Oh Gawd here we go

OK - the issue is not GENFORCE per say as everyone agrees to some degree we need a training vehicle. The real issue is the GENFORCE attitude. The pink pillow gives all of the answers so poor g3 and g5 staffs believe (as this is how they have been trained) that INT know everything as they can look it up. OP VERITAS 3 Cdo were suprised that they had to run operations to ID AQ doctrine - this is a GENFORCE training/mindset fault. Additionally GENFORCE has traditionally been used as an exercise control mechanism rather than enabler - poor drills. We are hearing the cries INT LED OPS but seeing none of this translating into the Trg environment. How many formations hitting CT5 have actually got any trained ISTAR personnel in their G2/ISTAR branches, never mind have completed with the rest of the HQ realistic ISTAR collective training - answer none as GENFORCE allows anyone to pull a doctrinal template from nether regions....................COE when mature should be better, maybe, if , somehow, hopefully.................

This was a question put to us on our A2 sometime in the distant past:

'Why do we still do genforce?'

a lot of answers were banded about how it helps us understand doctrine, the kit used is all over the world now etc, etc.

But what we finally got down to is what is the Armed Forces role?

The answer - defence of the realm, that is our job and that is why we still do genforce, becuase our first and most important job is defending our queen and country. Therefore we have to retain and exercise our ability to do so. As has been mentioned by CR and others this will no doubt involve havin to fight large armies along the lines of genforce.

However having said that, i do think we should spend just as much time practicing and training how to fight the sort of wars we are in Afghan and Iraq.

my tuppence worth

Yes, GENFOR is a pain in the tit5, but is a necessary evil (que Dr evil laugh). the pink pillow does need to be updated to cover the changing times, but, IMHO, is needed; as has already been mentioned, the next exciting opertunity we are given to move various drinks cabinets closer to world domination (sorry, bit cinical (and poor speeeling, aparently) we will have massive losses (mention no names, but it's between Iraq and 'a hard place ).

As for incorperating terrorist TTPs. As they change on a weekly basis, in order to react to our TTPs, any publication on this would be massively outdated before it got to the schools. a better idea would be to run COIN (showing my age) Exs on the OPMI 3 as well as 2 (if that is still done). this could be done by teaching the revised 'GENFOR', and adapting this base skill to COIN. in this way, the new 'Intling' on his first deployment to a sand pit would have a base level on which to work and enable him/her to increase this with current TTPs in theater.

With regards the kit and equipment. The GENFOR recognition guides are still pertenant in this day and age, with the guys on the ground needing quick, accurate info on what it is and what it can do to you, from where. As ChickVonFlick so rightly states knowledge of kit and capabilitys is very important; do you want to lose all credability because you don't know what vehicle is which and what it can do - infantry snipers and AT gunners know this (i know as i was on of the former) - i'm sure this is the last thing a new L/Cpl needs when in a Bde Int cell.

Besides, i had to learn it...

I believe that recognition is no longer taught either. that IMHO is also a mistake. We, the Corps, are supposed to be the subject matter experts (as far as HMF are concerned), yet some of our soldiers can't tell the difference between a BMP1 and BMP3 (quite important, you would think ). unless they are anorak wearing, saddos (like me ) they will go through their life waiting for that question that will trip them up.

As i said, just my 2p worth. now getting back in my box.

So is this the new pink (green?) pillow:

http://uk.geocities.com/oglaigh_na_h...REEN_BOOK.html

http://www.marxists.org/archive/mari...illa/index.htm

And would this be appendix A:

http://usacac.army.mil/CAC/Repositor...OIN-FM3-24.pdf

MSR

Worth clarifying a few points.

Remember that the Generic Enemy Force is not supposed to replicate an exisiting structure. It is a menu that you can sample different bits from. Yes, if you want to go up against the whole lot, you can, and that is a key point.

It exists in order to provide a training tool against which Blue Forces (that's us) can test our TTPs (as we now call them). There is very little point for an Infantry CO to turn up with his battlegroup (on paper) at CAST and face an enemy that he can defeat in 20 minutes. We have to have something strong to chuck at him, and if that means making up an impossibly strong force, then so be it. Using a mix of modern and older generation equipment is good for education and recognition.

But we do this in our everyday lives. Take surveillance for example. Not much good to train people to follow some old granny around the shops or tail a milkfloat. You put them up against a surveillance aware enemy to make it challenging. No-one is suggesting that all targets of surveillance are concious (in the trade sense), but if you train against hard targets, the real thing should be easier.

You can apply this to many other disciplines as well. We don't train interrogators against subjects who are going to blurt within 30 secs, nor do you go to the gym and push weights that don't challenge you. If you want to grow, you increase resistance.

GENFORCE, and its successor COE(E) is the opposition, albeit fictional, that acts as the resistance that allows us to grow and develop.

Originally Posted by ChickVonFlick

Remember that the Generic Enemy Force is not supposed to replicate an exisiting structure. It is a menu that you can sample different bits from. Yes, if you want to go up against the whole lot, you can, and that is a key point. It exists in order to provide a training tool against which Blue Forces (that's us) can test our TTPs (as we now call them).

Well, that's all very well, but I don't remember ever encountering a BG staff, or even Bde, who did not accept the pink pillow as gospel insofar as their Question 1 was concerned. It might sound picky, but GenForce has quite a bit of esoteric equipment chucked into it, a lot of which isn't in service. For example, the CA batallions have 2S31 as their organic artillery, for no good reason other than it is new and semi-Gucci. However, when you get yourself down to CATT, there is no facility to replicate 2S31 on the system, so you have to go for the default BnAG mainstay, ie 2S1. Not really a problem you might say, until you realise that 2S31 has a much shorter range than 2S1 and therefore the BGs rangecard is alles uber die platz before they've even crossed the LD. And just so as we aren't picking on one small item, CA anti tank units have 9P150/9P151 (insert mad designation here) in GenForce, which I couldn't find in the Rosvooruzhenie catalogue.

So what? It's all very well for us to look at GenForce as a ready made bag of tricks from which we can pick and choose a series of options, but to the BG A10 and all his little muckers, it just seems like we're moving the goalposts, especially if the poor buggers have done their appreciation based on the book we wrote and then altered to suit ourselves.

Originally Posted by CRmeansCeilingReached

(and now watch the darksiders get excited because i mentioned dwarfs.

Damned right, can't beat Bridget the Midget. However, the whole DWARVES thing coupled with the fact that the whole dwarf train of thought originated from you (with the obvious similarities involved) led me to put 2 and 2 together, with inevitable repercussions for my newly-enhanced libido.

Originally Posted by Perevodchik

Originally Posted by ChickVonFlick

Remember that the Generic Enemy Force is not supposed to replicate an exisiting structure. It is a menu that you can sample different bits from. Yes, if you want to go up against the whole lot, you can, and that is a key point. It exists in order to provide a training tool against which Blue Forces (that's us) can test our TTPs (as we now call them).

Well, that's all very well, but I don't remember ever encountering a BG staff, or even Bde, who did not accept the pink pillow as gospel insofar as their Question 1 was concerned. It might sound picky, but GenForce has quite a bit of esoteric equipment chucked into it, a lot of which isn't in service. For example, the CA batallions have 2S31 as their organic artillery, for no good reason other than it is new and semi-Gucci. However, when you get yourself down to CATT, there is no facility to replicate 2S31 on the system, so you have to go for the default BnAG mainstay, ie 2S1. Not really a problem you might say, until you realise that 2S31 has a much shorter range than 2S1 and therefore the BGs rangecard is alles uber die platz before they've even crossed the LD. And just so as we aren't picking on one small item, CA anti tank units have 9P150/9P151 (insert mad designation here) in GenForce, which I couldn't find in the Rosvooruzhenie catalogue.

So what? It's all very well for us to look at GenForce as a ready made bag of tricks from which we can pick and choose a series of options, but to the BG A10 and all his little muckers, it just seems like we're moving the goalposts, especially if the poor buggers have done their appreciation based on the book we wrote and then altered to suit ourselves.

My bold - have found this to be a problem too.
Separate Lt MR Bn are equiped with BTR-90 - according to Janes only a small number have been made - there might just be enough to equip one Bn and that's your lot. Also, arty assets, there's no mention of D-30. Is it acceptable to substitute 2A65/2A61 with D-30? (bit of a difference in capabilities there too!)
Maybe the problem is that we (as in where I work) seem to be using only the Mobile forces ORBATs?
I'm new to Genfor (as you can probably guess) so if I'm barking up the wrong tree or just barking let me know.

Everybody uses the Mobile Forces version, cos the other one is so bonk it's untrue. Probably because they are mobile forces, there is no way D-30 is gonna be in there. 2A65 or 2A61 is, as far as my elderly drunken head will allow me to remember, the same as MSTA-B, exactly the same gun as is used in 2S19, which in GenForce has arbitrarily replaced 2S3 as the 'BAG' default

As for BTR-90, and I'm only guessing here cos I'm not a lightside GenForce geek, it probably sounded better when they wrote the pam and hasn't been updated, which I interpret as the main complaint about the entire system. Anyone with half an ounce would prefer BTR-80A, which has dispensed with the 14.5 mm KPVT and replaced it with a better MG in a Marder-esque turret.

The whole point of GenForce is that it is supposed to replicate a credible enemy which allows BG, Bde and higher staffs to train to a high level, general war scenario. The compaints come in when it is seen to not be rooted in reality, or better put, a reality which most people can understand. Because GenForce is so obviously modelled on an 'existing' (ie Soviet/Russian) set of OrBats, it is easy to pick holes in it. The converse of this is to reinvent an enemy, which allows the creation of anything from Iraq's Republican Guard from '91 or the 'Borg Cube' scenario mentioned earlier. As it stands, GenForce is probably as good as we are going to get, but it suffers from the failings that we as a Corps have built into it. We haven't pushed it sufficiently as a training tool, it hasn't got warning stickers all over it to remind people of its non-operational utility, and we as a Corps have become fixated by its artificial omnipotence. That said, BG and higher staffs need to start looking at any exercise paperwork and Op orders more closely to differentiate where the basis of any exercise GenForce starts and the pink pillow ends.

Originally Posted by Perevodchik

Everybody uses the Mobile Forces version, cos the other one is so bonk it's untrue. Probably because they are mobile forces, there is no way D-30 is gonna be in there. 2A65 or 2A61 is, as far as my elderly drunken head will allow me to remember, the same as MSTA-B, exactly the same gun as is used in 2S19, which in GenForce has arbitrarily replaced 2S3 as the 'BAG' default

As for BTR-90, and I'm only guessing here cos I'm not a lightside GenForce geek, it probably sounded better when they wrote the pam and hasn't been updated, which I interpret as the main complaint about the entire system. Anyone with half an ounce would prefer BTR-80A, which has dispensed with the 14.5 mm KPVT and replaced it with a better MG in a Marder-esque turret.

Thanks for this
Suppose it would be down to prime movers for towed then?
BTR-80A - no figures for Russia, but 579 to Hungary

Like I said before GENFOR ain't my thing - suppose approaching it from a different angle is making it more difficult than it actually is