Using the DATE

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Using the DATE • TC 7-101 Exercise Design • Download

An operational environment is the "composite of the conditions, circumstances, and influences that affect the employment of capabilities and bear on the decisions of commanders." (JP 3-0)

DATEs are constructed using real-world conditions to challenge unit training objectives, they use composite data to provide an Operational Environment (OE) that can be manipulated for suitability to any training event, to include decisive operations. The PMESII-PT variables offer insight into each fictitious country’s independent, dynamic, and multidimensional environment. By defining these variables' makeup and interoperability as they relate to a specific country, a picture emerges of the environment's nature and characteristics.

The threat force structure for each OE provide a baseline for developing an Order of Battle for exercise implementation.

The DATE Knowledge Base provides scenario and exercise designers with the basis for their OE and OE Assessment products described in TC 7-101, Exercise Design.

DATE OEs are available for Caucasus(3.0), Africa, Europe, and Pacific.

What is DATE?

The intent of the DATE is to give enough detail for the designer to rapidly build a plausible scenario while describing a range of variations that allow for flexibility. For example, DATE describes the basic state of a country's economy, political system, or infrastructure, and then also describes the conditions that could cause that system to change for the better or worse. It also attempts to guide the amount of change that system could reasonably expect to sustain. At the designer's discretion, any DATE country could be allied or belligerent with any of the other DATE countries.

Key components and characteristics:

• A composite model of the real-world environment
• All conditions and actors are real; fictitious names used for AR 350-2 (Opposing Force Program) compliance
• DATE is centered on a region that provides a range of geographical features and conditions with embedded realistic actors that make up the full range of potential threat capabilities
• DATE provides the conditions required to effectively train for Decisive Action operations
• DATE provides all the conditions needed to realistically and effectively challenge ANY Army task – conditions were cross-walked with Decisive Action METL (mission essential task list)
• DATE provides multiple realistic challenges to collective tasks
• They provide complex OEs with Hybrid Strategies that can be employed to challenge any unit’s training objective
• Dynamic – regularly updated to incorporate new conditions
• Scalable – scale to level of complexity based on training objectives.

Operational Environments to 2028: The Strategic Environment for Unified Land Operations

Each DATE OE incorporates conditions projected to the year 2028 derived from the TRADOC OE White Paper, “Operational Environments to 2028: The Strategic Environment for Unified Land Operations”, August 2012. This document is the TRADOC G-2’s view of the current and near term strategic environment. The goal is to highlight the most significant global conditions and related military implications. Specifically, it is the selection and analysis of key conditions manifesting across the strategic environment through 2028.

TRADOC G-2 uses the OE White Paper to frame all OE work across the Army. Because only when the conditions of the OE are captured, understood, and factored into Army decision-making…only then can realistic training occur….the correct mix of systems and capabilities, and the proper approaches to leader development and education be identified and implemented across the Army. Thus, each DATE conditional framework is designed to optimize desired learning or training objectives within the Army Learning Model use for training, education, and leader development in both the operational and institutional domains.

Multi-Domain Operations (MDO)

The DATE Framework reflects the five main characteristics of Multi-Domain Operations (MDO) conducted in multiple environmental conditions (arctic, sub-arctic, and temperate continental climate) that are likely to impact land force operations in the future.  

• Potential for adversary overmatch - Overmatch is the application of adversary capabilities or unique tactics with the intent to prevent or mitigate U.S. forces tactics or equipment.
• Increased momentum of humanitarian interaction and events - Meeting the challenge of increased momentum will require the Army to integrate capabilities in time, space, and purpose to adapt quickly to momentum shifts.
• Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) - Solving future WMD challenges require ground forces that have the ability to endure for the considerable amounts of time in inhospitable conditions.
• Increasing importance of the cyber and space domains - As part of MDO, the cyber and space domains increasingly impact land force operations.
• Demographics and operations among populations in complex terrain - With continuing worldwide urbanization; populations in dense urban terrain will be a pervasive condition for future Army operations.

How to Use the DATE

The DATE is a tool for the training community to use across training events ranging from rotations at the Combat Training Centers (CTCs) to individual home station training (HST) events. It is the baseline document for all the conditions and characteristics of the Operational Environments(OE) in the selected region. Exercise planners should use this document for all exercise and scenario design requirements.

DATE was developed and designed to allow for flexibility and creativity in its application. Not all conditions in the document need to be represented during each training event. Specific training requirements should drive the scenario development and conditions replicated. If additional description or detail is needed for a given condition, each exercise planner can add that narrative to the condition. The goal is to keep the baseline conditions stable—including group naming conventions and associated conditions—while allowing for any additional narrative to be added as required by the training tasks. Fundamentally changing the basic nature of an operational variable in an OE will increase inconsistencies across the other variables and diminish the integrity of the scenario.

Examples of Consistent and Inconsistent Alterations to DATE content:

Consistent - Adding helpful detail to an operational variable in an OE

Inconsistent - Fundamentally changing the basic nature of an operational variable in an OE

Adding detail on the Bilasuvar Freedom Brigade (BFB) insurgent group, including biographies of main players. Shutting down the Baku subway due to a labor dispute or natural disaster. Limiting the size and number of Donovian units in play due to the country focusing its military efforts on other, higher-priority, issues. Creating a massive natural disaster in Ariana, where the helpful response by Western nations caused the Arianian government to moderate its inflationary rhetoric toward the West. A drought causes decreased employment in the agricultural field (currently over 50%) in Gorgas as people seek jobs in the services sector.

Changing the fundamental nature of the BFB to an anti-Donovian radical religious group. Stating that Baku has no underground tunnel systems. Reducing the size of the Donovian Army to one division. Creating a revolution that unseated the Arianian government and replaced it with a strongly pro-Western one. Saying that over 50% of the populace works in the oil industry when that industry can only support a fraction of such a workforce.

See also TC 7-101 Exercise Design.

Divergent Aspects of DATE from real-world OEs.

The dual and competing purposes of the DATE are to 1) provide a complex set of realistic training situations that a unit could face and 2) standardize a multipurpose exercise operational environment to reduce the "backstory learning curve" for exercise participants and the opposing forces (OPFOR). Therefore it cannot, by design, account for the complex dynamics that are considered in Mission Rehearsal Exercises (MRXs), and is not a substitute for them. TC 7-101 discusses the issues the command and training community should consider before deciding on a DATE or MRX-oriented training event.

Time

While describing OE variables requires a some historical narrative, the DATE Knowledge Base has intentionally reduced the timelines seen in earlier DATE products. The more detailed discussions may be helpful for particular OE assessments or "roads to war", however placing them in the overall body of DATE material would reduce the DATEs flexibility by fixing relationships between certain countries. Historical discussions are only used to provide a plausible rationale for why a condition might be the way it is.

Two different categories of dates exist in this document. The first are “fixed” dates, which are those that have a specific day/month/year. An example is the Council of Guardians Revolution in Ariana, which took place in early 1979. Fixed dates do not change with the passage of time. The second category is "sliding" dates, which are described as having occurred a certain number of years ago. An example is the Four Traitors incident in Donovia, which happened 20 years ago. Sliding dates change with the passage of time: an exercise held in 2014 would place the Four Traitors incident in 1994, while one held in 2023 will place the Four Traitors incident in 2003. With few exceptions, all post-1989 dates are sliding dates. The timelines provided in the Time variable of each OE are broken out by fixed and sliding dates for convenience, but some overlap of the two may occur.

Geography

The fictitious OEs of the DATE exist in four separate geographic regions. It may be frustrating that some territory adjacent to the DATE OEs is "grayed out" and only vaguely described in the narratives; this is often for strategic reasons and out of the hands of the development team.

DATE developers have broadened their geographic considerations to better reflect the differing conditions seen around the world. In addition, the intent is that an exercise designer can use as much or as little of each DATE framework as they please. For example, an exercise using DATE Africa as a base can have elements from across the 'DATE World', such as Olvana as a factor; or, alternatively, they might just utilize the relationship between two OEs such as Amari and Kujenga.

International Relations

The only nations in play for designers are own force (US and exercise partners) and DATE countries; the exceptions are the real-world European countries in DATE Europe, which can only be utilized as 'friendly forces', not hostile to the US or exercise partners. The United Nations and its various entities are also in play, however, the exercise participants and the DATE countries are the only acceptable force providers. Designers are free to describe relations between nations in the different DATE OEs. For example, the DATE Pacific country of Olvana may have a military mission to Amari in DATE Africa or Donovia in DATE Caucuses.

• OE Combatant Commands (COCOMs): No COCOM is defined for any of the OEs in the DATE. Instead, the exercise designer determines which COCOM each country will fall under for that exercise. This allows a COCOM to either “own” the entire region or be required to engage in inter-COCOM coordination due to other COCOM(s) having responsibility for one or more of the countries used in the exercise.

Providing Feedback

Community feedback for the DATE products is solicited from all users; if you would like to contribute please follow this link to APAN. (No log-on required).

Revision by the users is essential for the DATE Knowledge Base to serve the exercise design community. The wiki-media nature of the DATE Knowledge Base enables an easy, trackable, revision of all aspects on ODIN.

Errors

• internal contradiction or inconsistency between variables (e.g. a tier 1 military with a tier 5 GDP)
• factual error (usually related to the physical variable)
• aggregated conditions described do not exist in the target OE (e.g. overemphasis on one dimension within a variable skews the real story of the variable across the OE)

Omissions

• significant conditions in the OE not described in the DATE
• additional support required across variables to establish a plausible condition

Scope

Recommended revisions to increase the detail in either time (history) or space (geography) within the DATE should include rationale. Specifically, explain what training tasks cannot be fully developed in an exercise without the added detail.

Please review "Providing DATE Feedback"