________________________________________________________________________Richard S. Kem
leaders and company commanders--can report back to the tactical operations center and
replicate their battlefield roles.
What we see is the need to provide a combined arms team experience and context. We could,
for example, be going to take the basic course out to see and practice the breaching
operation--the close combat, heavy, in-stride breach as in FM 90131, which goes to print
tomorrow. We can teach that, the concept of the combined arms breaching operation, in the
classroom. Then we can take them out into the field and have them actually go through the
breaching operation from armored personnel carrier into the complex obstacle.
One thing we won't be able to provide at Leonard Wood is the perspective of what's
happening at the larger element, the task force or the brigade. We think we could put on the
terrain board a major layout with boundaries and everything else so the brigade is doing this
part of a larger operation--AirLand Battle, deep attack, controlling the forward line,
whatever. We could put the larger context of the maneuver element on the terrain board,
understand it at all tactical levels, and then take one part of it, the combined arms breach,
having made sure they understand the broader perspective, and send them out to execute it in
the field.
That's what we see when we talk about Fort Leonard Wood. When I talk about it being the
Army prototype training facility for combined arms, we're going to have a school that's
wired for all of our automation and any other kind of way we want to present instruction,
plus this Battlefield Command Training Center, plus all of the good terrain at Fort Leonard
Wood to practice "hands on" in the field. That's what's going to be the great benefit there.
Q:
How are the plans coming now?
A:
Well, there are two things involved with the plans. One is building the facility, and that's one
we have participated in, and we've contributed to very closely with Fort Leonard Wood. The
Kansas City District has been doing things; we're way behind. Initial costs came in above
projections and Kansas City District and Missouri River Division have been wrestling with
that with Fort Leonard Wood, trying to get a facility under construction. We badly need to
get that building under way. We were going to have a groundbreaking in March; already
now, we're well into the summer construction period. That's part of our planning, the design
and construction of the building.
In the meantime we have done our other planning, that is, to get into the budgets, into the
programming, and talk about what moves where. We've taken that planning as of 31 March
[1987] down to the "each"--each position, civilian, soldier, officer, in each element--and
we've determined when we can phase in there and when we should not. We've worked with
Fort Leonard Wood preparing the requirements to get some money from TRADOC to fix up
the Noncommissioned Officers Academy so we can make an early move of the advanced
noncommissioned officers course. That'll happen in April 1988, as currently scheduled.
We've worked to move our 12 Charlie-- that's the bridge specialist--basic
noncommissioned officer course to Fort Leonard Wood early.
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