Preserving capacity, General Tom Lawson, Chief of the Defence Staff, Keys to Canadian SAR
Issue link: http://vanguardcanada.uberflip.com/i/155544
INTEROPERABILITY so that back home we can monitor operations, provide C2 and intelligence to our people, and support the forces we send. We do not typically exercise national C2, intelligence and sustainment if we are not in an operation. So JOINTEX became a replication of an operation that allowed us to exercise national command, not just coalition command; national intelligence, not just coalition intelligence; and the sustainment procedures that we would use in a real-world operation. So the training audience for JOINTEX included my headquarters, our Command at large. Q That coalition leadership was on display in Afghanistan and Libya: did you identify specific lessons that needed to be addressed? We knew we needed to continue to exercise use of force and rules of engagement (ROE). So we put everybody from the Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS) on down into the same use of force and ROE environment, which has to be practiced. Then, informed by our ROEs, we exercised targeting and the application of lethal and nonlethal force to achieve campaign outcomes. Just because you can see it doesn't mean you can shoot it. There is a lot of intelligence preparation, 'weaponeering' and operational and national commander decision-making involved in use of force. We were able to exercise those procedures, informed by the C2 and intelligence architecture we built for the exercise. The third piece was sustainment. Land forces travel with an echelon, air squadrons travel with an expeditionary wing, ships are sustained by fleet logistics services, but what is the sustainment framework for the entire CAF contribution to operations at large? We were able to deploy the Joint Task Force Support Component (JTFSC) to provide real sustainment to the real forces involved in the exercise, but also exercise procedures as if we were supporting over 15,000 CAF within the 80,000 strong virtual forces that were in the exercise scenario. In the scenario, MGen John Collin, commander of 1st Canadian Division Headquarters (1st Cdn Div HQ), was working for a three star coalition commander played by LGen (Ret'd) Charlie Bouchard. He was the combined force commander and commanded an air component, a maritime component and three land joint task forces (CJIATF). MGen Collin commanded one of those CJIATFs with one live brigade (1 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group) in Wainwright, 5 CMBG (virtual from Valcartier) and a 3rd brigade (U.S. I and virtual). He used air, maritime and SOF capabilities to execute his operations, some real/live but most virtual. While we may have committed 7,500 real men and women to the exercise, since MGen Collin's forces were predominantly virtual and he was being confronted by a virtual enemy, the majority of his C2 challenge was not the live force in Wainwright but his virtual forces being played by headquarters and simulated across Canada. What makes this a first is that we were able to connect the live and virtual forces to a shared scenario through the systems and technology the CF Warfare Centre put together, connecting our maritime component HQ in Halifax, the Joint Force Air Component Commander in Winnipeg, the Combined Aerospace Operations Centre in Cold Lake, the CJIATF, deployed national command element, the Air Expeditionary Wing, JTFSC in Wainwright, the Naval Task Group in Victoria, the virtual 5 Brigade HQ in Valcartier, the virtual U.S. brigade at our warfare centre and my CJOC headquarters. Q How conscious were participants of the 'reality' unfolding in a largely virtual environment? They became conscious very fast. If you were the commander of 5 Brigade sitting in Valcartier, you saw the same battle space as General Collin, you participated in the same planning, battle procedure and operations – you were in his daily battle rhythm. Some folks got so into the scenario that, if you were in the JCIATF HQ, you'd swear the virtual forces were real. You'd get frustrated when both virtual and 'real' things don't go like you'd want them to. The training environment was very immersive, to the point where even here in my HQ, when we were doing the targeting, we knew it was virtual, but it was, "show me the operational necessity, the risks, the collateral damage, and where this fits in the commander's design." There is huge value in having the live force plugged into this because live forces take a little bit more time, have a little bit more friction than digits on a screen, and are much more interactive when there is something going wrong or something they don't understand. None of that would have been possible if we hadn't built the C2 system which allows you to have the visualization of the operating environment, that allows people to interact with data and voice. And the distribution kept people home, made it cheaper and made it more effective. www.vanguardcanada.com AUGUST/SEPTEMBER 2013 15