The Modern Louisiana Maneuvers - US Army Center Of Military History

erations" as one of its important subsidiary
aspects. All of these efforts were aided immeasurably
by GEN Franks' development
and chartering of TRADOCs six Battle Labs,
which organized and conducted equipmentand
organization-specific experiments that
contributed, in most cases, to the resolution
of LAM issues.
LAM's first two years of full operation
coincided with BG Tommy R. Franks' stewardship
of the Task Force as its Director.
During that period, the Task Force itself was
located primarily at Fort Monroe, Virginia,
with a directorate at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas,
closely tied to the National Simulations
Center there. Indeed, the Task Force created
its own simulation center at Fort Monroe to
demonstrate the emerging potential of simulations
for the work of the maneuvers. The
Task Force also maintained a liaison office
in the Pentagon.
By the beginning of 1994, Sullivan had
begun to prepare the Army and the LAM
Task Force to open the Force XXI Campaign
to redesign the Army for the 21st century.
The Task Force drafted the plan, envisioning
a campaign that would proceed along
three axes. The main thrust, called Joint
Venture, incorporated the efforts of all the
Army's commands and agencies under
TRADOC leadership to redesign the operating
force. Key to the Joint Venture effort
was the designation of the 2d Armored Division
as the Army's Experimental Force
with control and coordination mechanisms
deSigned to avoid the hazards that befell the
earlier, institutionally isolated 9th Infantry
Division/High Technology Test Bed. A supporting
thrust was to be the Institutional!
TDA axis in which the VCSA would oversee
the redesign of the TDA Army so that it
could better support the revamped operating
force. The third axis included the activities
of the newly organized Army Digitization
Office. This office, under the auspices
of the Chief of Staff, sought to develop
and acquire the hardware and software necessary
to digitize the operating force and to
link that force digitally with the various
viii
supporting headquarters. In actuality, the
ADO axis served to wrap the other two efforts
together.
BG David Ohle, who replaced MG Franks
as the Director of the LAM Task Force, also
received a change of mission once the BoD
decided during its 12-14 July 1994 sessions
to implement the Force XXI Campaign Plan.
In addition, Sullivan announced that he
would relocate the LAM Task Force from Fort
Monroe to the Washington, D. c., area to
manage and integrate the campaign's opening
phases using a revised LAM process. In
the end, the Task Force headquarters and
parts of two directorates moved to the Pentagon,
while outlying directorates operated
at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, Fort Monroe,
and Fort Leavenworth.
The LAM Task Force qUickly devised and
implemented a procedure for deconflicting,
integrating, and synchronizing the many
actions that had to occur across the Army
for the Force XXI Campaign to succeed. For
example, the Task Force instituted a Synchronization
Working Group (SWG) as a
colonel-level forum deSigned to precede the
GOWG in the revised LAM-cum-Force XXI
Process. These SWG meetings became unwieldy,
informational gatherings, with resolution
of many issues taking place outside
their venues, in part because the SWG had
no authority over the allocation or expenditure
of funds. Also, the staffs within HQDA
and the MACOMs who ordinarily coordinated
staff actions qUickly assumed responsibility
for coordinating the parts of the Force
XXI Campaign within their purview, much
as Sullivan had envisioned. The DCSOPS,
who began his own more frequent, more
empowered, less unwieldy Force XXI synchronization
meetings only a month after the
campaign opened, led the way in this normalization
of campaign coordination.
As a result of reorienting the LAM process
to further the Force XXI Campaign and
concentrating its attention on prosecuting
that campaign, the Army let the portion of
the process that had worked well in its first
two years fall into disuse. Issues considered