Collective Training in the Army

[PPCLI Guy]

so let the commanders build the training for their troops. LFDTS certainly has a role to play, particularly with the Battle Task Standards, but lets try to stay a little loose. Fighting a variety of enemies keeps us on our toes. In addition, lets allow people to use initiative and their own brain power instead of waiting for one place to do all that thinking.

That sounds suspiciously like either heresy or common sense....

 

[jeffb]

We don't know who we will be fighting, so let the commanders build the training for their troops. LFDTS certainly has a role to play, particularly with the Battle Task Standards, but lets try to stay a little loose. Fighting a variety of enemies keeps us on our toes. In addition, lets allow people to use initiative and their own brain power instead of waiting for one place to do all that thinking.

I think that this logic works well to a point. Individual training needs to be driven by LFDTS in order to ensure a commonality of skills so that we all have a common starting point.  However, I think that the greatest skill that we need to train in our junior leaders is the ability make decisions in an uncertain environment. Having a situation EN that is driven by commanders, rather than by doctrine, forces everyone to apply creative solutions and delivers more realistic training in that participants won't be able to predict what OPFOR is going to do, or even their composition.

 

[daftandbarmy]

Hey RG.

Comapred to the brits - The workup times for our troops for deployment

dont speak very well about either collective OR Individual training

Feel free to call me on this

we may be dinosaurs but the idea of a 6 month workup for europe in the cold war was just not on, then.

But try to tel 'them' that and they think you're carzy!

 

[vonGarvin]

I don't think that we need to be that dogmatic. This year I've trained with a pure conventional enemy in Europe, another pure conventional enemy in the desert, a very mixed enemy in Africa, a conventional/guerrilla force and we will soon be exercising against another mixed bag of enemy. We don't know who we will be fighting, so let the commanders build the training for their troops. LFDTS certainly has a role to play, particularly with the Battle Task Standards, but lets try to stay a little loose. Fighting a variety of enemies keeps us on our toes. In addition, lets allow people to use initiative and their own brain power instead of waiting for one place to do all that thinking.

I don't mean to say that "there is but one scenario, and you will train it!", but rather have a comprehensive set of scenarios that allows units to pick and choose from a virtual "menu", that will allow you to fight conventional in Europe, in desert, etc.  I only mean to have a set of scenarios, with enough of a "back story" to allow units to focus on the basics to fight a superior force, peer force, inferior force or even a guerrila force. 

 

[daftandbarmy]

I don't mean to say that "there is but one scenario, and you will train it!", but rather have a comprehensive set of scenarios that allows units to pick and choose from a virtual "menu", that will allow you to fight conventional in Europe, in desert, etc.  I only mean to have a set of scenarios, with enough of a "back story" to allow units to focus on the basics to fight a superior force, peer force, inferior force or even a guerrila force.

Yes... and also make sure the various HQs are also trained to manage in those environments. Door kickers/gunslingers and map markers/coffee drinkers need to be equally good at their jobs in these fast changing times....

 

[Webgear]

Sorry, been busy with some real life issues for the last month or so.

Technoviking, not sure if you are aware CTS has been replaced with CCTS. Think of CTS but with more enhanced detail on a lot of levels.

Tango2Bravo - I agree about the INT cell being a blackhole, I think it is an issue that is being resolved slowly over time.

I guess my issue with Lessons Learn, was the passage of information, seemed to be a hit and miss system. I would receive products for a few months and then nothing for a few months.

 

[Infanteer]

Wow; how did I miss this one.

With respect to the CT / IT balance, I believe that we have it all wrong.  In the period 96-03, we stopped doing large scale CT.  The result was that we increased IT to counter the lack of experiential learning.  Once we started doing large scale CT again (BTE 03 was the largest exercise conducted by the Army since RV 95), we failed to scale back on the IT.  Somehow, we have got it into our heads that the best way to train a Recce Patrolman is to add another two weeks to the Basic Recce course.  The alternative is to take the time, money, eqpt and ammo required to extend the IT and use it to go on a Battalion exercise, where the Recce Patrolman can actually employ his new found skills.

A critical point.  This may stem back to our old mentality that worshiped the quals; where things like Pathfinder, Ranger and whatnot where seen as penultimate.  Now-a-days, 7 months in the box as a leader in combat (or supporting/managing combat operations) is the bar we've set for ourselves.

Road to High Readiness Training is gobbled up by PCF cycles; perhaps these cycles could be shortened (or somewhat done away with) if it was recognized that IT validation can only take place in a CT environment.  That's great that you spent all that time on Advanced Recce, but you're real chances of being an effective Recce Pl Comd is being a Recce Pl Comd for 4-6 good exercises, not coming back to run PCF courses before turning the Platoon over to the next guy because of rapid turnover times in the battalion.

As for collective training, I want to see three things:

1.  More emphasis on free play.  Maple Guardian is the only place where I've seen it exercised, and it isn't even really good there (the suicide bomber may not hit you here, but he'll hit you there; he's going to hit you because we've tasked him to hit you today).  I've often wondered how things would work if we put a Cdn BG at the north end of Suffield, a Brit BG in the south end, gave them some Frag Os and sent them on their way.  Free play should let you get the stuffing kicked out of your unit - take an 8 day ex and run 4 iterations on the same ground.

2.  Sustained tactical exercises.  I haven't been on many tactical exercises lately.  I've been to a lot of gun camps, where we go out for a few hours and run a scenario and then come back to our tents and blackberries; repeat for 40 days, check a few boxes and poof, you're OPREAD.  Put a unit in the box for 3 weeks and really exercise it.

3.  More focus on fighting, less on enabling.  For some reason, collective training is all about enablers.  I watched a lot of money get spent so my guys could sit in the back of a LAV and watch Apaches, M 777s and F-18s destroy a month's worth of targetry construction.  They'd dismount and put a few piddly rounds into a figure 11.  I've seen a Level 6 range where infantrymen have not fired a rifle.  Well, we fight like we train and now it seems it is all about letting the FOO and the JTAC fight over who will close with and destroy the enemy.  I'd also be curious in seeing how many 031s remember how to dig a stage 6 (stage 3 now, right!).  "Conventional" has become a bad word in our profession, and we need to reverse that mentality.

My 2 cents for the forum to debate and discuss, anyways.

 

[daftandbarmy]

3.  More focus on fighting, less on enabling.  For some reason, collective training is all about enablers.  I watched a lot of money get spent so my guys could sit in the back of a LAV and watch Apaches, M 777s and F-18s destroy a month's worth of targetry construction.  They'd dismount and put a few piddly rounds into a figure 11.  I've seen a Level 6 range where infantrymen have not fired a rifle.  Well, we fight like we train and now it seems it is all about letting the FOO and the JTAC fight over who will close with and destroy the enemy.  I'd also be curious in seeing how many 031s remember how to dig a stage 6 (stage 3 now, right!).  "Conventional" has become a bad word in our profession, and we need to reverse that mentality.

No doubt we are becoming victims of 'me too -itis'.

I recall a discussion I had with a colleague who returned from a job as a 'contractor', and had worked with alot of special forces guys. He had been CTC trained and introduced wild and crazy concenpts like formal O Groups, NATO standard orders formats, proper battle procedure... all the things we tend to take for granted. It worked like stink, apparently, and said volumes about some of the challenges 'special' units have in executing operations. It also underlined for me that our 'basics' really are the building blocks of all successful ops, and we should continue to hammer those home and practise them under a variety of conditions. Then you can layer on the fancy stuff after that all you like.