Saturday, March 31, 2001

By Rick Emert, Bamberg bureau

GRAFENWÖHR, Germany — The first V Corps Warfighter exercise involving two Army divisions begins Saturday at Grafenwöhr Training Area, but they face new restrictions that typically don’t affect warriors in battle.

About two weeks ago, the German Ministry of Defense created new guidelines for the training area and on March 20 granted permission to the 1st Infantry and 1st Armored divisions to get to the training area.

But about 8,800 soldiers, civilians, reservists and national guardsmen will be restricted to paved or concrete surfaces. This will have minimal impact on the training because the exercise is almost entirely computer simulated, said Ali Bettencourt, a V Corps spokeswoman.

It will be, however, a much tidier Warfighter exercise than previous ones.

"In the past, we’ve had tents set up all over in muddy areas," said Capt. Jeff Settle, 7th Army Training Command public affairs officer in Grafenwöhr. "We’ve had to put everyone on hard stand areas, but we have enough space to do that here. Motor pools all over the training area are being used."

While the soldiers face keep off the grass orders, 7th Army Training Command and V Corps planners face other challenges.

"[The restrictions] made us think more about how to conduct this exercise smartly and prudently," Settle said.

One way the units have adapted is by eliminating some of the exercise participants, Bettencourt said.

"Normally, the rear [detachments] would be set up at Vilseck," she said.

"Since there is no hardball [in the training area] there, we had to move them here, to Grafenwöhr," Bettencourt said.

That meant reducing the number of rear personnel, but the rear detachments will provide the same support function they normally would in an exercise like this.

The exercise is driven by a computer-simulated scenario which requires V Corps to occupy a country in Southwest Asia and prepare for combat, Bettencourt said.

Virtually all of the training is computer simulated, but there are role players, such as representatives from the media and nongovernmental and government agencies, she said.

A team from the Battle Command Training Program in Fort Leavenworth, Kan., is evaluating unit commanders participating in the exercise, Bettencourt said. The Battle Command Training Program is like a mobile training center, which sends observer-controller teams to such exercises to evaluate them, she said.

Despite all the added challenges to this year’s Warfighter, the players are taking it all in stride.

"The soldiers have had to adapt, but we’ll have a very good training event," Bettencourt said.

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