Tag Archives: Warfighting

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Building Your Brigade Staff Training Program

A Training Resource from NTC Ops Group

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Developing an effective training program represents a challenge for any unit. At the brigade level, simply resourcing and synchronizing a training program that creates capable subordinate formations easily consumes nearly all available time. Further, necessarily weighting the predominance of available training time and resources at the company level and below to maintain small unit proficiency constitutes another essential demand on a brigade’s organizational energy.

U.S. Army Soldiers assigned to 3rd Cavalry regiment, “Brave Rifles” Fort Hood, TX, provides security during Decisive Action Rotation 20-02 at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, Calif., Nov. 08, 2019. Decisive Action Rotations at the National Training Center ensure Army Brigade Combat Teams remain versatile, responsive, and consistently available for current and future contingencies. (U.S. Army photo by Spc. Kyler Chatman, Operations Group, National Training Center)
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Reviewing Cowboys Over Iraq

A Conversation with the Author, Jimmy Blackmon

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Experiences shape people and training is a form of experience. It prepares us for the rigors of war. But we can’t fully comprehend the hardships that combat brings until we are in it. War is an experience unlike any other. Thankfully, we aren’t bound to our own experiences. Leaders can, and should, learn from the experiences of others. Former Secretary of Defense, Jim Mattis once said that, “[people] have been fighting on this planet for 5000 years and we should take advantage of their experience.” Col. Retired Jimmy Blackmon once again contributes to that grand tradition of storytelling and gifts us his experiences. His new book, Cowboys Over Iraq, is gritty, honest, and high-energy.

Cowboys Over Iraq is an amazing story of leadership, innovation, initiative, and brotherhood.
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Fires on OBJ Sheridan (IBCT CO Fire Support Plan)

The Company Leader TDG 20-01

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Your light infantry company is preparing to complete an air assault and secure a key intersection necessary for your division’s counterattack. The enemy’s airborne forces  defeated the Atropian Army units, forcing them to withdraw and consolidate. You haven’t encountered the enemy, but expect your base ammunition load to be at 90% after maneuvering to your objective. You are responsible for completing a fire support plan for the company attack and follow-on operations to secure the intersection. Your company will need to secure the intersection for at least 48 hours until the counterattack forces reach your position.

Sgt. Aaron Sweeny and Staff Sgt. Robert Novak, both with 3rd Platoon, Battery A, 2nd Battalion, 377th Parachute Field Artillery Regiment, Task Force Spartan, watch explosions from a mountain top near Forward Operating Base Salerno, Afghanistan, during a call-for-fire exercise, Feb. 3, 2012.
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Feats of the BSA Defense

Episode I

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Brigade Support Battalions (BSBs) are ill-prepared to defend the support area in Large Scale Combat Operations (LSCO). This truth bears itself out at every Combined Training Center (CTC). BSBs require a large area, an ambitious enemy force, and a demanding sustainment synchronization to adequately prepare for LSCO or a Decisive Action Training Environment (DATE) rotation at a CTC. This vignette shows how many of the engagements in the rear area unfolds as well as how an engagement can change when properly resourced and rehearsed. At the end of this vignette you will find some discussion questions that you can use to better prepare your BSB to defend itself.

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NTC Update (NOV 19)

Mechanized Infantry CO/TM Observations & Best Practices

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At the National Training Center, mechanized infantry formations represent some of the hardest working Soldiers on the battlefield. Capable of clearing restricted terrain ahead of mounted armor formations, seizing and controlling urban areas, and providing support to enable myriad other operations, the four mechanized infantry companies in an Armor BCT often find themselves struggling to keep up with the demands for their formations’ capabilities. For Stryker BCTs, the speed of the Stryker platform combined with the power of anti-tank equipped dismounted formations poses a unique challenge to the enemy. Yet, often, because they overlook some very fundamental tasks, units fail to realize the true power of these formations. 

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NTC Update (NOV 19)

Attack Helicopter Company Observations & Best Practices

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When managed correctly, Army Attack Aviation represents the most flexible and powerful combat multiplier a Division Commander can direct to any area of operations. Unlike a counterinsurgency fight, attack aviation in a decisive action training environment must be conserved to affect the fight in accordance with the friendly scheme of maneuver in a synchronized manner. Most often, this implies employing attack aviation, en masse, as a maneuver element to destroy significant enemy capabilities. Whether committed to weight the main effort, employed as a separate maneuver formation as an economy of force or in the deep area, Commanders must specifically focus how attack aviation elements are employed. Today, our attack aviation companies can provide additional capabilities, unheard of during the counterinsurgency days of the early 2000’s. Yet, our ability to employ those capabilities is dependent upon a unit’s ability to train them effectively at home station. 

U.S. Army UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter crew-chief scans the horizon during a 20 multi-ship air assault to the Pohakuloa Training Area on the Island of Hawaii, Nov. 11, 2019. During the fire support coordination exercise at PTA, the 25th Combat Aviation Brigade is tasked with providing troop-lift, air-assault, and close air support.
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NTC Update (NOV 19)

Brigade Medical Company Observations & Best Practices

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The Brigade Role 2 MTF has the capability to provide packed red blood cells (liquid), limited x-ray, clinical laboratory, operational dental support, combat and operational stress control, preventive medicine, and when augmented, physical therapy and optometry services. The Role 2 MTF provides a greater capability to resuscitate trauma patients than is available at Role 1. Those patients who can return to duty within 72 hours are held for treatment as long as the Role 2 remains in place and/or has the lift capacity to move patients during a displacement. The Role 2 is also responsible for evacuation of patients from each battalion’s Role 1 (ATP 4-02.55). 

(U.S. Army photo by Spc. Taylor McGinnis)
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Attacking Razish (ABCT CAB Attack)

The Company Leader TDG 19-12

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Sitting in your MOPP gear, you reflect on your current situation. “Decades of sustained combat against these guys and here we go again…” you think as you dig through your assault pack looking for your map markers. You are in the third month of your battalion’s deployment to Donovian-occupied Atropia. The 3rd ABCT “Bulldog Brigade” of 1st Armored Division cut its teeth during continuous operations south of the Tiefort Mountain complex. Your battalion, specifically, served as the BCT decisive operation–seizing Guba. Now you are being called upon again to apply your expertise in urban operations. This time though, you will be attacking Razish. “I wonder how many times and how many units have fought to take back this city…”

ABOLC Class 19-007 executes a Platoon Situational Training Exercise at the Good Hope Maneuver Training Area; Fort Benning, GA.
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JMRC MASCAL Lessons Learned for LSCO

Exercise Saber Strike 2018

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During one of the annual Saber Strike rotations at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center (JMRC), a medic team brought a soldier onto a trauma table in the Role 2 with his casualty card attached. The doctor took a look at the injuries listed on the card, examined the interventions in place, and studied the line of Soldiers waiting for treatment. Satisfied, the doctor shouted, “We can’t save him, send me someone else!”

A simulated casualty is prepared for evacuation during Saber Strike in Bemowo Piskie, Poland (photo by SPC Robert Douglass)
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Not Your Grandpa’s Rifle Qualification

Training for the Army's New M4 Qualification

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The new Army marksmanship M4A1 carbine qualification course of fire is a more complex and realistic evaluation of lethality. The integration of barriers, unprompted reloading, and firing position transitions provide leadership with a challenging task for training soldiers.