Vanguard Magazine

TRAINING T same course material as a warrant officer in Gagetown? That's not possible the way we are structured now, but the Defence Learn- ing Network will hopefully help us get there. There will always be parts of courses that must be delivered in centralized locations for reasons of safety, specialized training areas, equipment, but where we can devolve training and make the system learner-centric, I think there is tremendous opportunity. with our allies, we have developed a level of expertise that would allow Canada to participate in the broadest range of scenarios. Q Has there been any difficulty transitioning from theatre-specific training to more general purpose? Q You have a plan to emphasis specialized training – mountain, littoral, airmobile, desert, jungle, arctic – linked to geography. What kind of flexibility will this give you? Specialized environment training is very much part of the way ahead. It's a recognition that we are not going to be able to have everybody do everything all the time. So, with Chinook helicop- ters based in Petawawa, for example, air mobile expertise will be resident there; the East Coast is a natural for littoral operations, given proximity to the navy and our allies. As we make basing decisions for heavy pieces of equipment, those areas will then spe- cialize in that particular element. It allows us to have an expertise so that if a particular mission leads us in a certain direction, we then have the individuals to call on. But it is also about using resources in a way that caters to "train to excite." We are a geographically-enriched country, so let's take advantage of what we've got in each location. Train to excite is a philosophy. It's about ensuring that soldiers come to work in the morning with fire in their belly because they are going to be chal- lenged that day. It also allows us to focus a bit more. Last year when we had an opportunity to train with the U.S. Marine Corps in the largest amphibious exercise since before the Gulf War, we made the call to 5 Canadian Mechanized Brigade Group and they put together a company group to participate. We now have officers and NCOs with experience in amphibious and littoral operations. Q Are some of these still nascent? Canada doesn't have an amphibious platform. So in the sense that we have an operational capability that is based that way, it is certain- ly nascent. But in terms of having folks who are able to participate No. I think that has been overstated by some. If anything, it was a culture change as we moved from that road to high readiness train- ing that was focused on the war. We simply stepped back to look at the scenario and made some changes. Last year a group from 2 Canadian Mechanized Brigade was confronted with indigenous people who spoke Spanish. The language was irrelevant. The point was communication with people who did not speak their language, which forced them to work through interpreters to practice those skills – it was meant to be representative of any environment in the world. We have gone through some reductions in our budget and not all of the money that was there from the CF level is necessarily there to replicate the environment for the war. Q Are exercises being geared to fit those areas of specialization? In a sense. For example, JOINTEX next year will have a naval task group conducting an operation with a company group of infantry aboard under the command of the navy for that particular point of the operation. Within Exercise Maple Resolve, the land com- ponent, we'll be working with close air support and tactical avia- tion, and tactical airlift will bring us in to replicate an immersive environment. Special Forces will be doing their thing. And the air force will be conducting operations and enabling everybody within that framework. The idea is to challenge everyone in com- plex scenarios and operating environments. We want to challenge people to work through the complexity of those environments. Q Have the roles of the Canadian Manoeuvre Training Centre and the Combat Training Centre changed as a result of this new emphasis? CMTC has picked up more responsibilities. It now runs the army collective training detachment. It also runs the centre of excel- lence which helps put together the exercise. When we started CMTC it had to focus by necessity on the road to high readiness to Afghanistan, but now the commander really is the foundation training leader in the army. CMTC is a capability, not a place. But it's one of the only locations where we can bring all of this www.vanguardcanada.com OCTOBER/NOVEMBER 2012 15

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