News From USJFCOM: Training transformation overhaul moving ahead

Training transformation overhaul moving ahead

Joint force training is expected to become more robust as the Joint National Training Capability moves toward full operational capability.

By Jennifer Colaizzi
USJFCOM Public Affairs

(SUFFOLK, Va. – Oct. 13, 2005) -- Nearly one year since the Joint National Training Capability (JNTC), a key part of the Department of Defense’s (DoD) training transformation efforts, reached initial operational capability (IOC) officials say the JNTC continues to shift joint training toward a persistent global infrastructure.

Leading the development of JNTC, U.S. Joint Forces Command’s (USJFCOM) Joint Warfighting Center relies on an integrated and collaborative approach involving the services, combatant commands, interagency community and multinational partners.

"These stakeholders are vital to shaping and implementing the new joint training environment," said Navy Capt. David Frost. "Most recently, we’ve moved from an event-centric to a program-centric focus which will enable more warfighters to participate in joint training.”

Frost heads USJFCOM’s JNTC, Joint Management Office (JMO), which is responsible for:

• collecting, merging and validating JNTC requirements;
• developing processes and standards to certify JNTC sites and training support systems;
• enhancing joint training and service training programs through accreditation;
• maximizing the use of live, virtual, and constructive (L-V-C) simulation capabilities to increase effectiveness and efficiency of joint training.

The move to the JNTC training environment, which incorporates L-V-C simulations in an integrated network of training sites, shifts from an event-driven focus to a more program-centric focus enabling more warfighters to participate in joint training.

Frost said that this program-centric method will be achieved through accreditation and certification. Using this approach, the services and combatant commands nominate training programs for review and accreditation; sites and systems are reviewed for certification.

Accreditation ensures a robust level of joint context is provided for the joint tasks being trained, while the certification verifies sites and systems are interoperable. Joint context for specific joint tasks is being defined through the development of Joint Task Articles—a detailed breakdown of particular joint tasks.

To date, JNTC JMO has received 25 program nominations and four have undergone initial accreditation including the U.S. Army’s Battle Command Training Program (BCTP), which was accredited in May.

Frost anticipates accrediting all 25 training programs by the end of calendar year 06.
Once accredited, these programs can help DoD’s joint training effort by acting as force multipliers, enabling a wider span of training to occur for less cost.

In the past, as a proof of the concept, the JNTC process involved planners from the services, combatant commands and USJFCOM looking at the training calendars and determining what events to support based a great deal on the participants and their training objectives.

"Now, as more programs - which encompass multiple individual events - are accredited, the number of training opportunities using JNTC enhancements significantly increases,” according to Frost.

"What we’re doing is changing our investment strategy,” said Frost.

"We do not create a single exercise; our purpose is to add joint realism to existing training events,” he said. "In an event-centric approach, a limited number of soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines go through the joint training."

By accrediting programs, like BCTP for the Army, all officers in the brigade or battalion command structure training pipeline experience joint training, said Frost.

He pointed out that another huge benefit is in cost-savings. For example, Frost said, Joint Red Flag 05 (JRF 05), a robust training event which took place this year, with nearly 35 sites and more than a dozen virtual links, was a fraction of the cost of the Millennium Challenge 02 experiment—an event prior to the development of JNTC incorporating 27
L-V-C sites.

USJFCOM, the Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines, and multinational partners planned and executed JRF 05. The resulting effort merged the Army’s Roving Sands 05 and Air Force’s Joint Red Flag 05, along with several other service training exercises.

Frost reported the accreditation and certification processes are collaborative reviews that would continue to provide realism through adaptive and credible opposition forces and common ground truth, while determining and addressing any joint context challenges.

Leveraging Technology
USJFCOM has developed a technology test bed designed to examine and integrate promising training technologies and achieve and continue cost savings. Called the Joint Advanced Training Technology Laboratory (JATTL), this test bed provides the capability to evaluate, mature, and certify training technologies, standards, architectures, and capabilities before they are inserted into the global joint training infrastructure environment and joint training venues.

The JATTL will also provide the capability to identify, evaluate, and solve joint training systems’ shortfalls. It will also enable development, testing, certification and experimentation of new tools, processes and products.

One of the technologies examined and matured over the last several months brings complex modeling and simulation efforts to fruition faster.

The Joint Rapid Distributed Database Development Capability (JRD3C) provides a Web-based architecture for assembling and correlating modeling and simulation scenarios, thereby shrinking the overall time needed to plan mission rehearsals.

"With technologies such as JRD3C, there is potential to reduce creation and start-up times that can take three to 12 months down to possibly days or hours,” said the captain. "Warfighters want to create scenarios and run training quickly” and JRD3C will allow them to rapidly load shared data and imagery, thereby optimizing simulation-based training.

This new warfighting development requires government agencies to share data, "so that everyone is on the same page,” he said.

Frost reported that JATTL, located in a building within walking distance of the JWFC, will be able to perform remote testing and certification of both service and combatant commander systems. "We’re really blazing new trails,” said Frost. "This remote testing is a first.”

Creating a worldwide infrastructure
According to Frost, another aspect of DoD’s training transformation initiatives examines ways to best ensure interoperability with major international partners.

"USJFCOM already works with international partners and part of the training transformation plan is to expand these relationships through a global training network,” said the captain, citing recent communication node installations at both U.S. Pacific Command and U.S. European Command and an agreement with Australia to help establish the Joint Combined Training Centre, in Australia.

"As an example, say in a couple of years we have a joint training event with Australia; they can work the training in Australia and we can work from Fort Polk, La., and both commanders look at a common operational picture,” said Frost. "They would be working the same battlespace, at the same time.”

"You can imagine the power of playing in the same training event, in the same battlespace, but being around the globe. This encapsulates where we are headed - to have global infrastructure with service, coalition, and interagency partners during an event, even if they are distributed across the globe,” said Frost.

He likened this to an anecdote that the former USJFCOM commander and current Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Edmund Giambastiani, liked to tell. "The admiral visited an Army captain who was in the field during a JNTC event, and the captain told him JNTC allowed the officer to play with all the toys during training, instead of possibly using them first on the battlefield,” said Frost.

What’s next for JNTC
Over the course of the next fiscal year, JWFC will be deploying a specialized cadre of joint training experts according to Frost. With a targeted strength of more than 35 people in FY 05 and additional personnel afterward, the support element would "take training transformation forward, by traveling to the field.” Their sole purpose is to assist the services and combatant commands with joint training planning and execution at their locations.

Frost also mentioned that industry can help in moving JNTC to full operational capability, which is scheduled for 2009. Through the Broad Area Announcement (BAA) program, DoD solicits industry for various solutions. During fiscal year 2005, the BAA program netted 10 different industry solutions being incorporated into the JNTC initiative.

The captain said USJFCOM is working closely with all major training stakeholders to support the long-term vision of a military that successfully conducts operations jointly.

At full operational capability, the goal of the JNTC is to link service training ranges and facilities, command headquarters, combatant commands, agencies, multinational training sites, research, development, test, and evaluation facilities, and centers of excellence to fully support training, mission rehearsal, and warfighter capability development.