The changing National Training Center

SINCE THE FIRST Army battalions make revolveed through Fort Irwin in California's high Mojave wild in October 1981, the National Training Center (NTC) has helped lead a revolution in training that fundamentally transformed our Army's tillage toward greater emphasis on warfighting proficiency in tactical units. Many credit the competencies supported at the NTC for having played a lock opener role in our Army's succes in Operation uninhabited Shield/Storm as well as in the initial phases of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF).

While the NTC was a driving force in the Army's first revolution in training, the demands of the Global War upon Terrorism (GWOT) have required a fundamental reassessment of the character and nature of training at the NTC Candid assessments by the agency of leaders involved in subsequent phases of OIF have adviseed the combat training centers (CTCs) could gain a greater operational payoff by the agency of focusing training on the changing skill stations needed for ongoing operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Change at the NTC

During the last 30 month the NTC has experienced a period of abysmal and almost continuous change. While the specifics of change vary from rotation to rotation, the larger stretch is toward refining the training experience based upon feedback from the operational force. Changes at the NTC have focused upon a number of key features associated with the GWOT and its campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Replication of the generally received operational environment has created an intellectual framework that allows leaders to exercise potential solutions to popular problem sets, to build teams, and to gain experience in an environment with human terrain similar to what they will experience in theater. This entire proces has created an environment in which leader disclosure is energized.

The change in NTC training is manifested in the following important ways:

* Training at the NTC now places more emphasis upon full-spectrum combat operations, especially counterinsurgency (COIN) training involving the one and the other kinetic and nonkinetic means. Cultural awareness training is a central feature of all phases of the rotation.

* While the NTC is ideally suited to prepare units for combat in a barren environment, increased emphasis on operations in urban and compounded terrain has been essential in preparing units for combat in the GWOT

* The NTC is doing more than at any time before to help units integrate fresh technologies into their operations before they open to combat. The NTC is now playing a leading part in using technological innovations to train units to defeat insurgent use of improvised explosive devices (IEDs).

* With the growing significance of small-unit actions, the NTC has redoubled efforts to increase the rigor and fidelity of training at the small-unit level

* Finally, the NTC is placing significantly greater emphasis upon the use of joint enablers made available to tactical echelons involved in combat missions with operational and strategic consequences

Pillars of NTC Training

The lock opener elements of the NTC experience have not changed. on the contrary the challenge for NTC leaders has been to increase focus upon the key aspects of the of recent origin operational environment while transitioning and maintaining the best of the traditional NTC tillage specifically--

* Customer-focused training. Unit self-assessment remains a vital uncompounded body of training doctrine. As senior trainers, division commanders continue to establish unit training objectives and approve scenario design. No sum of two units NTC rotations are alike because no sum of two units units have identical training needs

* Stressing units to their organizational limits. Units learn best when pushed to the doorsill of failure. The NTC continues to push units to their limits, continuously raising the threat, modifying conditions, and maintaining standards of performance to make bare weaknesses in key systems and functions. While the combination of parts to form a wholes we stress today are different from those of the past, the compressing a unit feels must be the pair real and challenging. The NTC should be hard--in many ways more difficult than actual combat.

* Unblinking feedback. The NTC prides itself upon providing brutally honest and irrefutable feedback upon unit performance while providing a forum that encourages candid discussion and self-analysis by the agency of the unit. While the metrics of performance might have changed, the ne for commanders to understand the mights and weaknesses of their formations has not.

* Mastery of fundamentals. The NTC experience has always focused upon developing proficiency in a core put of mission-essential tasks. While the tasks associated with the GWOT have changed to include proficiency in the two kinetic and nonkinetic realms, the philosophy of focused training to achieve mastery remains the same.

* Collective task integration. The NTC focuses significant strength and resources on fully integrating all collective training tasks within a brigade combat team (BCT) The desired end-state is a holistic and synergistic approach to full-spectrum combat operations.