North Atlantic Treaty Organization
Allied Land Command
January 15, 2014
JAPCC to LANDCOM: Land forces are our customer
IZMIR, Turkey: The Joint Air Power Competence Center (JAPCC) Executive Director and Assistant Director for Transformation sought a meeting at the headquarters for Allied Land Command (LANDCOM) Jan. 13, 2014, to find common ground and exchange ideas.
Lt. Gen. Joachim Wundrak (DEU-AF) and Air Commodore Tom de Bok (RNL-AF) traveled from their station in Kalkar, Germany, and were officially received by LANDCOM’s Chief of Staff (CoS), Maj. Gen. Uğur Tarçin (TUR-A). The director of the JAPPC is Gen. Franc Gorenc (USA-AF), who is also the commander of Allied Air Command (AIRCOM) in Ramstein, Germany.
JAPCC, the first multinational Centre of Excellence under Allied Command Transformation (ACT), was established in Jan. 2005, to serve as a catalyst for the improvement and transformation of NATO’s joint air and space power expertise.
“JAPCC wants to come to its customers,” according to de Bok, who made a personal call to Tarçin last October around the time LANDCOM achieved initial operating capability (IOC).
“After your first year of existence, it is good [for us] to learn your vision of the future,” said Wundrak. “We’re not only interested as JAPCC, but finding the right ways for integrating the air community with the joint community.”
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Two areas that JAPCC wants to develop concepts for joint training are the inclusion of JAPCC during the initial stages of the NATO Response Force (NRF) joint campaign planning cycle and the integration of mission proficient individuals augmenting joint operations.
“At the very outset when you plan, you have to have the expertise there so you’re not mitigating oversights and pointing fingers later for shortfalls,” said Wundrak. He stressed the need to learn and heed the lessons from the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF); otherwise it would take years of reinvestments to reestablish close air support (CAS) capability that impacts the survivability of the soldier on the ground.
He said a key lesson learned from Operation Unified Protector in Libya was that augmenting personnel were not trained upon arrival to the operational theater.
“Augmentees need at least one week to integrate and familiarize,” he noted. “I witnessed some improvement had since been made during Exercise Steadfast Jazz [2013].” Wundrak proposed the creation of a NATO database that could track all NATO military personnel by specialty and their levels of education and training status in order to select augmentees rapidly in response to a crisis.
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Falconer, a UK Army aviator, said he remembered Wundrak as the Deputy Chief of Staff (DCoS) Air at the ISAF headquarters in Afghanistan when he was the chief of the Ground Liaison Element (GLE).
“I’ve seen over the past several years that the JAPCC has done lots of work,” said Falconer. “I personally know the value of value of the JAPCC and think it is the best developed CoE in existence today.”
The G3 described how LANDCOM’s main effort was to ensure NATO’s land forces were operationally capable by way of evaluations, improving interoperability, developing standardized training architecture, and ushering in its Mutual Training Support (MTS) concept.
“By developing these land capabilities, we will have helped achieve a more responsive NATO; implement the Connected Forces Initiative (CFI) and Smart Defence; created efficiencies by delivery cost-effective solutions; and retaining and improving upon the level of interoperability acquired over 12 years ISAF has operated as a joint multinational force,” argued Falconer.
The DCoS for Operations (DCoS OPS) for LANDCOM, Brig. Gen. Wilhelm Grün (DEU-A) told the JAPCC leaders that the challenge among the nine Graduated Readiness Forces for Land (GRF-Ls) was reaching consensus as to what the NCS should define a joint task force headquarters (JTFH).
Grün informed them that LANDCOM socialized a non-paper nearly one year ago, but each GRF-L interpreted the NATO requirement for 2015 from a national perspective. “Absent guidance and strategic thinking, it will be LANDCOM’s responsibility to develop the concept and get agreement amongst the framework nations that command and control (C2) NATO’s High Readiness Forces for Land (HRF-Ls).”
Each GRF-L and LANDCOM’s headquarters have designated positions for filling by air forces, but only the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC) in Innsworth, UK, has an air operations center liaison on its staff supplied by AIRCOM.
Lt. Gen. Wundrak believes adjustments to the corps command structure are needed to bring better and the essential air expertise to the land commands, stressing that they should each receive one standard personnel package for resident air competency to operate in the joint environment.
The DCoS OPS reiterated a call to action made by the Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), Gen. Philip Breedlove (USA-AF), when he spoke to the entire LANDCOM headquarters last summer.
“The SACEUR said that LANDCOM was responsible for retaining ‘jointness’ since NATO has become a more expeditionary force in the past decade,” said Grün. “So LANDCOM should develop the C2 concept for how land forces would be deployed to conduct a major joint operation plus (MJO+), identify training opportunities for joint enablers, develop a strategy to train air personnel on land operations, and we should also determine the conditions for implanting the G3 Air Element.”
Maj. Gen. Tarçin asked for the JAPCC’s participation in the LANDCOM Logistics Rehearsal of Concept (LOG ROC) Drill exercise planned for early March. LANDCOM would participate in the air operations working group (AOWG) and prepare a plan for how it ultimately envisions the employment of forward air controllers (FACs) in future NRF scenarios.
The next briefer, Lt. Jakob Fahrendorff (DEN-A), presented LANDCOM’s exercise, evaluation, and training plan for 2014-2016. Fahrendorff works in the ACoS G7, Training and Exercises Division, and laid out LANDCOM’s proposal for JAPCC to collaborate regarding joint training opportunities based on LANDCOM’s three-year training cycle; work together to develop exercise scenarios (otherwise known as Main Event/Main Incident List, or MEL/MIL, scripting), and to consolidate their respective staff battle rhythms for planning purposes.
De Bok then explained the JAPCC’s Programme of Work (PoW), comprised of projects, activities, and tasks. The majority of PoW are activities, mostly concept, doctrine, and capability development, and collecting lessons learned to share with the Joint Analysis and Lessons Learned Centre near Lisbon, Portugal. Support for the NRF certification exercise collaborative training events are classified as tasks.
However, Wundrak stated his concern that the JALLC and other ACT CoEs have no enforcement function to enact remedies to documented lessons learned.
“There should be a mechanism to commit action to our reports, but there isn’t,” he said. “Clearly for NATO standardization, ACT should be able to provide this vital level of support to the NCS and NFS.”
At the conclusion of the meeting, the JAPCC invited LANDCOM to attend its annual conference in Kleve, Nov. 18-20, and also organize an annual coordination conference akin to what they conduct with Allied Maritime Command (MARCOM).
The visit concluded with a tour of LANDCOM’s Operations Center (OPCEN) manned by targeting officers, air defence and space management, ballistic missile defence, and an aviation liaison officer.
Story by Lt. Col. Angela Funaro, LANDCOM Chief Public Affairs Officer
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