Realistic Training

"Train Like You Fight" and the Command Post Exercise

"Train Like You Fight" and the Command Post Exercise

While the U.S. military has dedicated acres of terrain and entire units of opposing forces to ensure a realistic experience for training units for combat, such emphasis on realism is not provided for operational command post exercises. For a headquarters that may need to conduct humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, forced entry, or any other crisis response, the prospect of a command post exercise is usually accompanied with complaints of weak scenarios, shallow exercises, and an environment which fails to adapt to the training audience or account for blue force decisions. The military has essentially sent its highest levels of command out to the field to fight pop-up targets on timers when they need to be challenged and tested by a living, thinking opponent within an adaptive environment.