While exercise season is heavily underway, you may notice some of the exercises play and feed into each other, ensuring varying components can work together, integrate, or hand off varying tasks in each portion of a large-scale exercise. Exercises may also have different components to them and ‘player’ types based on the size and scale of the exercise or its subset.
One of the subset exercises for Vibrant Response was the Digital Exercise for Task Force 46, which is a Command Post Exercise to prepare the Command and Control Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear Response Elements (C2CREs) to complete Vibrant Response validation.
Specifically, Team ATS assisted the C2CRE-B organization with reacting to a simulated 20 kiloTon Improvised Nuclear Device detonation in the vicinity of two main highways near Indianapolis, Indiana.
The team used ATSsim to recreate an initial simulated blast or “Ground Zero” with a crater diameter of 36.9 meters, depth of approximately 14.8 meters, and a nuclear electromagnetic pulse radius of approximately 4,821 meters. Task Force 46 had to prepare and react to this scenario, ensuring the C2CRE-B team appropriately responded within 96 hours.
ATSsim is a cloud-based constructive simulation program, effective in replicating the Force Flow of units flying and/or driving into the Joint Operations Area. It can also replicate Friendly Force tracking of units and crewed vehicles executing missions within the JOA.
During exercises like this, the team also uses ATSsim to show the distribution and consumption of classes of supply and generate reports to the varying echelons and forces. ATSsim can also stimulate the common operating picture tools of record with a dynamically updated Keyhole Markup Language (KML) output.
TF46 was able to successfully show they are trained and ready to support Lead Federal Agencies in the event of real-world mission execution.
As a leader in emergency preparedness training and readiness, ATS continues to actively work to deliver innovative, experience-based disaster-preparedness exercises solutions for local, state, and federal agencies to protect communities.