Stalwart Guardian 04

[Spanky]

Just as long as you don't slag the Windsors for the difficulties experienced by others. ;D
Our recces went well thank you very much!!!!!

 

[QORvanweert]

My brother is a medic with 25 field hospital and participated in Stalwart. He told me that at the beginning of one engagement a recce company got chewed up rather badly by the guardsmen but other then this we did rather well... how do you think the week went?

 

[Redeye]

Wow... I didn't mean to start a big game of pokey-chest.  Armoured Recce does have an important role to play in the battle, but what I witnessed during SG04 wasn't too impressive.  I'm going to stick to no names, no units, no pack drill - because I'm not out to slag people just because of their cap badge.  What my hope is out of the PXR and AARs is that this sort of situation doesn't repeat itself in the future.

Here was the recce experience to which I was party:

The guide who met us on the beach was smoking a cigarette, first off, and that is an absolute showstopper to us.  When they (the ARR-types) tried to tell us the route they were taking us on to our ORV, they started to argue with our company commander, who politely (but firmly) informed them that he had no intention of using the ORV they had chosen, which would have been suitable as a vehicle harbour, but owing to its obvious use, most likely bracketed by enemy artillery and thus unsuitable.  After a bit of debate, he basically told them to beat it and got a recce det from the company to lead us to the objective and then to the extraction point.

My point is that it seems that since PRes Armd units are being re-roled into Armd Recce and then actually tasked with dismounted recce, some investment should be made in training these troops in cross-country navigation (which was apparently a common problem), dismounted recce skills, etc.  It was perceived by many that the fact that the routes were almost entirely blacktracks was an obvious sign of a disconnect, because the infantry just doesn't walk on the road, unless there really, really isn't any other option.

That whole thing was my only real point to improve on for the next SG.

 

[ackland]

My point is that it seems that since PRes Armd units are being re-roled into Armd Recce and then actually tasked with dismounted recce, some investment should be made in training these troops in cross-country navigation (which was apparently a common problem), dismounted recce skills, etc.   It was perceived by many that the fact that the routes were almost entirely blacktracks was an obvious sign of a disconnect, because the infantry just doesn't walk on the road, unless there really, really isn't any other option.

That whole thing was my only real point to improve on for the next SG.

not aan excusebut just a point. With the" since PRes Armd units are being re-roled into Armd Recce " You have to remember that some reservist ahavenot had time to take recce courses yet and will be doing so soon. A lot of old tankers who are used to moving big hunks of metal will take some time to make the adjustment to recce. It will happen eventually though.

Those people being spoken about in the repeating of the ssamestory are a few bad seeds. not the whole of the armed recce. Someone must have had a good recce experience.

 

[Gayson]

A lot of us incountered problems on that patrol.

A bunch of us set up a little hide that night as we were expecting a coy of infantry to arrive and make contact with using the light signal.  I was off sentry shift at the time getting some sleep, apparently 2 coy's of infantry ran by our position and did not reply to us when we were signalling them.

Than there was that crazy thick bush that gave us a little trouble navigating at first, but we managed and got to our objective on time.  >


As for the statement that being armoured recce guys we should have been mounted.  I have to disagree here, though we are primarily mounted being recce troups requires us to be able to operate dismounted.  When we do a recce it's not uncommon for us to drive part of the way than dismount to do our recce.  To me were considered armoured recce because we are highly mobile using vehicles like the griffins in that ex.  After all the iltis is hardly armoured. 

 

[ackland]

As for the statement that being armoured recce guys we should have been mounted.   I have to disagree here, though we are primarily mounted being recce troups requires us to be able to operate dismounted.   When we do a recce it's not uncommon for us to drive part of the way than dismount to do our recce.   To me were considered armoured recce because we are highly mobile using vehicles like the griffins in that ex.   After all the iltis is hardly armoured.    

We are supossed to do all our recces that way. You've been in what a year? off course for like a month? glad to see you are an expert on armoured recce tactics. Long foot recces are Infantry territory. We are supposed to be more manuverable and be able to be long distances a head of the brigade. 30 km and such. We are considered armoured because we are mounted and fall under the banner of the RCAC not because we are in armoured vehicles, although teh GGHG and 1st Hussars are. The Griffin ride was a treat not a norm. when you've been on more than one exersise and spent some time in the  role of a crewman you'll better understand how we opperate and what our tasks are.

Do you have your DP2 recce cousre yet? or are you stiil just a qualified iltis driver?

 

[Bruce Monkhouse]

Maybe one of the Mods could split this where we lost the food thing?  Sounds like this topic can live alone.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

It's understandable that there is friction between the Armoured recce and infantry. We never work together, so how would anyone expect to have interoperability and marry up drills. I was an O\C out ther and saw absolutely, around the bend, screwed up infantry types also. They couldn't navigate, meet timings or put in their attack properly. So it's not all one sided. Everyone needs practice, that's why they call it training. Instead of slagging each other, maybe you should get together with your correspoding unit and do some local ex's. Kinda like "OK, here's how we do this, we'd like to use you here. What do you think? Is this feasible and if so how do you think we should approach the problem?" Try working TOGETHER instead of against each other. You'll probably learn a lot from each other. Develop some drills for co-operation, write it up and send it to the Lesson Learned Centre. Maybe it'll be accepted and you won't have the clusterfucks that happened at SG 04. Put your energy to learning and trying instead of bitching.

 

[Jarnhamar]

It looks like the main problem (in the thread anyways) was that the armored guys did a recce with armored elements in mind instead of Infantry.  It could have easily been the infantry doing the recce for the armored and got it mixed up(not pointing fingers here).  It seems like someone dropped the ball and didn't enforce the fact on the armored guys that the hide/routes were for the infantry which have different considerations. Thats not a private/corporal decision. At which level would/should someone be held accountable for something like this?

Brigade ex's aside, is it possible (or maybe likely) that a reserve infantry company and a reserve armored squadren could work together on a week-end? Do some mutual training, get to know each other. See how each other work.  It seems simple enough but i'm guessing that for something like this to happen it has to go pretty high up the chain of command? Which of course takes time and before you know it the teamwork excersise you had planned for the fall got pushed back to the following spring which gets canceled because theres brigade excersises going on etc..
Infantry stuff is great and i still love doing it but it would be very interesting to start working with the armored, engineers and artillery some more. And i don't just mean "Here are your left and right arks. somewhere off to the left is another infantry company, to the right in reserve  are some armored guys"
Lets get the actual troops working together because were the ones who are going to be meeting up in the field.

 

[Fusaki]

How did you guys like the FIBUA stuff? My Enemy Force buddies claim the attacks on the FIBUA site were pretty one sided, but I'm curious to hear what it was like from another point of view. Do reservists use simunition often? Any thoughts on the house clearing drills?

 

[48Highlander]

one of the things that was brought up at our AAR is that the engineer and recce elements which we were using for the patrol should have been present for our AAR as well.  That way everyone could have learned from all of our mistakes instead of a couple of us slagging eachother on these forums.

 

[48Highlander]

How did you guys like the FIBUA stuff? My Enemy Force buddies claim the attacks on the FIBUA site were pretty one sided, but I'm curious to hear what it was like from another point of view. Do reservists use simunition often? Any thoughts on the house clearing drills?

Your buddies cheated.  I shot 4 of them at close range, they returned fire and ran away.  But even if they hadn't been cheating, it would have been one sided anyway.  You'd think that since our officers get paid to think, one of 'em might have realized that the enemy was attempting to funnel us into the bank building, or that at the very least they would have listened to a MCpl who was trying to explain it to them.  Or that, upon losing two platoons in one building, they may have changed their approach a bit.  Common sense aint so common.

 

[Redeye]

not aan excusebut just a point. With the" since PRes Armd units are being re-roled into Armd Recce " You have to remember that some reservist ahavenot had time to take recce courses yet and will be doing so soon. A lot of old tankers who are used to moving big hunks of metal will take some time to make the adjustment to recce. It will happen eventually though.

Those people being spoken about in the repeating of the ssamestory are a few bad seeds. not the whole of the armed recce. Someone must have had a good recce experience.

Well said - and a model of exactly what we need to get at - and like recceguy highlights, there was some junk infantry-types around too, no one is immune to ineptitude.  Hopefully this experience will amplify training deficiencies to the higher-ups so we can work together more successfully in the future.

 

[Spanky]

Some very good points have been made.  48th Highlander, you're right on the money regarding the AAR. It would have helped all elements maximumize the learning process.  Greater liason as part of battle procedure would have also prevented a lot of the problems experienced by some.  As stated earlier, the entire task was one that was new to armoured recce troops, at least our sqn.  As far as using tracks goes, our troop tried to keep it to a minimum.  The ground was rough going in most areas off the trails.  We can go back and forth forever, but the bottom line is that the AAR process was not used to the max.  Recceguy makes some valid observations regarding the need to work together during the year.

 

[Redeye]

Hopefully Brigade level training this year will reflect the need to better integrate these roles.  I'm hoping that we'll get to do more work with the armoured recce so as to make their recce work more useful to dismounted infantry, so at Endex we can all be pleased with the quality of integration of everyone's work, regardless of trade.

 

[Gayson]

We are supossed to do all our recces that way. You've been in what a year? off course for like a month? glad to see you are an expert on armoured recce tactics. Long foot recces are Infantry territory. We are supposed to be more manuverable and be able to be long distances a head of the brigade. 30 km and such. We are considered armoured because we are mounted and fall under the banner of the RCAC not because we are in armoured vehicles, although teh GGHG and 1st Hussars are. The Griffin ride was a treat not a norm. when you've been on more than one exersise and spent some time in the   role of a crewman you'll better understand how we opperate and what our tasks are.

Do you have your DP2 recce cousre yet? or are you stiil just a qualified iltis driver?

Yes I understand that, also never did I try to make myself to be an expert.  I have only my DP1 and am Iltis qualified.  I will be attending (hopefully) dp2 late october.  I know that the griffin ride was a treat (infact it was the highlight of my summer). 

Some of the things I have been posting here are things that I have learned through the unit that should be on the dp2.  We are mounted, but as i understand it, when doing a recce on say a bridge, we would dismount.  Also members of my unit have told me of many times where they would do dismounted reccies by night during weekend trg.

 

[Gayson]

Has anyone heard about some of the specific activities for next years CAC?  I am sure looking forward to it.

 

[Redeye]

The main effort is whatever the current euphemism for "Advance to Contact" is - it is all offensive operations and apparently will have no OBUA component (according to our Ops O, who was just at the conference.)

 

[PuckChaser]

Yep, from what I've heard its all offensive. Might even get to bring out the toys from my unit.

 

[Gayson]

I've been told that CAC is generally the culmitive ex for the training year, so likely most ex's this year should be on the offensive?