Hmmm, interesting. My course was the last 5s one to have our ex the "old" way (just our course). We had heard about the school trying out doing the ex combined 3s and 5s and were curious as to how it would turn out. Some possible problems we discussed were:
- the det comd basically doing shyte-all for a week in the back of the truck (I mean, setup wise), as during our 3s ex we would rotate through this position. Even though none of us filled the det comd role fully (no orders or anything) but it would give us a bit of a break between setups. Just out of curiousity, how many moves did you guys do a day? And were you stuck in the Gore, or did you go out to other locations too, oh, and did you do any night moves?
- 5s guys being stuck with shytepumps from the 3s courses, which would cause them to fail their det comd portion, or, I suppose, vice-versa, 3s guys getting stuck with a crappy det comd who didn't know his ass from his elbow. But I suppose this is a more realistic situation then having 3 guys at the same level or training in the same det.
-5s guys not knowing alot of the equipment was a problem on our course too, one reason being alot of guys came from units that did mainly NCCIS stuff and little or no tac rad at all. A collective solution might have been to go over some of the radio equipment during the field prep on the 5s course, since we did none of that. On our course, the guy who was more familiar with the equipment kinda went over it with the others in the det and we took it from there.
-Ah yes, we had that game of Risk going during our ex too. (Guess that officer must've thought it was a brilliant idea.) Personally, I think a 3s ex needs alot more VP practice then that - during our 3s ex we were supposed to make up traffic based on our scenerio alot more then we did this yr. Actually, a 5s ex could've used more VP practice too, but that's another issue...
More officers involved with the dets? Dear Lord...I'm going to stay far, far away from that minefield... ;D