Typical CAP command posts

[RiverAux]

I'm wondering what sort of facilities CAP units in your wing primarily use when they stand up a mission staff for medium to large missions.  I'm not interested in ELT missions or those where the IC is probably sitting at home in his pajamas.

Are we mostly using facilities owned or managed by CAP such as places where our squadrons meet or when these missions come up do we utilize facilities managed by others that aren't used by CAP very often.

I'm getting at this from the point of view of optimizing mission base performance.  If we're mostly using CAP managed sites it gives us quite a bit of flexibility (depending on the capabilities of the site, of course), but if we go run a mission in the county EOC we might not be able to do all we want in terms of getting things arranged in the way most helpful to us.

[Eclipse]

We've slowly gotten CAP-USAF and others to understand that the ICP does not need to be in the AOR.

They don't move Cheyenne mountain to a disaster area, they simply coordinate the operations via radio, phone, and internet.

Our last few large operations have been HQ'd in the same place and we've just sent teams remotely, like we'd do in a real-world.

[PHall]

CAWG has gotten into the "remote launch" thing.
Aircraft can be launching from San Diego, LA and Fresno. But the "mission base" is at the Wing Headquarters in Van Nuys (part of LA).

[Eclipse]

Thank goodness the "light" is being seen.  We spent a decade doing SAREvals where we had to move the ICP to other parts of the state with the
reasoning being to "test the other portions of the wing".

All we were doing was testing the ability of the same 150 people to drive 4-6+ hours to the mission base and spend hotel money for no reason.
In most cases the locals didn't show in enough force to even be noticed.

[cap235629]

We've slowly gotten CAP-USAF and others to understand that the ICP does not need to be in the AOR.

Ever here of ICS? 

[SarDragon]

We've slowly gotten CAP-USAF and others to understand that the ICP does not need to be in the AOR.

Ever here of ICS?

Where ICS?

[Eclipse]

We've slowly gotten CAP-USAF and others to understand that the ICP does not need to be in the AOR.

Ever here of ICS?

I'm not sure the point you're trying to make.  ICS doctrine dictates that the ICP be outside the DA, with access to
robust facilities, but for years, and years, and years, CAP-USAF has dictated that we move the ICP around
somehow believing that is testing different people in different ways.

Maybe in 1965 when units were self-capable from MC-down, but these days the ICs are where they are, as is the base
staff, and putting the ICP somewhere the general membership doesn't actually live doesn't test anything but our
POVs.

[arajca]

The problem with how CAP runs ICPs is they expect EVERYONE to start there for a general briefing. In real world incidents, there is no 'general briefing'. Leaders receive appropriate briefings and in turn brief their people. Most of the general briefing I have heard are the same. Why not have a handout instead of all the section chiefs reading their notes?

You also have the problem of all your ground forces having to drive from the ICP to the impact area and back instead of using Staging areas, Camps, Airbases, etc.

Despite several attempts on my part, the whole notion of staging areas and separate airbases for the ICP has been ignored in my wing. Everyone pays it lip service, but no one wants involve an outsider/non-aircrew member in planning, so it never happens.

[Eclipse]

^ What you've described is exactly what we've been working hard to dispel.

At our last eval, since we >didn't< drag everyone up to the ICP, we were able to accomplish
several tasks on Friday night, with others briefed and launching at first light.

I agree this "all hands" nonsense needs to be dispelled. It's a drain on logistics and wastes a lot of people's time.

It also limits out personnel pool as there are plenty of members who could be a "day player" and knock out a
sortie or task, but can't take the time to drive and stay over night.

Heck, with cloud-based command systems,  we don't even need all the base staff to be in the same room. I'd rather
have a GBD near the AOR communicating with the OSC then make him sit in the ICP for no reason other then the IC
wants to see him.

[bosshawk]

There was a missing aircraft mission this week in CA: would be interesting to see how it was run.  I heard some of the aircraft traffic and happen to know that the base was at Fresno.  Don't know anything else.

[RiverAux]

A full mission staff briefing is certainly warranted, but I agree that there isn't a need for all members involved in the mission to be in on it.

[JeffDG]

A full mission staff briefing is certainly warranted, but I agree that there isn't a need for all members involved in the mission to be in on it.

Personally, I'd prefer the IC to brief the Command and General Staff, then let the Section Chiefs, Branch Directors and Unit Leaders take care of their own specific briefing...

[PHall]

There was a missing aircraft mission this week in CA: would be interesting to see how it was run.  I heard some of the aircraft traffic and happen to know that the base was at Fresno.  Don't know anything else.

Target was flying from Fresno to Mammouth Lakes. Target area is the mountain ridges on the back side of Yosomite NP.
CAP along with NPS and the CHP is doing the search.
Search has been suspended due to weather. They have also had 4 to 6 feet of snow in the target area with more on the way.
No ELT signal. No usable radar track due to the fact that the target appearantly picking his way through the 12,000 to 14,000 foot peaks.
This guy will probably be found next spring by hikers/hunters...

[Eclipse]

A full mission staff briefing is certainly warranted, but I agree that there isn't a need for all members involved in the mission to be in on it.

Personally, I'd prefer the IC to brief the Command and General Staff, then let the Section Chiefs, Branch Directors and Unit Leaders take care of their own specific briefing...

Exactly - the tradition is everyone from IC to UDF-T, the cooks, bottle washers, and valets to be in an al--hands briefing that covers
everything from where the heads are to how to process a 108, but rarely discusses mission objectives or tactics.

I agree that no one below branch director, and probably just the section chiefs needs to be in the same room, the rest can be handled via concise messages down the chain.

[coudano]

The problem with how CAP runs ICPs is they expect EVERYONE to start there for a general briefing. In real world incidents, there is no 'general briefing'. Leaders receive appropriate briefings and in turn brief their people. Most of the general briefing I have heard are the same. Why not have a handout instead of all the section chiefs reading their notes?

This is all about how we do sar eval, in my opinion.
We've tried to get the evaluators to evaluate us doing a mission the way we "really do it" and they don't play so well with that.

Also I was going to say that by far the vast majority of actual missions i've done in CAP have been run off of the IC's kitchen table.

I have very rarely been at an ICP that was a "CAP facility".
I'm thinking like very long term disaster response type things...

Quite often a local airport FBO,
Sometimes, law enforcement stations,
Sometimes national guard armories,
Have even worked out of a high school that was doubling as a community shelter,
etc...

I agree that no one below branch director, and probably just the section chiefs needs to be in the same room, the rest can be handled via concise messages down the chain.

The national guard is getting pretty deft these days at doing this by video teleconference.

[sardak]

On more than one Ops/SAR Eval, I've told the USAF that if they really wanted to assess our capabilities, the eval would be no-notice. In every case the response back from the USAF was "that wouldn't be fair to CAP." My reply back is that it isn't supposed to be fair to CAP.  But it's not just CAP-USAF that wants us to build up this phony mission base that demonstrates nothing more than our ability to waste a lot of members' time. It's also the CAP Region members of the eval team that expect to see an ICP/Mission Base.

This year we moved the mission base from where it was originally going to be. The eval team leader told me that traveling the additional distance was going to be a problem for the team. Too bad. The team cut back on the number of evaluators that traveled to the base and sent others out with our resources dispatched from the remote locations (this did require "trusted agent" pre-planning with the eval team leader).

As for mission bases in real life? I've been IC on 13 actual missions so far this year and didn't travel to a mission base for any of them. I had remote bases on several of the missions, and had branch directors and/or an OSC at the remote locations. I also dispatched ground and air resources remotely.

In regards to briefings, attached is the Planning P which is shown in ICS classes. This cycle really is used on incidents, but keep in mind, high 90s percent of incidents never get past the stem of the P. From the text:
Operations Period Briefing
The Operations Period Briefing may be referred to as the Operational Briefing or the Shift Briefing. This briefing is conducted at the beginning of each Operational Period and presents the Incident Action Plan to supervisors of tactical resources.  Following the Operations Period Briefing supervisors will meet with their assigned resources for a detailed briefing on their respective assignments. source: page 24, http://training.fema.gov/EMIWeb/IS/ICSResource/assets/reviewMaterials.pdf

The daily ops briefing is facilitated by the Planning Section Chief, and all Command and General Staff get a chance to talk briefly, but the primary presenter is the Operations Section Chief. It is meant to summarize the status of the incident and present the operational plan for this operational period. This briefing is where the IAP is distibuted and any pencil changes to it are announced.

Mike

[wuzafuzz]

Despite several attempts on my part, the whole notion of staging areas and separate airbases for the ICP has been ignored in my wing. Everyone pays it lip service, but no one wants involve an outsider/non-aircrew member in planning, so it never happens.

This has started changing recently, with more and more assets never seeing the ICP.  Rather than setting up additional facilities, remote resources are being tasked directly from the ICP or IC.   

[Woodsy]

The FLWG ES staff has completely virtual, remote capabilities through Cisco WebEx.  We can stand up the initial incident response staff within minutes of an alert text and get the ball rolling.  We get aircrews launched, ground teams out, etc ASAP, that's the priority.  Once "help is on the way" we can evaluate whether or not we need to stand up a physical mission base.  For most SAR cases, it's not necessary. 

Most FLWG staff members have wing-issued laptops, printers, scanners and comms gear at home and in their vehicles, and with file sharing, printing/scanning, things get done just as quick as if we were in the same room.

Considering wing-level incident staff that handle most missions are often times hundreds of miles away from each other (Florida's a big place) this really helps.  We're still working out some kinks, but we've done a few REDCAPS the past couple months using a virtual command post and all went smoothly. 

When it is necessary to stand up a physical command post, we have a list of predetermined facilities to act as primary mission bases.  These are usually squadron buildings that have plenty of room, meeting space, established comms and are generally on-airport.  They are dispersed geographically throughout the state.  We would use the one closest to the search area and ideally launch out of the airport where the mission base is located. 

[JeffDG]

One thing that I've found incredibly helpful for remote mission staffing is the HP ePrint printers, the ones where you can e-mail documents to a pre-determined e-mail box and it will pick it up and spit it out on paper.

A lot of our squadron offices have them, and when we have a flight crew dispatched we can tell them "Your paperwork (CAPF104) will be waiting for you at the squadron office.", then we generate a PDF of the CAPF104 (automatic in IMU), and e-mail it to the printer.

We almost always have a squadron office where the planes are based, so it works really nicely.  Flight crew can head to the airport, staff can work on generating the paper while they're driving, and it all comes together...heck, even if they're at the airport, I can generate the paper while they pre-flight.

[krnlpanick]

FWIW - from a purely infosec standpoint, an office with ePrinters is like a candy store with no video cameras for the bad guys.

That being said - I am all for a purely remote "Cloud-Based Mission Base" setup, to my knowledge most alphabet soup agencies have gone that route already (although they are using private secured clouds to do so) since we are not necessarily working with secret and top-secret information (generally speaking) on our missions I see no reason that the google offering does not work for us. Google Apps for Non-Profits is free and is lock-downable for our purposes. Add Google Hangout, Docs, and IM on top off that and I think you have a winner.

[manfredvonrichthofen]

I have gotten to see two vastly different worlds in CAP.

Indiana handles their ICP in a unique way, having two mobile command posts, one with my unit in Monroe, and one somewhere else. The issue with this is if only two people in the wing are unable to participate, there is no readily available CP. Then you have to figure out what to do. To me it's the wrong answer, but it is a Mich better workup than what I have seen in the distant past of, well let's get there and see what we got. Then we would either get very lucky and a fire house would allow us to use a bay, or everything was outside and nothing was organized. The WAY wrong answer. Now with the MICP idea we have the ability to have command inside able to keep track of everything. But there is no room for briefing a team, sothat must still be done outside, no problem except when it comes to paperwork. I'm sure most wings have MICPs. So this is not a new concept.

Arkansas handles it much differently from what I have seen, yes there are micps, but they are mostly used for small scale items such as Airshows. But use wing hq for mission base. A good setup. They have everything they need and can deploy units all over the state. They are extremely organized and collected. Not to mention how much they are open to new ideas and input from others.

[Garp]

Actually, in Indiana there are two MICPs, but both have key boxes that allow anyone with tow capacity to access the vehicle after coordination with the ES director or Wing Transportation.  Neither of these really operates as an ICP, both really provide communications support so that Indiana can operate out of facilities that may not have CAP dedicated communications.

Indiana has pre-coordinated mission arrangements with Terre Haute ANGB, Columbus Airport, NESA, the State EOC, Evansville EOC, and other locations.  All of these facilities could, and have been called, to provide either training or real world mission set up on short notice.  Where Indiana could use more development of these types of partnerships is in the northern portion of the Wing, but the Wing's interaction with Grissom ARB last year has begun to help Indiana deal with that issue.

In particular, after the Henryville Tornados, INWG's ICP was at NESA and coordinated with the State EOC, had radio communication directly with the GBD/ground teams through the CAP repeater network, was up on the HF net, and coordinated multiple air sorties out of a variety of squadrons.

Indiana is not that big.  Pre-identifying mission operating locations, not requiring everyone to sign in to one location (which is an ANCIENT model) but launch crews from home, and making comm resources mobile (such as the HF vans) makes the Wing more "light and lean".

[Sergeant Langley]

Depends, My home squadron has a classroom that can be used for mission base. It is loaded with computer equipment and televisions. We also have a communications room. If you meet in a church it will probably be somewhere else.

[bflynn]

NC Wing ran a sarex last weekend with CAP HQ as the site.  Remotely based aircraft did missions from their base to wing HQ in the central part of the state, then based out of HQ for the rest of the day.  Remotely based aircraft returned home at the end of the day and did additional missions on their way home.