Troy-based 42nd Infantry Division headquarters completes major computerized command post exercise
Six hundred Soldiers who drill at Troy Armory took part in the week-long simulated Warfighter drill in Pennsylvania
Troy, New York (02/13/2025) — Six hundred New York National Guard Soldiers assigned to the headquarters of the 42nd Infantry Division, who drill at the Troy Armory, completed a major command post exercise known as Warfighter on February 6.
The eight-day exercise conducted at Fort Indiantown Gap, Pennsylvania tested the ability of the division's headquarters Soldiers to fight and win against a major military force.
The staff and commanders of the 42nd Infantry Division practiced coordinating the actions of multiple infantry, armor, sustainment, fires, and aviation brigades in a battle with more than 10,000 Soldiers and billions of dollars' worth of equipment operating over hundreds of miles of terrain.
They did this using a highly detailed and realistic computer simulation known as WARSIM, short for Warfighter Simulation.
The Warfighter simulation evaluates the division staff's ability to develop plans and proficiency in responding to virtual battlefield scenarios.
The WARSIM program used for the exercise incorporates four different computer simulations at once to create the computerized battle, according to Carson Davis, the support team manager with the Combined Armed Center's Mission Command Training Program, which conducts the training.
Davis explained that the WARSIM is extraordinarily detailed and mimics the real world, down to the terrain features, the types of weapons systems used, their capabilities, and how engagements with the enemy are determined.
"Like with a tank, there's so many things you can and can't do," he said.
"You can make a fighting position for it. If you try to drive it up certain slopes, it won't go. It does a lot of things a normal tank can and can't do. There are a lot of things that the war sim does that are very, very accurate. And that accuracy is what makes the Warfighter realistic. The more accurate the simulation is, the more realistic the Warfighter is," he explained.
The focus of the training was on battling what the Army calls a "peer competitor". That translates into a military force which has tanks, artillery, helicopters, missiles, and aircraft similar to those used by the United States.
The Army calls this kind of fight " Large Scale Combat Operations" or LSCO, for short. The U.S. military has not faced this kind of enemy since World War II.
For the Soldiers of the 42nd Infantry Division, the information they received from the simulation is an accurate replication of what they would see during actual combat operations, ," said Col. Andrew Couchman, the division's operations officer.
The training they conduct on mission command functions effectively prepares the division staff to deploy and successfully conduct operations when called upon, he said.
"If it were to do this for real in a conflict zone, we would still be in that (command post) environment," Couchman said.
"Even though the people that were commanding the down trace units and the Soldiers, they'll be out on the on the front lines, but we would still be in that command post environment to have to control such a wide network, wide area of operation that has all these Soldiers under them," he said.
On top of the mandated training requirements placed on the division from the Army, the senior leadership also added additional tasks.
These were not required by the exercise evaluators but are vital to the division's success during real-world operations, such as the location of the main command post and conducting a command post "jump," where the location is rapidly moved from one location to another during operations.
Media Attachments
New York Army National Guard Soldiers assigned to 42nd Infantry Division relay command directives during the division’s Warfighterexercise at Fort Indiantown Gap, Pa.m, on Jan. 29, 2025. More than 1,300 National Guard Soldiers participated in the massive command post exercise, participating around the clock, making decisions involving logistics, intelligence, operations and tactics. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Grace Nechanicky, 42nd Inf. Div. public affairs)
New York National Guard
Lt. Col. Jean Kratzer, 518-786-4581Share this Story
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