WASHINGTON — Army Reserve Soldiers have engaged in large scale ground combat exercises traversing the rugged, Northern California landscape of Fort Hunter Liggett to the arid badlands of the Mojave in the south.
Exercise Mojave Falcon began May 28, 2025, with more than 9,000 reservists and active-duty Soldiers from across the force participating in higher stakes logistics transportation training. In recent years, the Army has transitioned for counterinsurgency operations to more traditional ground combat. The Army Reserve has augmented its transition to large scale battles in Mojave Falcon 25 its biggest exercise to date.
For 16 days, more than 160 units using over 2,000 vehicles will conduct training that will also stretch to additional locations at the Port of Long Beach in Southern California, Edwards Air Force Base and Fort Irwin. Additionally, the annual Quartermaster Liquid Logistics Exercise, or QLLEX will be held 5 locations across the country in Fort Barfoot, Virginia; Fort Bragg, North Carolina; Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, New Jersey; Camp Atterbury, Indiana; and Camp Pendleton.
Mojave Falcon also supports another reserve exercise, Nationwide Move, where reservists test their abilities in logistics transport and movement of equipment from home stations to training locations. With the help of the Navy, Soldiers will face a variety of simulated attacks while loading equipment and supplies from sea vessels.
For the first time, Army Reserve Soldiers will take part in platform live fire training. Global Medic personnel will treat casualties and perform medical evacuations in austere field environments.
Soldiers will also have the opportunity to test the newly fielded Joint Battle Command-Platform, or JBC-P and Command Post Computing Environment, mission information systems that allow faster communication speeds and data sharing.
The Reserve has expanded its combat support training exercises to meet real world combat readiness requirements, said Lt. Col. Kevin Falvo, senior exercise planner for the 91st Training Division. Soldiers will drive tactical vehicles from ships to move equipment and supplies over vast stretches of terrain and highways. Falvo said units will also transport fuel to ports.
A realistic, large scale ground battle exercise helps Army reservists, who have limited opportunities to train, to re-acquaint themselves with moving commodities and equipment, Falvo said. Soldiers will track their supply levels and logistics needs. For example, a unit will record how much fuel its vehicles consume during a battle.
“[If you] needed [to support] an emergency push, for example,” Falvo said, “[T]hose kind of stresses are more real. There's more of a synaptic sort of connection with the staffs and the missions on the ground that are trying to plan and support.”
“And it allows them to see, I think, in a more realistic way, what commodity [use] looks like for a BCT that's actually fighting another brigade,” he added.
The exercises will simulate supplementing combat units in a real world battle scenario. Reservists also take part in reception, staging, onward movement and integration or RSOI.
Mojave Falcon will explore how to prepare and simulate attacks in the corps rear area of formations, Falvo said. The exercise will force units to protect themselves in areas away from the front line from small arms fires, indirect fire, surveillance and improvised explosive devices or IEDs.
“Just in planning alone, watching the expeditionary sustainment brigade or sustainment command run through its planning, it's great to see Soldiers exercising that brainpower and practicing those skills,” Falvo said.
Active duty Soldiers from the 570th Engineering Company from Joint Base Lewis-McCord, Washington will act as hostile forces testing the friendly units of reservists to react and plan for a variety of attacks.
Additionally, the 79th Theater Sustainment Command, based in Los Alamitos, California, will test communications taking part in QLLEX to a command center in Mojave Falcon.
“They have a lot of units and a theater worth of sustainment that's going to be falling underneath them,” Falvo said of the 79th TSC. “So their staff has to have the ability to receive that information, synthesize it, and provide guidance to those units on how to respond to the dynamic logistical environment.”
RELATED LINKS
Army Reserve father and son serve together at Mojave Falcon 25
Social Sharing