Information Warfare Team Trainer Continues to Effectively Ready Teams for Deployment

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. – The Afloat Watch-station Intelligence Course (AWIC) Teams, formally known as Information Warfare Team Trainer, in both Virginia Beach and San Diego are continuing to efficiently and effectively prepare afloat Information Warfare teams from the fleet for deployment.

AWIC is a scenario-based building block curriculum for commands that comprise Carrier Strike Groups, and Amphibious Readiness Groups, designed to help Sailors prepare for their Composite Training Unit Exercise, better known as COMPTUEX, as they seek deployment certifications.

The San Diego and Virginia Beach AWIC teams collaborate and coordinate training evolutions for deploying information warfare teams in order to help enable operational readiness across the fleet.

Cryptologic Technician Technical 1st Class Jasmine Turner, course supervisor for AWIC at the Virginia Beach site, explained that both officer and enlisted personnel within these Information Warfare teams are provided the knowledge and skills “to perform as an integrated Information Warfare team at the basic phase level, capable of providing indications and warnings for battlespace awareness to appropriate commanders in support of fleet intelligence operations.”

Turner summarized the course as an opportunity for teams to understand the baseline for how to run their watch floors while on deployment.

The AWIC course at IWTC Virginia Beach consists of three week long iterations (AWIC 1, 2, and 3) that steadily build in difficulty. AWIC 1 is a scenario simulated underway that helps supplementary plot and expeditionary plot Sailors develop their fundamental watch standing skills and processes, such as monitoring chat rooms and tactical reports, learn about the greater composite warfare command structure, and understand standard operating procedures. AWIC 2 increases the level of tension and amount of reporting during the simulated underway period, requiring the students to collaborate, incorporate, and fuse all source intelligence for the appropriate warfare commander. AWIC 3 raises the level of underway simulation to extremely heightened tensions and integrates all aspects of the information warfare community.

Cryptologic Technician Collection Chief Marlena Peter, the course supervisor for AWC at the San Diego site, described the cohesive and organic flow from AWIC 1 to AWIC 3 as a process that becomes “more kinetic and increasingly difficult as the teams becomes more proficient.” Only after teams are deemed proficient at the basic fundamentals can they proceed to the more difficult stages of the course.

The AWIC courses provide each command with a scenario based on the area of responsibility in which the command will be deployed. The Pacific and the Middle East are the current predominant options. The San Diego AWIC team has been instrumental in the development of new scenarios for the course, spearheading the development of a new series of 5th Fleet scenarios and the first ever scenario for 7th Fleet.

Thus far in 2023, Virginia Beach and San Diego have helped train eleven commands including seven Carrier Strike Groups (CSG) and four Amphibious Readiness Groups (CPR); including CSG-2 (USS Dwight D. Eisenhower), CSG-8 (USS Harry S. Truman), CSG-5 (USS Ronald Reagan), CSG-1 (USS Carl Vinson), CSG-9 (USS Theodore Roosevelt), CSG-3 (USS Abraham Lincoln), CPR-8 (USS Bataan), CPR-4 (USS Wasp), CPR-5 (USS Boxer), CPR-11 (USS America).

IWTCVB currently offers 74 courses of instruction in information technology, cryptology, and intelligence with an instructor and support staff of over 300 military, civilian, and contract members who train over 7,000 students yearly at five training sites. It is one of four schoolhouses for the Center for Information Warfare Training (CIWT) and also oversees learning sites at Fort Huachuca, Ariz.; Jacksonville and Mayport, Fla.; Kings Bay, Ga.; and Groton, Conn.

With four schoolhouse commands, two detachments, and training sites throughout the United States and Japan, Center for Information Warfare Training trains over 26,000 students every year, delivering trained information warfare professionals to the Navy and joint services. Center for Information Warfare Training also offers more than 200 courses for cryptologic technicians, intelligence specialists, information systems technicians, electronics technicians, and officers in the information warfare community.