ARRC considers role of Corps headquarters on future battlefield

INNSWORTH, United Kingdom – The Allied Rapid Reaction Corps (ARRC) has held an exercise at its Gloucestershire base to develop the role of the Corps headquarters on the 'deep' battlefield.

Exercise ‘Arrcade Thor’ invited units from across the British Army and NATO to Imjin Barracks in Innsworth to look at corps-level war-fighting, and develop lessons learned from previous exercises ‘Arrcade Fusion 17’ last year and ‘Dynamic Front 18’ earlier this year.

"Thor concentrates on ‘the deep’ and specifically our role: the corps, and the corps headquarters in it,” said UK Lieutenant General Tim Radford CB DSO OBE, commander of HQ ARRC. "It forms a key part of our corps re-calibration, and aims to identify the gaps in our capabilities and knowledge.

"The purpose is to understand how we can improve our operational effectiveness as a corps headquarters, building on the success of the work which we did last year,” said Radford.

FUTURE AMBITION

‘Deep’ operations are considered to be those conducted at long range and over an extended timescale, against adversary forces not engaged at a more conventional ‘close’ range. Typically they may include information operations or surveillance and target acquisition.

The exercise attendees were split into working groups and given tactical vignettes to work against, developing and refining various aspects of corps war-fighting.

The primary officer in charge of Thor, British Army Major Ash Howard, thinks that while the exercise was successful, there is still work to do looking toward the future.

"It’s a big step forward within the concept of corps war-fighting in deep operations, and there’s been some really innovative ideas,” he said. "Thor is not the end solution. It’s a conceptual exercise, so we haven’t tested this, and a lot of the output will need development over the coming months.

The ARRC will now take lessons learned from Thor as it prepares to assume its role as the head of NATO’s Very High Readiness Joint Task Force headquarters later this year.

"Now we have to take those concepts and translate them into reality,” added Howard.

Story by Allied Rapid Reaction Corps Public Affairs Office