JOINTEX 2013

JOINTEX 2013 was the first in a series of nation-wide joint training and readiness events designed to change how the Canadian Armed Forces train, develop and learn to prepare for future operations. The objective of these events was to achieve a joint, integrated, agile and ready force, thus leading to success in operations at home and abroad.

JOINTEX is our command-driven series of capability development and training events that provides a predictable, repeatable, and adaptable means to learn and improve, allowing us the critical opportunities to play it out in training before living it out in actual operations.

— Lieutenant-General S.A. Beare
Commander, Canadian Joint Operations Command

Purpose

JOINTEX 2013 was designed to train a Canadian-led Combined Joint Inter-Agency Task Force Headquarters (CJIATF HQ) in the planning and conduct of coalition full-spectrum operations in a joint, inter-agency, multinational and public environment.

During JOINTEX, the Canadian Armed Forces practiced the provision and functions of national command and control, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and sustainment while operating at home or abroad.

To ensure that we maintain that excellence in the modern battlespace, JOINTEX will work the pieces that have to come together for effective inter-agency, intergovernmental and coalition operations.

— General Tom Lawson
Chief of the Defence Staff

Strategic objectives

JOINTEX 13 supported, capitalized on, and enhanced training and readiness efforts across the Canadian Armed Forces. It supported initiatives that enhanced the level of integration across the Canadian Armed Forces, including, but not limited to:

• developing the Canadian Armed Forces’ capacity to lead an international operation at the CJIATF level with the 1st Canadian Division Headquarters as the command centre;
• developing Canadian Armed Forces joint doctrine; and
• advancing the collective training agenda in operational simulations.

JOINTEX also demonstrated the Canadian Armed Forces’ ability to:

• command and control a CJIATF;
• conduct collaborative operational planning;
• conduct interactive training at both the operational and tactical levels; and
• carry out the procedures and apply the practices that enable national command and control, and sustainment.

Finally, JOINTEX contributed to the identification and development of:

• Canadian Armed Forces capability packages available for deployed operations;
• a joint common operating picture;
• joint communications and information systems;
• joint fire and battlespace management capabilities; and
• a joint operational support concept.

Background

Exercise origin and design

Based on the principle of  “training as we expect to fight,” the Canadian Armed Forces were directed by the Chief of the Defence Staff to develop and conduct a series of exercises collectively named JOINTEX to demonstrate current CAF capabilities and procedures and provide valuable opportunity to enhance competencies and capacities.

It also provided commanders at all levels with the opportunity to integrate, operate, and develop the competencies, capabilities, capacities, familiarity and mutual trust essential to operational success as a joint force.

Designed to be conducted in five stages, JOINTEX began in 2010. The final stage concluded on 8 June 2013.

Stage 4

Stage 4 was designed to be conducted in three phases:

• Phase 1 focused on advanced command and staff training.
• Phase 2 involved finalizing preparatory technical aspects, lead-in training and the deployment of the Canadian-led CJIATF built around 1st Canadian Division Headquarters.
• Phase 3 was a computer-assisted Command Post Exercise (CPX) that employed a realistic contemporary international scenario with operations being conducted within a sophisticated synthetic environment. This final phase of Stage 4 was centred on simulated full-spectrum operations ranging from deterrence to combat to security operations to planning for stability operations.

JOINTEX will allow us to further develop our replication of the contemporary and future operating environments in the live, virtual, and constructive training domains, all at the same time and in multiple locations.

— Lieutenant-General S.A. Beare
Commander, Canadian Joint Operations Command

In order to replicate the geographic dispersion of the scenario, the distributed network-enabled collective training event included the participation of CAF members at various locations across the country, including: Ottawa, Kingston, Winnipeg, Halifax, Valcartier and Edmonton.

Stage 5

Stage 5 was a joint and integrated computer-assisted Field Training Exercise and Command Post Exercise involving live, virtual and constructive players and equipment operating in a shared training environment. It was intended as the foundation for a standing framework of enhanced, reusable ways to emulate real-world contemporary and future operating environments.

Stage 5 exercised all components in a complex scenario designed to train participants to develop doctrine, tactics and procedures that enhance the Canadian Armed Forces’ ability to deliver integrated effects. Also, to exercise the Canadian national chain of command throughout the strategic, operational and tactical levels, it replicated a coalition task force with Canadian leadership.

The most complex network-enabled collective training event the Canadian Armed Forces have ever conducted, Stage 5 provided participants with reusable, repeatable and predictable opportunities to develop, learn and improve together.

Stage 5 also integrated and leveraged, on a non-interference basis, four force generation exercises, namely:

• Exercise TRIDENT FURY, conducted by the Royal Canadian Navy;
• Exercise MAPLE RESOLVE, conducted by the Canadian Army; and
• Exercise MAPLE FLAG, conducted by the Royal Canadian Air Force.