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Pope takes Large Package Week exercise to the next step

  • Published
POPE AIR FORCE BASE, N.C. --  By implementing the new Joint Forcible Entry Exercise April 7, Pope took its bimonthly airfield seizure exercise, formerly known as Large Package Week, to the next step.

After seizure of the airfield, Pope and other units from all over the Air Force joined the Army and Navy to set up operations on the airfield similar to a wartime environment.

The main execution phase was a 16-hour block April 7. The air players included C-130s from Pope, four C-17s from McChord AFB, Wash., a KC-135 from Andrews AFB, Md., two A-10s and two F-15s from Seymour Johnson AFB, N.C., a Joint Surveillance and Target Attack Radar System from Warner Robbins AFB, Ga., a command and control element from Travis AFB, Calif., and other ground players from Pope. Army and Navy elements were also heavily involved.

Although the exercise is only a fraction of the length of a regular Large Package Week, it focused more on planning and coordination than execution, said Maj. Ryan DAndrea, 2nd Airlift Squadron assistant operations officer.

This was the first time weve done the Joint Forcible Entry Exercise, he said. "Weve scaled it back due to real-world contingencies. Normally we would be doing this exercise over a whole week and do follow-on air-land operations throughout the week.

Gen. William Welser III, 18th Air Force commander, and dignitaries from the Armed Forces of Ukraine visited Pope during the week to view part of the exercise.

We need to be able to show our numbered air force commander, as well as our coalition partners, exactly what this exercise does, said Maj. Charlie Bolton, 43rd Operations Group weapons and tactics flight commander. Its good to show our leadership what we do, and its good to show our coalition partners exactly how we operate. Maybe they can take something away from it.

Major DAndrea said Popes work with Large Package Week proved that Pope can execute the mission of dropping troopers and equipment on time, on target, but Pope's objective during the exercise was to efficiently integrate all of the assets and get the information to the component commander in a timely manner.

The takeaway is the planning and coordination that goes into all of this and the networking weve done with all of the people were working with, said Maj. DAndrea. This process has been a learning process, he said, but its better to learn on Green Ramp in a training environment than in a real-world operation.

He said the biggest challenge of the exercise was how all the information can be consolidated to give the leadership a clear idea of the big picture. This is what theyll continue to work on in future exercises.

With all of this coordination, mission accomplishment is still the most important part of the exercise, said Maj. Bolton. We do a lot of work behind the scenes putting the plan together, but no matter what happens, if we dont get the jumpers to the fight on time, on target, then it was all for naught. Thats always the goal were shooting for.

Because of the planning and coordination involved during the exercise, Maj. Bolton said the plan is to hold a Joint Forcible Entry Exercise of this scale only twice a year. Pope will continue to hold Joint Forcible Entry Exercises similar to Large Package Week every six weeks.

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