TTGP Prepares Fleet One Scenario at a Time

By Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class (SW) Jennifer S. Kimball, Fleet Public Affairs Center, Pacific

Tactical Training Group Pacific (TTGP) led international military forces positioned around the world through a Fleet Synthetic Training-Joint (FST-J) exercise headquartered in San Diego, Feb. 25-29. The training strengthens strike group decision makers' proficiency at disseminating information, making sound decisions and executing them.

"Our objectives are to increase our effectiveness in a joint, coalition environment," said Cmdr. John Clausen, Ronald Reagan Strike Group surface operations officer.

Sailors, Airmen, Soldiers and Marines communicated through a network to carry out simulated missions on bases spanning from Orange, Conn., to Osan, South Korea. Watchstanders operating consoles used radar, tactical and communication information to complete training objectives.

"It was a beneficial training exercise with extremely advanced scenarios to prepare us for future operations," said Operations Specialist 2nd Class (SW/AW) Katrin Menthe, battle force tactical training operator, USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76).

The primary audience for the exercise was Carrier Strike Group 7. Cmdr. Scott Bruce, TTGP war game director, said TTGP's training scenarios and technology improves each year.

"That's kind of one of the big success stories around here," said Bruce. "What started off as a science project with just the basic stages of training has come a long way in five years."

TTGP staff develop the scenarios, provide control and support cells and serve as mentors to the participating commands. "We're the subject matter experts; they can ask us questions and for our help," said Operations Specialist 2nd Class (SW) Andrew Pristyak, global command and control systems-maritime operator, TTGP.

Capt. Bill Ault, commanding officer, TTGP, said TTGP's personnel also learn valuable information from the exercise. "The best part for us is the interaction with the strike group," said Ault. "That helps us stay current with the tactical thinking of the fleet, and we're able to see what works and hopefully pass that on to other strike groups." FST-J is one of more than 100 distributed training events TTGP organizes each year. TTGP provides training to Sailors assigned to U.S. 3rd, 5th and 7th Fleets by presenting challenging, current and comprehensive curricula. TTGP's mission is to provide advanced tactical training to warriors to improve their proficiency in warfighting and joint operations and to meet the unified commander's requirements.