CORPORATE STAFF RIDES

November 19, 2013

CSI remains the most important driver of virtual reality training innovation, as well as the military's premier support agency for deepening the institutional adaptation of staff rides all over the globe.

With the staff and logistical structure of a satellite office of a global management consultant like Bain or McKinsey, it gives active support for more than 40 traditional battlefield visit-based sites and a half dozen 1-hr to 1-day Virtual Staff Rides based on recent operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and ranging from ambushes and roadblock up through complex joint operations. Neither intense budget or political pressures have lessened the demand for staff rides - and creativity continues at an accelerating pace despite the new budgetary vocabulary: sequestration, furlough, shutdown, etc.

In purely training terms, the utility of the virtual staff ride is to be able to walk (indeed ‘fly over’) the ground (albeit digitally) in places that are inaccessible. The current cycle of virtual reality staff ride modules, for example, all based on contemporary operations have direct relevance to ongoing and anticipated operations and leadership imperatives, but the financial cost and security concerns of conducting a ride on site are prohibitive.

Visionary Corporate Leaders Adapting Military Mobile Training Technology will set the stage for the next level of Staff Ride innovation.

Other recent CSI announcements of importance to the professional staff ride community include:

1) CSI recently announced availability of a Virtual Staff Ride of the 2004 Fallujah Campaign, a 4 hour staff ride examining the operation to secure the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, Iraq in November 2004. Combining 3D imagery, photos, video, AAR’s etc for the first real Unified Land Operations Staff Ride, esp. appropriate for brigade and division –level commanders and NCO’s.

2) “The Wilmington Campaign: Personality and Joint Operations, 1864-1865.” This one-day staff ride examines the culminating campaign of the Union blockade of the Confederacy and highlights the direct strategic effects of the fall of Wilmington, North Carolina

3) “The Black Hawk War, 1832.” Following a successful and popular series of CSI products for the Cheyenne, Sioux, and Nez Perce Wars, “The Black Hawk War, 1832” is an examination of a past American conflict possessing all of the challenges encountered in recent Army operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

4) “Staff Ride Handbook for Dade's Battle, Florida, 28 December 1835” is the eleventh volume in the Combat Studies Institute's Staff Ride Handbook series.

5) Instructors from the Staff Ride Team took School for Advanced Military Studies classes to Vicksburg.

6) Instructors continue development of Staff Ride of Battle of Pilot Knob, MO (26-27 September 1864)

7) Instructors are conducting Virtual Staff Rides overseas with NATO allies