North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Allied Land Command
March 25, 2014
LANDCOM put one step forward towards Full Operational Capability with Loyal Bonus
IZMIR-Turkey: Allied Land Command (LANDCOM) has concluded LOYAL BONUS 2014 (LOBS14) Battle Staff Training (BST) successfully. The event took place between March 17 and 21 in HQ LANDCOM. BST is an integrated training event designed to maintain and improve the command’s proficiency in mission-essential tasks comprised of responsibilities from several functional areas. LOBS is aimed at improving the internal work of LANDCOM as a Land Component Command (LCC) for a Major Joint Operation (MJO+). To synchronize activities and coordination between the different functional areas, LANDCOM staff conducted a variety of boards, meetings and working groups during the BST.
Lieutenant General Frederick Ben Hodges, Commander of LANDCOM, presented his guidance to the LANDCOM staff on 14 March 2014 at Auditorium during Start of Exercise (STARTEX) briefings before BST.
Major General Uğur Tarçın, LANDCOM Chief of Staff, Officer Conducting the Exercise (OCE) for LOBS14, expressed that ” LOBS has built a confident and cohesive LANDCOM Battle Staff with a greater situational awareness and a shaped Common Operational Picture. LOBS effectively combined Individual training and Collective training. He asked from staff to take previous BST’s lessons learned into consideration. “
Brigadier General Wilhelm Grün, Deputy Chief of Staff Operations (DCOS Ops), who was also the Officer Directing the Exercise (ODE) stated that “During this battle staff training we were able to prove to ourselves that we are on the right track. We could fortify structures and procedures within our battle staff and, more importantly, take away lessons of where and how to adjust them for improvement. People became more comfortable with those structures, identifying their partners for the information flow, and that information flow is most important for our headquarters. We will invest our strongest efforts into the improvement of shortfalls in this field and be ready for our next big exercise in the LANCE series.”
BG Grün summarized by saying “We are much better today than we were last week. All exercise objectives were met, although in some cases only partially; however, the Battle Staff did a great job which is promising for the next steps on our “Stairway to Heaven.”
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