Allied Spirit! Lessons Learned While Attached to a Multinational Brigade During Allied Spirit 22

In January 2022, a US combined arms battalion consisting of one headquarters and headquarters company (HHC), two tank companies, one mechanized infantry company, and one forward support company (FSC) participated in exercise Allied Spirit 22 as part of a larger multinational brigade consisting of approximately 5,000 Soldiers repre senting eight nations. Exercise Allied Spirit is the Joint Multinational Readiness Center’s (JMRC) largest annual exercise at Hohenfels Training Area. The Rotational Training Unit (RTU) is typi cally either a US or multinational division headquarters with an allied bri gade headquarters serving as the pri mary training audience. The brigade is typically comprised of a mixture of its organic battalions, a US Army maneu ver battalion, and other multinational battalions from across NATO. During this unique rotation, the lessons learned at every echelon were indis pensable to building partner capacity, enhancing interoperability, strengthen ing relationships, and enabling NATO’s preparedness for a future armed con flict in Europe. This article aims to describe and share some of the personal friction points and lessons learned during the multinational exercise from someone who participated in the exercise as a Combined Arms Battalion S3 and who is now a current Observer Coach/Trainer (OC/T) at JMRC. The les sons learned in this article are intend ed for maneuver battalion field grade officers, battalion staffs, and their senior enlisted advisors who are expect ed to take part in future multinational operations. Task Organization During exercise Allied Spirit 22, the concepts of multinational interopera bility were stretched to the limits during the 9-day fight in an austere largescale combat operations (LSCO) environment. This exercise saw a unique task organization consisting of the Lat vian mechanized infantry brigade serving as the brigade headquarters with the subordinate battalion headquar ters consisting of a German reconnais sance battalion, a Latvian mechanized infantry battalion, a German panzer grenadier battalion, a US combined arms battalion, a German field artillery battalion, and a Latvian support battalion. Additionally, there was a plethora of multinational enablers from various nations to include a US general support aviation battalion (GSAB), a Latvian air defense battery, an Italian tank platoon, Hungarian and Spanish civil affairs assets, Hungarian and Spanish military police, Dutch engineers, Lithu anian engineers, and a Lithuanian chemical platoon to name a few along with many others. The interoperability challenges at all levels from squad to brigade were numerous and wide reaching and provided an excellent learning laboratory in the fight against the infamous JMRC Opposing Forces (OPFOR).

For a unit planning on conducting mul tinational operations, leaders must look at how the organization will con duct the full operations process (plan, prepare, execute, and assess) through the lens of the three dimensions of in teroperability: human, procedural, and technical. Though there have been many efforts to standardize operations and terminology amongst NATO mem bers, there will still be inherent differ ences that leaders must work through at every level. Multinational Interoperability: The Human Dimension The human dimension is the bedrock and foundation to interoperability and by MAJ Christopher M. Perrone Lessons Learned While Attached to a Multinational Brigade During Allied Spirit 22 is by far the easiest to get right. On the contrary, if the human dimension is done poorly, it can be disastrous. The human dimension is built on solid in terpersonal relationships defined by mutual respect and a healthy dialogue. Mastering this domain requires time, effort, and patience to overcome language and cultural differences. If time allows, any pre-operational training or team building events should be maxi mized to better foster personal rela tionships. When all else fails, the hu man dimension will overcome any tem porary gaps in the procedural and technical dimensions. During the five months leading up to exercise Allied Spirit 22, as part of the US rotational force deployed to Lithuania within Operation Atlantic Resolve, the US battalion took advantage of its proximity to Latvia by sending multiple platoons and companies to conduct periodic training in Latvia. In October 2021, JMRC held the in-person Leader Training Program (LTP) event for Allied Spirit 22 and this venue provided an excellent opportunity for the multi-national participants to get to know each other, provide capabilities and limita tions briefs, and develop a baseline understanding of the Latvian Brigade Commander’s intent. Over the course of the five months, strong relationships developed between the battalion leadership and the Latvian mechanized infantry brigade. These relationships were further solidified when the battalion sent a company team to Latvia to participate in a month-long Latvian training event that included live fire ex ercises at every echelon from platoon to battalion. In addition to developing relationships with the Latvians, the training schedule allowed for relation ships to develop between the battalion and the US Army Security Force Assistance Brigade (SFAB) team assigned to the Latvian Brigade headquarters. Knowing that the SFAB Team would be embedded into the Latvian Brigade’s staff during Allied Spirit 22 allowed for discussions about how the SFAB would act as a cultural, linguistic, and techni cal intermediary (also known as a “swivel-chair”) if needed between the battalion and the brigade headquarters. In terms of relationship building and understanding the brigade commander’s intent for operations, the battalion emphatically assessed itself as well trained. With this, came the confidence that any challenges could be overcome with strong relationships. However, the rotation exposed some of the holes in that thinking and prep aration. During the reception, staging, and onward movement phase (RSOM), the brigade headquarters, unable to control the equipment arrival timelines for so many nations struggled to syn chronize the generation of combat power. The result was that the brigade “powered down” the generation of combat power to each subordinate battalion. With the delayed arrival of one of the battalion’strains that contained a significant number of Abrams and Bradley Fighting Vehicles (BFV), the battalion struggled to generate enough combat power to move into the assigned tactical assembly area (TAA) and then to the subsequent battle positions (BPs) as planned. Since the brigade headquarters had already moved into the Area of Operations (AO), the battalion’s “top 5” were chal lenged with the cultural and language barrier to articulate the friction and the risk to mission associated with de ploying into “the box” in a piecemeal fashion. Therefore, to prevent the embarrass ment of a US unit not crossing the Line of Departure (LD) on time, the decision was made to deploy the battalion’s scout platoon as quickly as possible with what little combat power was available. That night in the middle of a snowstorm, the battalion scout pla toon crossed LD with only five guntrucks, none of its BFVs, and without artillery or mortar assets in position to support. Additionally, since the battalion tactical command post (TAC) and the main command post (CP) were not yet functional, the element deployed into the fight with no ability to communicate with the brigade headquarters or any adjacent units. The lead element was misdirected into some re stricted terrain which in-turn led to a fueler being rolled-over. The decision was then made to halt movement for the night and wait until morning to try and get the lead elements into posi tion. Over the course of the next three days, the battalion struggled to get its com bat platforms into the BPs to establish the defense. This lack of ability to proj ect combat power forward resulted in a very significant gap in the brigade’s defensive line, which in turn caused a Figure 1. Key leaders from Latvia, Germany, and the US huddled around a map while operating in the JMRC Box at Hohenfels Training Area as they discuss positioning for the defense. (Photo by CPL Savannah Miller) significant amount of friction across the brigade as its staff tried to figure out how to best close the gap and pre vent enemy penetration. There are several lessons I learned from those first three days of chaos, in particular the importance of mutually understanding the capabilities and lim itations, the importance of liaison officers (LNO), how to put pride aside, and the importance of paying attention to the details in multinational sustainment operations. Regarding spotty radio communica tion, I expected the Latvian leadership to inherently understand how a com bined arms battalion fights. The battal ion’s inability to articulate how condi tions were not yet set was largely due to the fact the battalion staff was sim ply not used to dealing with an allied headquarters. Key leaders, including myself, wrongly assumed the Latvians would be able to see the problems as Americans saw them. Additionally, the battalion staff officers never went in person to provide their brigade staff counterparts with a recommendation for how to adjust the plan to cover the frontage gap with those battalions al ready in the box to enable our battalion to finish generating combat power. Another lesson I learned was that even though LNOs were assigned to adjacent battalions, a battalion LNO was never assigned to be in the brigade main CP; and thus, the battalion staff relied too heavily on the SFAB to articulate any concerns. Even though the SFAB team was made up of an excep tionally talented group of Soldiers that worked tirelessly to assist the battal ion, the team did not have as much of an intimate understanding of capabili ties and limitations as a leader from our own formation would have. Admittedly, we did not want to swallow our pride and say that we were not ready to fight. Had we not been so concerned about the image of a US Army unit not making LD, the result would not have been such a massive desynchronization of the brigade. This in turn would have allowed the brigade to cover the bat talion’s gaps and enable the setting of conditions for a concentrated deploy ment into the AO. Finally, during RSOM a more concerted effort should have been made to en sure the battalion’s sustainment warfighting function was fully communicat ing with the brigade S4 section and articulating the challenges and any re quired assistance during routine touch points. Regardless of the challenges faced in the human dimension, the sol id relationships that were built prior to the exercise were relied on to make Figure 2. Allied Spirit 22 Interoperability Training Objectives (U. S. Army Graphic) the mission happen despite the signif icant friction faced in the other two di mensions. Multinational Interoperability: The Procedural Dimension The procedural dimension encompass es “the how” of planning, preparing, and executing for all things of a warf ighting nature. This dimension includes how units absorb and operate in accor dance with standard operating procedures (SOP) as they relate to various aspects of doctrine. Inevitably, there will be differences in operational terms and graphics, definitions, planning pro cesses and steps, briefing techniques and expectations, knowledge manage ment methods, orders production and dissemination, rehearsal constructs, risk mitigation, fratricide avoidance, national agreements and caveats, and command and control procedures during execution. As previously mentioned, during the five months leading up to the rotation, the battalion focused heavily on send ing tank and infantry platoons to Latvia to train with that brigade. As a result, the company-grade maneuver leaders gained valuable first-hand knowledge of the capabilities and limitations of our Allies. These leaders became inti mately familiar with the challenges inherent in a multinational task organi zation and developed sound training plans in preparation for the rotation. However, at the battalion-level there was a lack of emphasis to integrate the battalion headquarters and the for ward support company (FSC) into those training events; nor was there a full appreciation for how the Latvian brigade staff would conduct the operations process. The battalion’s key leaders quickly realized that the Latvian brigade head quarters did things very differently than what the US Army is accustomed to. With so many different units and so many ways of doing things, the Latvian brigade commander decided that he was going to pull in the battalion com manders and personally plan each phase of the operation. On the evening of the exercise’s third night, the battal ion commanders and operations officers were summoned to the brigade plans tent to receive what we thought was going to be an operations order (OPORD) brief in preparation for an at tack in two days. Instead of an OPORD brief, the battalion commanders gathered around an analog map for a three-hour council of war session to concep tually discuss each unit’s proposed actions during the attack. Once everyone came to an agreement, the brigade operations officer intended to codify everything that was said into a written order to be published over a secure system that would synchronize the op eration with digital graphics being pro vided to each battalion. Obviously, this was very different than the typical Figure 3. Key leaders from Latvia, Germany, and the US huddled around a map while operating in the JMRC box at Ho henfels Training Area as the multinational brigade prepares for the final attack. (U. S. Army Photo by CPL Uriel Ramirez)

OPORD brief that US Army leaders are accustomed to. Subsequently, the battalion staff’sun familiarity with the Latvian knowledge management process and naming con ventions, caused the staff to lose pre cious planning hours as staff officers could not ascertain which order they were looking at due to the unfamiliar naming conventions that were being used. Once the correct OPORD was attained, it was found to be an exceptionally large document that was writ ten in accordance with NATO stan dards, but it included terms and graph ics that were formatted in a manner that the battalion staff had never seen before. This unfamiliarity caused the staff to lose even more precious time in trying to analyze what was written. Additionally, the OPORD was overly vague and came with minimal PowerPoint graphics that had unfamil iar intent symbols and markings. The written portion included minimal de tails regarding time and distance anal ysis, triggers, sustainment, and intelli gence and fires synchronization. Realizing the battalion staff had to hurry and begin planning since the combined arms rehearsal (CAR) would be the next morning, the staff quickly went through a session of the military decision-making process (MDMP) to issue a battalion OPORD later that night. The next morning as the key leaders arrived for the brigade CAR, we were surprised to see once again the battalion commanders being pulled around a table to go through another council of war in the exact same manner as the day prior. Once again, each com mander discussed in vague terms the actions his battalion would take. The brigade commander would then initi ate a wargame to discuss branch plans and sequels over the map. Once again, the brigade staff developed a second, full OPORD and issued it in the same manner as before. Taking the lesson learned from the previous day, this time we made sure to trace a copy of the brigade’s analog graphics so that we had the same common operating picture as the brigade staff. Their sys tem for planning was clearly different than anything we had seen before. From this experience came multiple lessons learned regarding procedural interoperability. First, I should have ex posed the battalion staff to NATO doc trine, terminology, and orders formats beforehand to avoid the lost planning time it took to decipher the orders during the stress of the fight. Secondly, the Figure 4. Allied Spirit 22 Interoperability Metrics (U. S. Army Graphic) battalion staff should have had a bet ter understanding of the higher head quarters’ knowledge management processes and naming conventions so that time wasn’t wasted either looking for the order or planning off the wrong document. Third, this was another ex ample of the importance of having an experienced LNO at the brigade head quarters who should have also been in volved in planning on our behalf. Had an LNO been dedicated to the brigade headquarters, he could have gathered the OPORD, gotten copies of graphics, and prepared the battalion staff for the expectations and briefing formats for the key leader touchpoints. Fourth, had questions been asked about how the brigade staff conducts the planning process, the battalion staff would have been better prepared to initiate parallel planning with minimal guidance as the brigade conducted their planning. Fifth, the focus of the commanders’ di alogues was largely centered around maneuver and fires. However, since most of the multinational formations were either light, motorized, or made of light tracks, they had little experi ence in sustaining a large combined arms battalion over that length of time. There was little consideration for am munition and fuel resupply across the brigade’s AO. During the entire rota tion, the battalion was severely hindered by sustainment across all classes of supply and had the battalion staff known the structure of the meetings (specifically the warfighting functions synchronization meetings), the battal ion S4 would have been better pre pared to pose the question of how sustainment was going to be conducted across the brigade. With that under standing, he could have offered sound recommendations to the Brigade S4 along with the Latvian Support Battalion based on everyone’s collective experiences. Additionally, the battalion should have integrated its FSC into the Latvian Support Battalion’s planning process and an LNO should have been assigned to be co-located into their battalion headquarters. Finally, if I had better understood how the brigade commander and his staff intended to synchronize operations, I could have provided recommendations for de tailed graphic control measures that were tied to terrain features instead of intent symbols to maximize combat power at the brigade’s decisive point and avoid fratricide. Though the maneuver companies had spent a great deal of time conducting vehicle identi fication, the risk of fratricide was expo nentially elevated with multinational units being task-organized at the pla toon and company-levels. Multinational Interoperability: The Technical Dimension The technical dimension focuses on the ability to communicate through the various systems and equipment re quired to conduct operations. These systems include voice and digital systems and must consider the capabilities and limitations of radios, computers, global positioning system (GPS), fires networks, and airspace coordina tion systems all while trying to ensure security and reduce digital signatures to avoid enemy targeting. Without an ability to communicate effectively and securely, a multinational organization will risk quickly becoming desynchro nized and unable to react to the changing conditions on the battlefield. By and large, the battalion at echelon struggled the most with the technical dimension. Critically undermanned in the battalion S6 section, the battalion was consistently challenged with com munications. Due to the incompatibil ity of the ASIP radios with the Latvian higher headquarters, two Tactical Satellite (TACSAT) radios were used to effectively communicate with the brigade headquarters. However, for the adjacent units, the battalion staff re lied heavily on some rather inexperi enced officer LNOs acting as a swivel chair within the adjacent battalion headquarters. Though the battalion staff was able to communicate, the lan guage and cultural differences coupled with too many “communicators” made the conversations ineffective. This in ability to conduct rapid and efficient cross coordination with adjacent units added to the de-synchronization of the brigade and an inability to gain a true intelligence picture of enemy actions on the ground. The lack of preparedness and training for the battalion staff and companies on how to properly fill radios with the correct encryption caused constant issues. The S6 section experienced challenges with conducting retrans opera tions as the lack of pre-combat checks (PCC) resulted in missing equipment that left the battalion unable to deploy the battalion retrans section until the seventh day of the exercise. Addition ally, none of the Joint Battle Command-Platform (JBCPs) had the proper US Europe Command (EUCOM) image as they still had the US image from be fore the deployment, therefore, they were incompatible for operations in Europe. Not to mention, because of one printer being broken during the movement into the area of operations (AO), the battalion staff had to rely on runners and face-to-face conversations with hand-written OPORDs and manu ally drawn graphics to synchronize all battalion operations. On top of the communications friction, the relentless OPFOR pressure forced the staff to jump the main CP multiple times. Since the training plan had not placed a significant amount of emphasis on procedures for setting up and tearing down the main CP, Soldiers were relatively inexperienced at this task, and it only complicated the com munications problem-set. Initially, the main CP was internally and externally robust and took too long to establish, however, it was quickly learned that the key to rapid emplacement and dis placement centered around non-com missioned officers (NCOs) developing a systematic process to efficiently pack and unpack the minimum essential items to establish a small and mobile main CP. As in the other two dimensions, the key lessons I learned in the technical dimension were numerous. First, more emphasis should have been placed on experimenting with how to bridge the gap with technical compatibility. I should have established a communica tions working group to garner lessons learned from other organizations such as the Tactical Voice Bridge, the An droid Tactical Assault Kit (ATAK) “Green Kit” (which is a series of components and devices used to bridge the communications gap between the different Allied radio systems), or looked at cross-leveling from within to distribute frequency modulated (FM) Radios to the higher headquarters and adjacent units. Second, regarding PCCs and precombat inspections (PCIs), instead of taking a myopic approach by focusing our attention on equipment for the in dividual Soldier and the combat fight ing platforms, we should have priori tized the inspection and packing of the main CP along with the radio equip ment and retrans systems. Third, the training plan should have placed a larg er emphasis on conducting maintenance on communications systems and forced the platoons to send JBCP mes sages during motor stables. Also, the battle rhythm should have made it rou tine to setup both the internal and ex ternal main CP to build repetition and to identify shortages and place them on order with enough lead time before the exercise. Lastly, key leaders should have had extensive discussions with the rest of the brigade leadership on the command & control architecture and fully discussed the procedures we would execute for various contingen cies, such as communications security (COMSEC) compromise and jamming. Conclusion By the end of the 9-day exercise, the battalion as a whole gained an education in multinational interoperability and took home countless lessons learned in the human, procedural, and technical dimensions from which to build follow-on home station training plans. More importantly, the challeng ing exercise solidified an incredible bond between the Allied units that participated in the exercise, and it gave our Soldiers a concrete understanding of what it means to fight alongside Al lies in large scale combat operations. Despite the challenges, I learned the greatest lesson: that leaders must work exorbitantly hard to build and maintain relationships with our Allies during training; so that when every thing is going wrong and systems start failing, simplicity and teamwork will get us to the objective and win. Hope fully, these lessons will prevent your unit from making the same mistakes. MAJ Chris Perrone is the Deputy Task Force OC/T for the Timberwolf Team at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center (JMRC) in Hohenfels, Germany. His previous assignment was as a com bined arms battalion operations officer and executive officer in the 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kansas.