My first maintenance meeting as a company commander may as well have been conducted in a foreign language, it might sound similar for you. “Alright commanders, I want all of you to talk me through your 5988 flow, now let’s discuss all your ancillary equipment on the slash fault ESR. CPT Edwards, could you tell me how many ORILs you have turned in this week?” The vehicular imperative is an HRC initiative to broaden officers across BCT types: IBCT, SBCT, and ABCT. In practice, it pushes light fighters to Armored Brigade Combat Teams (ABCTs) across the force. I was one of those former light fighters. While bridging the gaps was difficult, the lessons were invaluable.
I completed the Maneuver Captains Career Course with zero experience in an ABCT. Commanding in a mechanized formation, with all its challenges, is incredibly rewarding. Officers with years of experience in Infantry Brigade Combat Teams (IBCTs) have much to offer and learn while serving as company commanders in ABCTs. Success for infantrymen in ABCTs require commanders to embrace a maintenance culture, equally emphasize mounted and dismounted training, and fostering lethality by synchronizing mounted and dismounted capabilities.
Embracing the Maintenance Enterprise
The journey begins with humility. It’s likely your executive officer (XO) will know more about the maintenance enterprise in your brigade than you will early in your command. Leverage it. Most of us were executive officers in IBCTs. Although many of the same skills apply, our focus is often different.
As an executive officer, I primarily focused on resourcing training. The Training Support Meeting (TSM) was the most influential meeting that battalion held. We made deals, confirmed land, and shifted ammunition around. As an executive officer, I went immediately from that meeting to my commander’s office.
An ABCT XO’s most important meeting is the battalion maintenance meeting. Your XO will be armed with your maintenance priorities. He or she will discuss Field Maintenance Team (FMT) support, bay space, and parts pick-up. In an IBCT the TSM lasted two hours and the maintenance meeting was 30 minutes. This is reversed in an ABCT.
Know the Players
You must understand the key maintenance players in your formation. Engage your FMT Chief, have daily interactions with the maintenance control officer and the holder of all keys in the motor pool, your maintenance technician. Your relationships inside the motor pool will facilitate your future training and your knowledge of the maintenance enterprise will allow you to effectively develop a Command Maintenance Program.
The Science of Maintenance
Understanding the science of maintenance in an ABCT is critical to effectively leading a company. Commanders excel by establishing a sustainable Command Maintenance Program. It must be proactive instead of reactive. Commanders provide time and resources to subordinates and synchronize them with their priorities. Maintenance is no different.
If it is important to you, then you must align your time and resources accordingly. Protecting services on the calendar and executing them deliberately is a positive step. In our battalion, the unit reserves a full month for company services. The company doesn’t conduct training during that time period. Leaders protect that time with fervor to holistically attack the maintenance in our company. Crews spend weeks focusing on cleaning up 5988s (expunging acted upon faults and reordering parts long forgotten) and conducting hull and turret maintenance. Meanwhile, dismounts complete weapons and ancillary equipment services.
Companies executed services as a tactical operation. This included a company operations order, company CP (in the maintenance bay) and an out brief to the battalion commander. Commanders are active during this entire month. They continually place themselves at points of friction.
Presence = Priority
Secondly, commanders must physically involve themselves in their own maintenance program. Conducting daily checks on vehicle commanders and engaging with mechanics is paramount to success. Platoon leaders and platoon sergeants must be as accountable for the maintenance of their vehicles as they are for the conduct of a live fire range. Platoon leaders are responsible for knowing the status of their downed pacers. They also have to know if parts are on order, have they passed Z Park, and the expected shipment / arrival date.
A successful stressor is requiring platoon leaders to brief the battalion commander on all downed pacers once it hits the deadlined ESR. This is not meant to chastise a platoon leader for a non-mission capable Bradley. Pacers require maintenance all the time. But it is meant to stress the importance of maintaining awareness and pressure to fix downed vehicles. Weekly company maintenance meetings allowed me to stay informed and articulate my priorities not only for our combat platforms but for all my commodity shops.
During our maintenance meetings we followed the shoot, move, and communicate format as an effective way to tie our maintenance together. Identifying broken equipment is the first step however, the output from a company maintenance meeting should entail what is happening next and how are we using all the Army’s systems to fix our equipment.
Make Maintenance Relevant
Finally, link maintenance to something that resonates with your soldiers. For infantrymen, that means the ability to close with and destroy the enemy. After all, if a Bradley is non-mission capable, it cannot kill the enemy or deliver infantrymen to a position of advantage where they can. Infantrymen respond well when discussing lethality; fix your Bradley so you can kill the enemy. That engenders a more energetic response to maintenance than fix your Bradley so it doesn’t remain on the ESR.
Company Bradley Services
Maintenance is not solely executed in the motor pool, the tautness of a company’s maintenance rope has to be maintained in the field. The same meetings, priorities, and efforts need to be conducted in a field environment. For my company’s CP, we had specific battle boards platoon leaders were required to update and brief to articulate their fleets maintenance. Increasing your operational readiness rate by aggressively implementing your maintenance program will allow you to focus on future training events. It will prepare you for the arduous task of increasing the lethality of your dismount and mounted soldiers.
Increasing Lethality across the Formation
Qualification ranges, advanced rifle marksmanship, close quarters marksmanship, support by fire live fire, team live fire, and squad live fire are the pillars of a light company’s training density window. However, for a mechanized force, a commander must accomplish all those tasks with their dismounted infantrymen while simultaneously increasing their crew lethality. How is a commander to accomplish all this? To effectively build lethal dismounts and crews, commanders have to plan two separate, but linked, training paths and maximize cross training opportunities.
4-6 IN conducting a Gunnery exercise
ABCTs measure lethality on crew proficiency. That’s not to say it ignores dismounted training, but the focus of large training events is on your combat platforms. It’s easy for dismounted training to become an afterthought, hastily thrown together at moments of opportunity. This is a mistake, the lethality of your dismounts and their ability to clear restricted terrain provides the maneuver space that allows armor to rapidly close with, destroy, and shock the enemy.
Apache Company, 4-6 IN Conducts Squad LFX
Dismounted training must be planned, resourced, and synchronized in conjunction with the mounted training progression. Commanders have to accept leaders being separated. If crews are gating (following the prescribed steps prior to qualifying with live rounds during gunnery) in the simulators, to include the platoon leader and platoon sergeant, then a senior dismounted squad leader will have to execute the training for all of his platoon’s dismounts. There were times during my command when portions of the company were in the bay conducting maintenance, crews were in the simulator, dismounts at an urban site with simunition rounds, and crews training for gunnery skills training (GST). To ensure lethality across the entire company in an ABCT, commanders must accept decentralization and empower noncommissioned officers to lead training separate from the company. Commanders need to also ensure dismounted and mounted soldiers are cross-trained and able to perform both duties.
The Importance of Cross Training
Cross-training is different in an ABCT formation. Training a rifleman how to execute the tasks of a gunner in a weapons squad is less challenging than teaching a staff sergeant, who has never been inside of a Bradley, how to be a vehicle commander. During gunnery, plan time for familiarization training on the M242 for rifle squad members who may soon be on a Bradley crew. Motor pool Mondays are not just for crewmen. After your dismounts are done with their PMCS of the arms room or ancillary equipment, require them to assist the crews. Nowhere does it say the train-up for GST is solely the task of your crews. Require your dismounts to go through the testing as well.
Crew members need to maintain their dismounted fighting prowess. During team and squad live fire events, crew members can be incorporated within fire teams and squads. After all, they will eventually move back to positions within the rifle squad. The more cross-training you execute the less unplanned personnel moves will have a diminutive effect on your company’s lethality. Light infantry officers come to ABCTs with a wealth of experience at small-unit training, these lessons must be passed on to junior officers and NCOs in the formation.
What do Light Fighters Bring to the Table?
Infantry officers coming from a light background need not feel discouraged by the gaps in their knowledge when arriving to an ABCT. Although the learning curve is steep, light officers have much to offer. Armored formations have several training and maintenance requirements that quickly fill up a training calendar. Company services and gunnery easily eats up two months and that excludes months of mandatory collective training to certify companies and higher to execute Combat Training Center (CTC) rotations. All these collective events take away from planning training at the company level, creating a gap of knowledge in our junior officer and NCO population.
Unfortunately, these future commanders in IBCT formations will have to learn on the job at their next duty station without drawing from a reservoir of previous experiences. Our executive officers and platoon leaders are the army’s most knowledgeable maneuver leaders concerning maintenance and property. However, only a few of them truly understand how to plan, resource, and execute training. We outsource our land and ammunition analysis and requests to the battalion master gunners. Instead, we focused on conducting individual training to qualify as many soldiers as possible. We turn simple qualification ranges into a battalion event. Light officers coming to ABCTs bring a unique experience to apply in preparing our junior leaders for future jobs.
Almost all light officers have planned and executed multiple ranges, situational tactical exercises, and live fire training events at the platoon or company level. Leaders can still exercise the art of training management in an ABCT. The processes may not be as bottom-up, but it exists. Light officers will better prepare their junior leaders and the army if they utilize their past experiences. Culture is a driving force behind the operational readiness and effectiveness of a mechanized infantry company. For commanders to be successful, the art of establishing a culture of discipline is paramount.
Establishing a Culture of Discipline
Creating a culture of discipline is fundamental to fostering an environment of aggressiveness, self-worth, and lethality in a mechanized rifle company. On contact, our job is the same as a soldier serving in the 10th Mountain Division or any light force; close with and destroy the enemy by means of fire and maneuver. Stereotypes about mechanized formations are widespread. They range from the absence of rigorous physical training to a lack of discipline. These are self-perpetuating and grossly exaggerated.
Soldiers coming to a mechanized rifle company mirror the soldiers going to the 82nd and 101st Airborne Division. They are no different. Adherence to a culture of discipline and devotion to expertise in our craft exists in mechanized formations. Company commanders should instill that pride and enforce high standards. Not all units can cover three to five kilometers of open terrain on the battlefield and clear restricted areas.
It’s Worth It
The army’s initiative to create well-rounded and diverse officers by enforcing the vehicular imperative has it’s unique challenges. However, it is absolutely necessary for the army’s future decision makers to appreciate and understand different combat formations. Mechanized infantry command is challenging, but also immensely developmental. Mechanized infantrymen are crewmen, light infantry, and sometimes mechanics. Infantrymen that understand and establish an effective Command Maintenance Program, synchronize dismounted and mounted training, and foster a culture of discipline will find success within the uniquely diverse armored community as commanders in a mechanized infantry company.
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