ARRC JOURNAL
EX ARRCADE LIGHTNING 17
– A NEW MODEL FOR
PROFESSIONAL STUDY?
Brig Paul Tennant (GBR-A)
Staff Ride, Battlefield Tour or Terrain Walk – Why not the best of all three?
President of Poland, Mr Andrzej Duda with COMARRC, Lt Gen Tim Radford,
DCOS Ops, Brig Gen Andrew Rohling and Minister for Internal Security, Poland,
Mr Pawel Soloch
The Staff Ride has historically been a
useful filter to examine our behaviours
and preconceptions, and to ensure as
far as possible that we are pursuing a
change because it is necessary to do
so. That confidence can be reinforced
by military precedent, usually a specific
campaign.
The trouble with this
approach revolves around 2 core truths:
firstly, human beings are not on the
whole as well attuned to what we should
not learn from something as opposed
to what we should; and secondly, the
long (relative) peace since the Second
World War, combined with tremendous
technological progress, has changed the
character (and some would even argue,
the nature) of warfare to such an extent
that the rhyme of history is less obvious
or relevant.
It was with this backdrop in mind that
HQ ARRC conceived the idea for Ex
ARRCADE LIGHTNING 17. Its aim
was threefold: to understand the ground
in relation to Offensive and Defensive
Corps operations, with an eye to
ARRCADE FUSION 17 (AF17) 1 ; to study
ALLIED RAPID REACTION CORPS
real world issues and local perspectives;
and to conduct Key Leader Engagement
in Poland and the Baltic States. Its stated
balance was to focus around 60% on the
contemporary (to include the ground over
which we might operate) and around
40% on the historical and the synthetic
(the latter specific to the scenario for
AF17). Loosely, therefore, one could
argue that it was planned as 60% Terrain
Walk and 40% Staff Ride. For want of
a better term, I would describe it as a
Regional Immersion.
Attending, in addition to the 25 or so key
members of the ARRC Command Group,
were the 5 Divisional Commanders in
the AF17 ORBAT and a host of key 1*
officers across the joint and multinational
spectrum. The journey started in HQ
ARRC in Gloucester with a morning
of academic context. The party then
flew to Warsaw, and travelled through
the Suwalki Gap, to Kaunas, then
to Siauliai and eventually left from
Riga. It was optimised at the 2* level,
included detailed country briefings at
ARRCADE LIGHTNING training audience boards a boat on the River Neman west of Kaunas, Lithuania,
prior to discussing the challenges of Corps obstacle crossings
1 ARRCADE FUSION 17 was a Corps Warfighting CPX situated in Northern Europe.
20
It is debatable
whether there is
any
difference
between a Staff
Ride
and
a
Battlefield
Tour.
There is, however,
a clear difference
between these two,
and the much more
recent framework
of a Terrain Walk;
which
more
directly looks at
the contemporary
context,
and
whose
primary
filter is not history
but geography.