T-REX Hits New Heights in Human Performance Training Research Published Nov. 17, 2009 By Dr. Joseph Weeks 711th Human Performance Wing WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio -- Air Force Research Laboratory's Warfighter Readiness Research Division, or RHA, hosted a select group of highly experienced joint warfighters for T-REX 09-1, an important RHA Air and Space Operations Center Training Research Exercise geared towards investigating the immersive learning, information simulation, and other leading-edge tactics used with success in training Falconer Combined Air and Space Operations Center Dynamic Effects Cell personnel. Training DEC in Distributed Mission Operations is a challenge when competing objectives or incomplete scenarios limit the extent to which participants can exercise acquired knowledge and skills to reflect their full mission readiness. T-REX 09-1 entailed an optimized scenario involving select DMO capabilities in order to focus intensive training on the DEC team. T-REX 09-1 research objectives targeted improved mission readiness via a single, continuous scenario containing complex targeting problems designed to exercise the full spectrum of challenges and decisions in both conventional targeting and asymmetric warfare. Trainees faced a cell-structured adversary integrated with a local population and an adjacent country's special operations forces. The adversary was technically proficient, expert in counterinsurgency, aggressive, and not constrained by laws of armed conflict. The scenario challenged the team to react quickly and correctly to target adversary warfighting capabilities and support structure while also abiding stringent strategic guidance and coalition country rules. The combined team led the force in the first trial and analysis of emerging joint command and control, C2, doctrine and improvised explosive device network defeat tactics, techniques, and procedures, as well as emerging Internet Relay Chat employment TTPs. Seven scenario controllers constituting the "white cell" created a realistic, information-rich environment that set the stage for the 11-member AOC DEC to tackle the challenge with a much broader set of tools than conventional dynamic targeting training. The exercise's detailed scenario and range of available assets provided a forum both for training research across the spectrum of solutions and for simultaneous test of integrated kinetic and nonkinetic complementary operations. The research targeted effective analysis and debrief of team performance in areas including C2, systems integration, emerging assessment and debrief tools, communication, white force integration, and continuous learning. Subject-matter expert analysis will investigate adherence to draft TTPs and effects on mission performance by examining message effectiveness, chat room use, effects of chat format/content on situational awareness, and chat information transfer to the Joint Automated Deep Operations Coordination System collaborative tool. This data reduction and analysis will guide collaborative development and update of emerging and existing after-action reporting tools under development with RHA. T-REX continues to provide a forum for testing new methodologies and technologies that will enhance warfighter training, translating to a better-prepared force for fighting today's war. Data collected through assessment systems, along with feedback gathered from warfighters, will provide scientists with valuable insight into the analysis of team performance at the operational level of warfare, as well as the transition of effective training methods to Air Combat Command for incorporation into AOC training worldwide.