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 Liveblogging: Urban Resolve 2015
MCC(SW/AW)
Chris Hoffpauir from USJFCOM Public Affairs blogged
live Sept. 13 from Urban Resolve
2015's human in-the-loop experiment which looks at better
ways to operate in the urban environment. Below are his
observations based on conversations he had and things
he observed.
By
MCC (SW/AW) Chris Hoffpauir
USJFCOM Public Affairs
(SUFFOLK,
Va. - Sept. 13, 2006) -- 10 a.m.: Urban
Resolve 2015 (UR2015) is a huge experiment, involving
more than 1,000 participants at 19 locations around
the world.
Its purpose is to try out new tools and operating concepts
for warfighters in urban environments. The scenario
is set in the year 2015 in a fictional city.
As I sit here today, I'm going to try to give you as clear
a picture as possible as to how this phase of what is a
multiple event series of experiments.
The experiment runs from August to October and is broken
into three human-in-the-loop (HITL) experiments which put
human decision-makers into a scenario generated by supercomputers.
HITL 1 took place in August and pitted a present-day force
against an advanced enemy.
This month's event, HITL 2, gives that force tools and
capabilities that may be available in the future to use
against that same foe. The point of the experiment is to
find out if those tools and concepts have the potential
to solve problems and whether to pursue their development.
UR 2015's Chief Controller, Greg Brown, explained just
how U.S. Joint Forces Command (USJFCOM) conducts an experiment
of this scale.
"If you're a member of the experiment's audience,
you come into a big room we call the Joint Operations Center
and sit down with about a hundred other people," Brown
said. "They put on a set of headphones and in front
of them they have three-screen display that is giving them
their virtual world. They're in their seats by 7:30 in
the morning and at 8:00 the war's on."
Brown explained that the audience participating in the
experiment spends about eight hours a day at their consoles,
dealing with the issues the scenario presents them with.
He said the people running the experiment, called the Joint
Experiment Control Group, spends far more time putting
the scenario in action.
"On the control side, we stimulate them through voice
reports, through e-mail, and through what they see on the
display," Brown said. "Behind the scenes it's
probably more intense for us than it is for them. We're
making sure all the simulations are running and role-playing.
I got here at 6:30 this morning to get ready for the 8:00
start, and will spend 12 to 13 hours to make those eight
hours of experiment play work."
Brown said the bottom line is that experiments like UR2015
are valuable because they are cost effective and offer
potentially more rapid gains in capability for the warfighter.
"Ultimately,
when the experiment's all done there will be a recommendation
to our nation's
leadership to
either buy or not buy and to continue development or not
continue development."
12:01 p.m.: The scene
of a city in crisis will have many players. In addition
to the people
who live there and the military
and law enforcement personnel trying to keep the peace
and enemies trying to break it, there are other entities
at work. They include U.S. government agencies, non-governmental
organizations and the international community.
I sat down with members of the UR2015's Joint
Interagency Coordination Group (JIACG) to find out how USJFCOM is working
with agencies and organizations to find new ways to better
cooperate and accomplish the mission.
The JIACG is part of the experiment's control group and
has role players representing U.S. agencies, the United
Nations and various organizations included in the scenario.
"We're members of the control group, not the experiment's
audience. We're creating conditions that allow the audience
to address the experiment's objectives," said Chuck
Frechette, who is part of the JIACG. His job is to introduce
the interests of the interagency community into the experiment.
"The purpose is to add credibility and realism," Frechette
said. "As a joint task force plans and executes operations,
it needs to interact with the organizations that are there
with them. That's what we're doing. We're the ones who
create that reality."
The concept places the group on the staff of the joint
task force commander, where it offers advice and helps
coordinate the task force's efforts with the other agencies
in the area.
The idea is to give the commander ready pool of experts
and the ability to reach out to their respective agencies
directly. The group acts as an interface between the commander
and the other entities, especially between their executives
in Washington.
Frechette said another key player is the U.S. Embassy,
which provides vital connections between the U.S. State
Department and the local government. The interaction isn't
limited to civil and military players. The U.N. and international
agencies also play a part. Those include non-governmental
and private organizations. The embassy handles much of
that coordination.
As I talk to people involved in the experiment, one thing
becomes clear - the military doesn't do anything alone
anymore. To succeed in its mission, it must work closely
with the other actors on the stage and become part of a
larger solution.
2:20
p.m.: In my last update I said the military doesn't do
anything alone anymore and that it has to work
with the other actors on the stage. That statement is especially
true when it comes to the militaries of other nations working
with the United States in a coalition environment.
I
visited UR2015's Regional Combatant Coalition
Center, which is set up in a room of the Joint
Futures Lab called "the
Foundry." The multipurpose room has hundreds of network
connections and is easily configurable, making it an ideal
setting for an ad hoc work environment. In most cases,
that's exactly how a coalition is set up in theater - all
the players congregate in one area and work out how they're
going to operate.
In the past, that was the best way to conduct business,
but the nations participating in UR2015 are working to
find a better way.
I spoke briefly with Canadian Forces Lt. Cmdr. Molly McCarthy-Senebald,
who is the concept development and experimentation standards
officer at the Canadian Forces Experimentation Centre in
Ottawa. She said the international aspect of UR2015 is
important to the success of coalitions in the future.
"Most of us today recognize that we will almost always
be in a coalition force," McCarthy-Senebald said. "We
will not likely go anywhere other than within Canada on
our own steam. So if you're going to operate in a collaborative,
coalition type environment it's important to get an opportunity
to work with forces like this in this kind of context,
where we're all here focusing on a specific task - coalition
operations in a future environment."
German Armed Forces Lt. Col. Ralf Gosch is a concept developer
at the Joint Futures Lab. He came to Suffolk from the Bundeswehr
Transformation Center near Berlin. He said that developing
interoperability, both with equipment and procedure, is
a key aspect of improving how coalitions operate.
"From the European perspective, we are too small
to go into operations alone," Gosch said. "We
are expecting to always fight within a coalition. That
means we put a really big emphasis on interoperability."
McCarthy-Senebald also commented on the value of being
able to share ideas in a venue like UR2015.
"It's nice for those of us who are likely to be in
future coalitions to get an opportunity to talk to each
other and have everybody at the table at the same time," she
said. "It's like being in the kind of multinational
organization we're likely going to work with in the future."
4:05
p.m.: To say putting together such a
huge undertaking as UR2015 is a challenge, would be
an understatement. There
are roughly 1,000 military and civilians participating
at 19 sites and the three month experiment is all computer-based.
Connecting
one computer to a network can sometimes be a challenge.
So can you imagine the challenges Air Force
Maj. Martin Mitchell faced.
Mitchell is the technical lead for UR2015. He only had
two months to become knowledgeable on this effort. He and
his staff of close to 35 people, mostly civilian contractors,
were tasked with coming up with ways all four branches
of the U.S. military would take part in this experiment
when each one is using different simulation systems.
The primary simulation engine being used is the Joint
Semi Automated Forces (JSAF).
JSAF gives the task force level role players the ability
to command forces that are computer-generated. It also
helps tie the other 28 simulations together.
"JSAF is not to be mistaken itself for a weapons
system. It’s not. It’s an enabler that allows
the interplay at the task force command level and validates
the ability of a task force to command forces." said
Mitchell.
Two high performance computer centers help control the
experiment, one in Maui, the other at Wright Patterson
Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio.
The
second phase of UR2015 is now underway and Mitchell couldn’t
be happier with the way things have gone so far.
"It’s been going quite well and that’s
really attributed to the efforts of a lot of people, that
over the last 16-17 months, a lot of long hours put in
and mistakes made ahead of time and learn from so this
actual execution portion goes smoothly."
But
Mitchell told me he’s fully aware with another
phase and another month to go before UR2015 is completed,
anything can happen to his well-oiled machine.
5:30
p.m.: I'll wrap up today's liveblog with
highlights from a brief phone conversation I had with
Army Col. Kevin Polczynski, who is the deputy director
of the Army's Battle Command Battle Lab at the Combined
Arms Center at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. I asked Polczynski
about the Army's role in and the value of an experiment
like UR2015.
He said that as UR2015's Joint Force Land Component Command
(JFLCC), the Army's role is pivotal to the experiment.
The Army has nearly 500 people participating.
"The whole focus of the experiment and the ground
that it's on is Army-focused," Polczynski said.
He said the value of doing an experiment like UR2015,
using modeling and simulation through a distributed network,
is that it reduces both cost and risk.
"Resources are getting tighter," Polczynski
said. "You can emulate forces on the ground with a
smaller potion of them than what it would take to put them
in the field. Just a JFLCC headquarters alone is normally
an organization of about 1200 personnel.
"It
reduces risk for the Army in the long run because we
can try things out before we actually put them in the
field. It reduces the risk of failure, because when you're
actually in a field environment you have to have it right
the first time.
"It's
less expensive. Experimentation allows us to gain knowledge
about a part of the world without actually
having to go there, so that when we fully engage an organization,
they can be off and running, instead of doing discovery
learning. You can do things in an experiment that don't
put service member's lives in harm's way."
He said the Army's role in UR2015 is actually part of
the Army's experimentation series, called Omnifusion 06.
"Each of the services each do experimentation that
is in their area of expertise," Polczynski said. "For
the Army, the part we play in UR2015 is also Omnifusion
06 Part II. The Army is using this event to reach the objectives
of Omnifusion 06 as well and to have joint experimentation
become our modus operandi"
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