedy, Harold
• Position: SIMULATION & MODELING

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...