Last fall's live Bold Alligator exercise proved to be so large and elaborate the Marine Corps and Navy are waiting an extra year before hosting the next one.
At the Amphibious Warship Industrial Base Coalition forum in Washington , D.C. Tuesday morning, Marine Corps Forces Command chief Lt. Gen. Robert Neller laid out a schedule for the next five Bold Alligator events, featuring the next live exercise in 2017. Since the event's inception in 2011, the live exercises have taken place during on even-numbered years, alternating with synthetic exercises in between on the odd years.
Neller offered some statistics that put the planning delay in perspective. The 2014 live event featured 19 ships from five different navies, he Neller said, and some about 15,000 personnel from 19 different countries were involved in all.
The theme of the event was crisis response, and the large scale and joint nature of the event allowed U.S. commanders to explore ways to scale and coordinate military efforts involving more amphibious warships than the three built into a Marine expeditionary unit/amphibious ready group complement.
Mexican marines transport their gear to a UH-1Y Venom helicopter during Exercise Bold Alligator 2014. The Navy and Marine Corps coordinate with several foreign militaries during Bold Alligator, so they're postponing the next live exercise by one year.
Photo Credit: Lance Cpl. Tanner Casares/Marine Corps
It also involved daunting levels of coordination, which included balancing real-world requirements and missions for the ships involved in the exercise.
"As we look at the maintenance and the deployment schedule and the transit schedule," the extra time to plan such an elaborate event makes sense, Neller said. "A large amount of ships increases the degree of difficulty."
Later this year, Neller said the Navy and Marine Corps will ould host a Bold Alligator table-top exercise focused on unit-level training. In 2016, the services would execute another synthetic exercise centered on a theme not yet disclosed.
The next live exercises will take place in 2017 and 2019. In with 2018, officials will host reserved for workshops and seminars in preparation for the 2019 following exercise, Neller said. He did not name the themes for either of those events.
Meanwhile, the Marine Corps continues to work with the Navy to improve collaboration in amphibious exercises, he said, including the development of a campaign plan for amphibious operations training that uses the Bold Alligator exercises as capstone events to develop various concepts.
The plan's goals include better visibility, availability and usage for amphibious ships for unit-level training and development of a collaborative Navy-Marine Corps network to share observations and lessons learned.
