Tabletop exercises

X. Emergency program training, drills, and tabletop exercises... 

The development of innovative and provocative CW- and BW-related wargames and exercises is sorely needed throughout the Navy. The committee observes that useful tabletop exercises, the Desert Breeze series (Commander, Fifth Fleet) and the Coral Breeze series (Commander, Pacific), have been developed and that learnings from the exercises led to both operational and materiel changes in force posture. The CNO should task the CFFC to enlist the appropriate expertise to enable more such exercises. These exercises should be conducted by the numbered fleet commanders and by OPNAV staff at the three-star level to facilitate education in dealing with chemical and biological threats. 

To remain effective, response options detailed in contingency plans must be tested frequently. This testing is conducted by responding to a practice spill as though it were real. This varies from a tabletop exercise to large-scale field exercises in which equipment is deployed and oil is actually spilled and recovered. Such exercises not only maintain and increase the skills of the response personnel, but also lead to improvements and fine tuning of the plan as weaknesses and gaps are identified. 

In November 2003, a secret cabinet-level tabletop exercise, designed to be very stressful to the system was thus conducted, which simulated the simultaneous release of anthrax in different types of aerosols in several American cities. The drill, code named Scarlet Cloud, found that the country was better able to detect an anthrax attack than it was 2 years ago, said officials knowledgeable about the exercise. But they said the exercise also showed that antibiotics in some cities could not be distributed and administered quickly enough and that a widespread attack could kill thousands particularly, enormous difficulties stopping the spread of contamination through the country and into Canada were observed [219]. 

Using the PSSR program PSM administrative procedure, walk through the steps for a mock change in a tabletop exercise. 

Given a change or trigger event, complete the PSSR documentation (electronic or hardcopy) using the results of the tabletop exercise. 

Holloway, L. G. (2007). Emergency preparedness Tabletop exercise improves readiness. Professional Safety, 52(8), 48-51. 

All three forms of exercises (tabletop, functional, and full-scale) and incident responses will benefit from an immediate oral and later written critique by the players, controllers, and evaluators. The discussions should address whether the response was consistent with the emergency plan and procedures and, if it is an exercise critique, whether the exercise objectives... 

Drills/ Exercises Tabletop Full-scale simulation Internal and external safety and security responders... 

Tabletop or simulation exercises may be a good way to evaluate changes to these staffing policies. A procedure for assessing minimum control room staffing can be found in Example B.5 within Appendix B.

Strength. Encouragingly, the improvements in movement ability were comparable with those of a control group that received a matched amount of traditional tabletop occupational then y exercise. 

A scenario that has a relatively high probability of occurring for the situation under examination. As part of emergency response planning, credible scenario exercises or pre-planning is undertaken. In order to avoid undue and unrealistic postulation of events that may occur, a collection of credible scenarios is identified and assembled. These can be based on past loss histories or on risk assessments that have been undertaken for the specific aspect being reviewed. See also Pre-incident Planning Scenario Tabletop Drill. 

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