Joint SaREx HELP!!

[DNall]

Okay, I need some brainstorming help to pull this together. I'll give you some background, what I got, and what I already know I need. I would appreciate your help with what I need, and brainstorming things I haven't figured out that I need yet. I also need some specific input from our CG Aux contingent.

Background:
We've had a strong & growing relationship with the state going back a couple decades.

Second, about 10 years back, we used to do a joint SaREx with Coast Guard, via the efforts of some members who were also in CG Aux. Did an annual exercise for at least three years, then I left town, wasn't going on anymore when I got back here within the last three years.

Third, my National Guard unit flies apaches. That means in a disaster we have no mission with our aircraft. We evac them from the storm, then send out a company sized ground unit to toss ice/etc, and our pilots rotate thru the state Joint Operations Center in Austin on the ops staff.

This leaves my state of the art military aviation facility empty. This has T1 lines, generator power, male/female showers, 2 large classrooms, 1 large flight briefing room, 6 conference rooms (12+ ppl), office facilities, etc. Coast Guard air group is 50m to the right. To the left is a very large open flight line typically used to park AF one when the president comes in, just to the right of that is what used to be an ANG F16 wing. The F16s are gone now, they are in transition to Predators, but don't have them yet. Even when they do, they'll sill have at least 20 empty covered tie down slots. There is a CAP Sq sharing a small bldg a couple hundred meters away. FEMA & the joint federal ICP were set up on this field. FEMA is still there in smaller numbers.

IKE:
State JOC they tasked us with the largest photo recon mission CAP or this state has ever been involved in. They were very impressed with our performance & adaptability.

Downside: we couldn't get much tasking for the first critical couple days; there wasn't much in the way of SaR work; our ground side initially just tossed ice when there were hundreds of civilian volunteers being overseen by DPS to deal with that, later they ran ELTs, which CG didn't care about anymore cause they were obviously non-distress - just waiting for batteries to die.

However, our ground teams (including me) looked super highspeed with a good amount of media coverage. State was impressed with our overall capabilities, as well as our un/under-utilized ground capability - or rather their perception of it.

Another thing was... Galveston & Houston got a lot of support, but a lot of smaller area communities were not consulted & had to complain on TV before they got food/water/ice delivered to their area.


What I got:
First, state is looking to better utilize our ground capability. And, looking for additional uses of our air capability.

State is looking at starting something based on Florida's Recon program. However, it would be joint CAP/National Guard teams. We have some ideas/speculation, but no details have been worked out yet. Our mission at this point is to pump up the number of over-18 GTM1/GTL members that can hack it in the field. This is still talk at this point!! BUT, we want to gear up to be ready if/when they decide to go forward. SO....

We're going to run a CAP SaREx out of my Guard Facility in Jan. This is the first of several GT training events targeted at that over-18 highspeed crowd. We'll be doing another every other month (in dif locations) for the next year. Back end will involve integration with guard & movement toward that Recon type mission.

We'll have a mobile comm van set up on the grass btwn out hanger & the flight line. We'll sleep people in the classrooms on provided cots or they can get a hotel at their expense. We're going to cater in light food & use the unit food prep area/drill hall for service.

My guard unit will provide a couple pilots that tend to work at JOC in emergencies. They will be there as operations observers.

We had issues taking care of EPIRBs where CG didn't have the resources or time to chase false alarms & couldn't locate stuff we passed them - like submerged boats with active signal that's hazard to navigation. I'd like

I want to approach Coast Guard Air Group Houston about working a joint table top with us concurrent with our exercise. I have a contact at Dist 8 that I dealt with during the hurricane & am confident that tasking will come down clean. I want to build back the working relationship, and create a situation where we can again lean on each other when the need arises.

I also want to work with CG Aux. I want to put a UDF team on a couple of their boats, do some air-boat coordination for signal search, then person in water off a dock rescue scenario. I got really no contacts with them, but know some people that do. They did nothing during the hurricane, and have no DF capability. I want to be able to utilize them when appropriate in the future.

The CAP SaREx part of this equation is actually kind of standard...
Air:
We'll be flying approx a half dozen aircraft. We'll be doing some photo missions capitalizing on lessons learned from IKE, and that take will be sent back to state JOC as free progress report on what we did before. We'll also be doing SaR work in that coastal environment, but generally just CAP. I could pull one scenario to do air to boat signal search coordinating with a CG small boat off Bolivar Pen, most of our exercise will not be that far east. I mentioned the joint with CG Aux. And, we're going to attempt some interagency comm support with hi-bird.

Ground:
The ground side will have a cadet oriented program, camping in an open field btwn CAP & my guard bldg. On field & close by sorties leading to UDF/GTM3. There will also be the primary purpose of this SaREx, which is to train over-18 highspeed adult/cadets to GTM1 standards.

What I don't got:
Everything else...

I don't have contacts with CG Aux or even know their local capabilities. I don' have a current working relationship with CG Air Group. I haven't secured permission to use my guard facility yet, but will, with a state JOC tasking if I need to sway anyone. I haven't talked to anyone at JOC, including the CAP officer that coordinates with them.

What I have is the concept of operations, some contacts, the scheduled IC & another highspeed ground ops guy to help me make it happen. I have my eye on a couple great folks for the air side.

I don't have anything for that joint tabletop with CG except for the table. Lots of help needed there.

So... all help would be appreciated. Specifically but not limited to anyone that has SME knowledge about CG Aux (comm, water ops, etc), Florida's Recon Program, and the guys that were on the Katrina mission in MS (we're thinking the ground spectrum will go from ELTs, to that area survey stuff, to Recon ground/air assessment packages jointly with guard.

I also don't know what else I don't know. I need some solid outside the the box look at this to tell me what I'm missing & help me formulate a plan of action to make it happen.

And, anyone in TXWG that has the experience & wants to talk to me about helping with the planning process, hit me up on PM.

[Stonewall]

PM sent with contact info on a very resourceful dude in TX.

[RiverAux]

North Carolina Wing has done some joint ops with CG Aux on a fairly regular basis.  If you're going to work with CG, check to see if your aircraft have marine bands programed into them (I've been told that this has has supposedly been done nationwide).

The CG Aux generally hasn't done a lot of joint large-scale exercises since mostly they work as single resources.   Most will have passed the online ICS courses but not have had much experience working in that environment.  However, they've been working on those issues and I'm confident that they'll be receptive to the idea. 

The CG Aux won't be able to put a person in the water for your off-the-dock scenario (reg against it), but could pull in someone else that was in the water. 

Another thing to try is to have some sort of target on shore that could represent a boater that went overboard and use CG Aux boat crews on the water and CAP GT on shores to search for it. 

[Duke Dillio]

Thankfully "Peter" got rid of that bug in his sig line.  I kept trying to stomp that darn thing......

So, if this is supposed to be more for like disaster relief I would say that maybe you could find some panicky people and have them act panicky.  If this is something for ground ops, I have been noticing a lack of training in interview techniques among ground teams.  This is something that you might want to work into your scenario.  This type of exercise addition takes away from the standard boring beacon chase that I see at a lot of SAREX's.  Moulage always tends to be a hit in these types of exercises as well.  Also, check with your local Lifeflight or other medical helicopter people.  They sometimes like to get involved in stuff.  Just a few ideas to toss out at you.

[DNall]

CG Aux would be 1-2 sorties, involving 1 boat each with UDF team aboard. Conduct signal & pattern search with CAP aircraft assist, some kind of rescue scenario on the back end. If Air Group is up for it, they can do a hoist on the back end of one. I know we're good for marine band, P25, whole deal. Our comms are squared away, I just don't know what the capability is on the other end.

I don't want to get too many players involved, or this is going to get out of control. I also have limited personnel to work with. I want every capable adult I can get training on the primary aspect of the mission.

The first priority is train as many 18+ personnel on a GTM1 track.

Second priority is interagency enviro.

Third is take advantage of the opportunity/location to learn from & build better working ties with CG Air Group Ops Staff. CG Aux participation is nice, but there as much to be an additional in with CG Air Group & Dist 8.

Last priority is actual disaster related ops. Certainly that will be going on, but when making untrained people into trained people, you don't run an additional skill scenario.

I do like the interview skills aspect. GTL planning & briefing will also get some heavy focus.

I don't want to get too much into the sortie/scenario aspect yet though. I'm still trying to build the overall op. If yall can provide some different perspectives/ideas on that end to help me tighten it up. I would appreciate it.

[Duke Dillio]

If you want to focus on the GTM-1 stuff, try to get some of the advanced players lined up.  I know you don't want to add a whole bunch of people but the GTM-1 stuff is all the advanced stuff including working with dog teams and setting up helicopter LZ's.  All in all, it sounds like a fun SAREX and I wish I could make it down.

[DNall]

Fun is nowhere in the equation at all. This is work, hard work, and lots of it. They will be smoked when they get done for the day, and first sorties will launch as the sun comes up. This is not a game, it's a military operation as if lives depend on it.

And I'm not interested in advanced people coming to "play." This is not practice existing skills, it's training additional members to highspeed standards. If this is not going to be a flying club, then neither is it going to be a wannabe GSAR club.

In six to eight months, I need a force of advanced GT members that are: over 18, physically fit, well trained, fully competent in the field w/o supervision, & prepared to do first responder type duties in a joint team enviro under the worst possible circumstances. AND, I need that force to be at least 10-times the numbers that meet that description now, and it needs to continue growing from there.

I have everything required for GTL & GTM1/2/3 well above CAP standards. The biggest thing I need from CAP is personnel to train.

I'm not concerned with those aspects at this point. I'm concerned with the operational planning & construction. I know some of you have experience with planning major activities/operations/exercises, and some have subject matter expertise on the couple details I'm not as experienced with. I've been putting this together, so I'm too close to it. I need an outside perspective to tell me what I'm missing to complete the plan.

[RiverAux]

the CG Aux boats will have marine band radios installed.  Might have some handhelds.  May have access to a portable radio with marine bands that could be set up at the ICP.  May have more advanced comm capabilities as well (depends on the unit).  Very possible that they may have some people qualified as CG radio watchstanders that could help man the ICP.

[DNall]

We have marine band on everything. I can easily monitor that from ICP. The issue would be range, which translates to I need hi-bird to monitor marine band as well. I'm going to try to fly an airborne repeater, but may just end up giving them an extra handheld & make it work. No worries there... least till I have to write the comm plan.

[Eclipse]

I understand the sentiment about trying to train people to high-speed, but my advice is that you only invite the experienced, Varsity team to the joint exercise.

Part of the operation is going to be marketing so that can continue the relationship, having a bunch of newer, less-experienced assets may introduce variables you don't want to deal with in an exercise like this, especially the first few times out.

When we plan ops like these its the A-Game players who participate, and they can then bring that experience to the newer
people to raise their game for future exercises.

[Eclipse]

Scenarios - don't game the system.  Try to put together an OPFOR team that can setup the scenarios, introduce variables, feed clues and other information to the IC, and keep the planning people in the dark like real life.  I've seen too many large-scale missions fail because the branch directors and above also planned the day and basically were just going through the motions.

Logistics - scenarios should be independent of the logistics of moving aircraft, staging teams, camp grounds, etc.  In the real world we don't usually get too much advance notice, and we have to go where the action is, which is not generally 100 feet from where the ground teams are camping.

Related to the first point, depending on your field assets to be part of the scenarios is a recipe for disaster.  Again, I've seen way too many SAREX's go FUBAR because they decided that the photo run would also be the inbound sortie for plane 3, which would then go to airport "k", plant the practice beacon, and then become a "lost" aircrew - then bad AM weather grounds the fleet and you have the whole mission sitting on their hands because their's nothing to look for.

Your best case in planning is to have a completely seperate "activity team" that does not plan on being ES participants that day - they can arrange scenarios, handle non-mission details, and generally make sure things go smooth as outside observers.  The intention is to avoid the common problems where the AOBD is the only guy with keys to mission base, and he's the only guy with a CAP DL, so he has to leave the ICP mid-day to drive the cadets home or take a ground team out.

[DNall]

Regarding the varsity... the biggest problem here is I already know we're trying to do too much at once, but that's out of my control. The varsity personnel will be there, but they'll be spread around priorities of work, not focused together showing off for outsiders.

There are three training priorities going on separately & concurrently.

FIRST:
The primary purpose of this exercise (and every one we'll be running for the next six months) is training adult GT operators. The goal is to produce a pool of capable GTL/GTMs (they don't necessarily need to be GTM1, but that's desirable). In a few months, we'll select from that pool to joint train with National Guard as part of a pilot program; marginally ready by next hurricane season; doing strategic ground assessment, with secondary SaR/UDF/Comm support capabilities. This does not require much air support, nor is it associated with the Coast Guard or National Guard participation. This will be both classroom & sorties run by one of my highspeed GBDs.

SECOND:
Implement lessons learned from Ike. That's two parts: interagency networking/practice, and work on photo recon skills. The two National Guard ops observers will be watching this portion of the mission.

The people that were on photo recon with us have that down. What we want to do is re-run some of those grids to train up some additional folks. Our air branch did that very effectively during Ike, they know what they're doing, they just need more people able to do it so we can sustain better. Take from that goes back to the state JOC just as a freebie update on our original stuff. 

The joint aspect sounds sexy, but it's a really small part of what's going on.

It'll be two CG ops officers doing a tabletop with some of my very best ops folks, and one of the NG officers may be involved. That's in a conference room off in the same bldg, but away from the ICP. They'll duck in & out of the ICP to observe, but they aren't involved in the SaREx.

There will also be the 1-2 sorties involving air to boat/UDF coord with CG Aux & possibly a CG small boat. That's one aircrew & a couple highspeed UDF folks.

THIRD:
We're also going to do general training, by which I mean mostly cadet oriented training. We'll have them on FLM, MSA, UDF, GTM3 tasks. And they are camping in the field next to the bldg. This is not highspeed training for them, it's just a highspeed environment, and shares logistics with us. I'll get someone else to run that part of the program.

[DNall]

Scenarios - don't game the system.  Try to put together an OPFOR team that can setup the scenarios, introduce variables, feed clues and other information to the IC, and keep the planning people in the dark like real life.  I've seen too many large-scale missions fail because the branch directors and above also planned the day and basically were just going through the motions.

Regarding that... absolutely for a normal exercise, but I had a different thought on this, and I'd appreciate your opinion.

My thought was to run two operational periods. The ICP staff will manage the moving parts for the training going on, but they're not actually processing clues, etc. I could probably add those elements to it as well, but that was not my intent at this point.

However, there would be two operational periods. The ICP staff from the morning would rotate to the table top for the afternoon, and vice versa. That table top is a better learning opportunity than I can give them running a mission.

I mean, yeah I can probably do both things, and I may, but it's more complicated that way.

[DNall]

Army Aviation facility secured... I asked my boss & he's giving me keys to the whole place w/ no restrictions.

Coast Guard support secured... they're sending two operations officers from sector. I'll also have two ops officers from TXARNG (pilots that work JOC). Those four, along with an IC/OSC/AOBD/GBD from CAP will form a joint ICS staff & table top. 2hr trng period, switch up the staff & 2 more hrs, break for lunch, CAP personnel rotate with those running the mission in the morning session, repeat table top process. PSC will play red team (feed scenario, clues, etc) while in the table top.

Oh yeah... the table top is going to test run the cooperative relationship. We'll move on from here to SAREx per month in other locations, then Spring (right before hurricane season) we'll run an actual joint SAREX with CG where they actually run some ops. We'll repeat the coordination over CGAux boats, and CG will come do a hoist to close out that scenario. Looks like it'll be pretty cool.

[DNall]

Things are still on track, but I have to say I'm sick and dang tired of people that want to find reasons not to do things instead of making them happen, especially when they don't know what the hell they're talking about & want to make their case disrespectfully. I almost verbally b-slapped a CAP officer on the phone today for that kind of thing, and it pissed me the hell off. Some people don't need to be officers.

[DNall]

Dangit. I don't want to air dirty laundry here, so I'll save bunch of details.

Basically, the facilities went from hey this would be cool, to prelim approval & local Sq/CC gets courtesy call within 2hrs (not using anything of his); next day we do a walk thru, I have to write an internal memo requesting support so we can structure the flight schedule/advance plan to be out of the way, local Sq/CC is updated within a couple hours. Now at this point he wants to raise some hell for completely unrelated reasons, which make no sense for the way things work in our local or state national guard structure, but he scares the Gp/CC & Wg/ES officer into standing he thing down. When really that's all about him not getting to be the special guy that decided who gets what on my base.

It's actually more trouble for me to turn this off now than go forward with it, but that's the Gp/CCs call and I'll comply. I could reset & run it in the Spring, but I don't know that I really have the time or patience to deal with... (yeah this is where I'm going to leave out the details that really piss me off). I really do not like it when I have this massive perfect storm of opportunity for CAP, and people put other things in front of the mission. Especially when those people don't know what they're talking about.

[RiverAux]

I feel for you.  I'd probably go down swinging before letting the opportunity go, but then again I've been known to get myself in a bit of "trouble" sometimes for speaking my mind (respectfully, of course).   

[jeders]

That really sucks. I hope that you will try to do it again in the Spring, it sounds like the kind of training we really need to be doing.

[heliodoc]

I feel for you, too  BUT

Way too much going on in too little time and again I do not know all what is going on...

Sounds like a lot of"promises" made in too short of time frame.  A number of tabletops could have been done PRIOR to this.  It sounds like some emergency managers could have been accessed to help the Guard.

The Guard is new to alot of the new world of disaster management and alot of these "exercises" need to done in bite size chunks like 4 hour blocks and numerous tabletops need to done before the "big day"

Alot of these "exercises" do not go as planned and sometimes that is due to injects during the exercise to see how everyone works together.

Sounds like everyone needs to take a deep breath and see where this all goes it all be good for an AAR and that will be a reason for an AAR

Sounds like a lot of issues and trying to be high speed right out of the gate is what is going to guarantee failure.

Maybe have some contacts at the emergency management level to assist in exercise design planning and the HSEEP process could help in situations like these. These resources have just as good or better scenario planning than the military....

Might have to take a breath, Sir.  It is everybody's desire to be high speed, but reality will prove that there needs to be more than 1 or 2 meetings and then all of a sudden an exercise is under way to be high speed.

Get ready for either a beautiful AAR (100% attainment on EVERY box to be checked) or one helacious (sp) one....

[RiverAux]

helio, as I interpreted his comments it was a local CAP commander that started throwing monkeywrenches, not the sort of issues you raise.