The U.S. Army just completed a large-scale simulation that revealed the service must find ways to train and equip combat leaders to stay ahead of the enemy if units are to survive the new, fast-paced age of warfare on the horizon.
From Aug. 5-23, officials from the Maneuver Battle Lab at Fort Benning, Georgia, oversaw Unified Challenge 19.2, a joint, combined-arms simulation designed to assess the Army”s ability to fight a near-peer adversary across all battlefield domains — air, sea, land, space, and cyber.
The experiment included more than 400 military role-players from Army Forces Command, U.S. Army Europe, U.S. Army Pacific, U.S. Army Special Operations Command, Space and Missile Defense Command, and the U.S. Air Force.
Unlike standard tabletop exercises that rely on the experience of leaders, Unified Challenge was a “computer-based simulation down to the individual level that actually uses physical … models using data that will respond in a real-world manner,” Chris Willis, the Maneuver Battle Lab”s Modeling and Simulations Branch Chief, told defense reporters Wednesday.