The planning for the first Little Eagle exercise is on its way; now the time has come to start the preparations for its brother: on Wednesday 8 February 2011, the G3 Division chaired the Initial Planning Conference for Little Eagle II exercise to be conducted in early September this year.
This exercise will logically follow the preliminary training events in March and May. The aim is to challenge the Headquarters Multinational Corps Northeast (HQ MNC NE) staff members with a much more ambitious training schedule. Based on the same scenario as Little Eagle I exercise, Little Eagle II exercise is to train again the Headquarters core functions with special regard to incorporating newcomers and personnel replacements.
Although September 2011 is not even on the horizon, the project organization will have to do the planning under time pressure: detailed plans can only be developed after a decision to be made in June on results of the comparison between the customary Field Headquarters structure trained during Little Eagle I exercise in March and the Cross Functional Team approach used during Bold Eagle exercise. The concept that will turn out to be more useful in the Corps’ environment will determine the way ahead for Little Eagle II.
Planners and personnel responsible for the exercise preparations from all HQ Divisions met during the Initial Planning Conference with representatives from HQ Command Support Brigade (CSB) and its respective battalions. Right after the prelude in the auditorium when the drafted exercise concept and timetable were presented to the plenary, the project organization split up into four working groups, which started developing work plans and drafting first intentions for this exercise. Given the fact that the overall exercise concept is still pending, most of the planning tasks considered at least two variants and the working groups investigated all elements of the exercise planning process thoroughly if either of them worked out.
Little Eagle II will last two weeks; functional areas will be reinforced by augmentary personnel sent by the Framework Nations. This exercise will be fully supported by CSB likewise. The Baltic Barracks will host the main command post whereas a temporarily manned tactical command post will be built in the vicinity of Szczecin.
At the end of the busy planning day, the HQ MNC NE project organization presented satisfying results and drafts, and showed potential and capabilities to proceed further with the planning.
