Integrating lessons from Afghanistan into individual trg & Trg for war vs trg for this war

[vonGarvin]

One can also get "combat experience" by blundering into an ambush, not clearing a defile properly or falling asleep on sentry and allowing your position to be attacked.

If it weren't true, it would be funny.  Sadly, though, it is true.

As I think more of my rant, experience matters, and I hope that I didn't come off the wrong way. It's just that though experience is necessary, it isn't sufficient.

 

[Haggis]

If it weren't true, it would be funny.  Sadly, though, it is true.

As I think more of my rant, experience matters, and I hope that I didn't come off the wrong way. It's just that though experience is necessary, it isn't sufficient.

In order to be relevant and valuable, experience must also be educational.  Making the same mistake repeatedly (as some are prone to do) is, in the purest form, "experience".  It's just not educational, as this implies that one learns to adapt from the activity.

 

[Greymatters]

In order to be relevant and valuable, experience must also be educational.  Making the same mistake repeatedly (as some are prone to do) is, in the purest form, "experience".  It's just not educational, as this implies that one learns to adapt from the activity.

Its also an uphill battle convincing the existing instruction staff, and the committee deciding on course content, that their methods and information may be outdated, or that your overseas lesson learned wasnt just a single event context.  That always goes over well...

 

[aesop081]

Its also an uphill battle convincing the existing instruction staff, and the committee deciding on course content, that their methods and information may be outdated, or that your overseas lesson learned wasnt just a single event context.  That always goes over well...

Thats exactly why combat experience has to permeate throughout the entire system. One simply cannot send vets to the schools only. Other positions such as Staff colleges, Doctrine-writting/developing organizations, DLR, CTS.......etc,etc,etc..... have to be manned with people with the relevant experience. Those positions are not always considered as "desireable" but in the end if recent army experience is to benefit the entire organization, some people are going to have to put their money where their mouth is and take those jobs.

 

[Greymatters]

Thats exactly why combat experience has to permeate throughout the entire system. One simply cannot send vets to the schools only. Oter positions such as Staff colleges, Doctrine-writting/developing organizations, DLR, CTS.......etc,etc,etc..... have to be manned with people with the relevant experience. Those positions are not always considered as "desireable" but in the end if recent army experience is to benefit the entire organization, some people are going to have to put their money where their mouth is and take those jobs. 

Usually measured in years at the best, a decade or two at the worst... 

 

[Fusaki]

I have to dispel a few myths...

...experience and qualification does not necessarily mean competence.

A big +1!

I'll take a switched on and open minded instructor who's never left Canada over a combat experienced dummy any day. I can think of a few guys who sucked before their first TIC and will continue to suck well into the future.  Experience alone doesn't mean anything. Any chimp who's survived an IED strike can claim to have experience. What matters is how you interpret that experience into a more effective way of doing things.

Just because you've been shot at does not necessarily mean you're switched on enough to know what to do in the future. Likewise, just because you're never been shot at does not mean you can't have an open mind and provide cutting edge training to your soldiers. The trick is in being able to interpret the experience of others.

Sound judgement and an open mind are much more important factors then actual combat experience.

 

[rifleman]

I'll take a switched on and open minded instructor who's never left Canada over a combat experienced dummy any day.

I'll take a switched on anyone, over a dummy... ;D.

 

[ArmyRick]

IMO, we are making a freaking mountain out of a mole hill. The aim of entry level training for infantry soldiers is basic skills. A soldier has to know how to shoot, move, communicate. There is no point learning SOPs until they have mastered the basics. I have worked with some damn good vets (including one Sgt who is very well known for his actions when 1RCR was in afghanistan) and beleive me, there are alot of small things we do implement THAT DO NOT violate the "almighty" CTP.

Some of these guys I have been working with agreed that we have to master the basic skills first. They can train for afghan spefic in the battalions.

Keep in mind I am talking one school (Meaford) and one course (DP1 Infantry). I do not know who how the other Trg centers are doing business or the other courses (such as CAP).

For the record I am very open minded and I agree with what wonderbread said as well. Your either switched on or your not.

 

[HItorMiss]

I don't think this issue lies so much with DP1, seeing the the basics core skills are always going to remain the same, I am talking more along the lines of the Mod 6 etc etc.

Example: Fall in for Battle, Seriously whoever does that anywhere anytime other the Mod6 and DP1 something like that is pretty much as obsolete as it comes and yet it's a requirement to be taught. I have never at anytime before a TIC/OP or Patrol did a "Fall in for Battle" No one did so why do we still teach it? because the CTP says so no matter how much real world dictates otherwise. Again coming down to "We do it this way because the book says so" and this little one that I have used as an example is a fly obvious one I mean I don't think anyone has really done that TTP since after Korea LMAO.

Rick: Hope Sean B and Scott F are doing well in Meaford

 

[pbi]

MJP: excellent post. You've summed it up. Schools don't normally train for "the war"-that's the purpose of pre-deployment training, which will always be more current and realistic than what we learn in schools. Schools train mostly for "a war", so as to cover as many potential situations as possible. The job of any course is really just to give graduates a basic tool box. The most important tool in the box is not really any particular technical skill (those change all the time anyway, especially as we change equipment or change types of operations or theatres) but instead it's the ability to analyze the situation, make a useful decision, and carry it out. If making that useful decision requires the soldier to scrap or modify existing TTPs or even doctrine: so be it. Canadians have proven, over and over again, that we have absolutely  no problem doing this. The fact that we went into combat in an extremely hostile environment in Afghanistan, with a peacetime Army, bore this out. IMHO what sustained our Army all those years before Kandahar, and what gave it the basic toolbox  to do so well when we got into the fight, was the training system we all like to kick around. You don't grow that basic tool box, nor the ability to teach it, overnight.

After years of cursing LFDTS, I actually belong to that organization, and I'm a trainer. One that thing that has impressed me since I got here is how much we have improved our Army Lessons Learned process, and how it's integrated with Army training. There is an ALLC team as part of the  Joint Task Force in Afgh, and they produce reports and updates on all sorts of things.  If that info is not getting out to trainees, it isn't because of Lessons Learned: it's because individual schools are choosing not to use it.

Cheers

DJB

 

[Infanteer]

Example: Fall in for Battle, Seriously whoever does that anywhere anytime other the Mod6 and DP1 something like that is pretty much as obsolete as it comes and yet it's a requirement to be taught. I have never at anytime before a TIC/OP or Patrol did a "Fall in for Battle" No one did so why do we still teach it? because the CTP says so no matter how much real world dictates otherwise. Again coming down to "We do it this way because the book says so" and this little one that I have used as an example is a fly obvious one I mean I don't think anyone has really done that TTP since after Korea LMAO.

I know this is a bit of a necropost, but it was interesting and I thought it worth commenting on.

I've often used this example as well.  This is the problem with our doctrine system.  We can lump criticism on the schools, but they only teach what is in the Lesson Plans which are derived from manuals.  Now, for the infantry organizations, where are we going to draw this from.  Our Infantry Battalion in Battle was written in the 80s and the Platoon and Section in Battle the late 90s.  The two are contradictory at times.  LAV Company was written early 2000, but is still labelled "Interim".  We don't even have a "Light Infantry" doctrine - it's an adhoc arrangment coming from a slideshow at a conference.

Section and Platoon in battle lists that first step of the Section Battle Drills that we all love to deride.  In its intent it is good - I would expect that section commanders are looking over before launching, regardless of what sort of mission we are on.  I suspect the yelling and screaming bit comes from years of "this is how it's always been done" without measurement to the actual conduct of ops.

However, my initial point stands - how are we supposed to teach anything when the basis for teaching is so out of date?  If there isn't already, there should be some sort of periodic routine reexamination of our manuals by not only the folks at LFDS (or LFDTS or however they're configured today) but by the operational units for which the doctrine has relevance to.

 

[George Wallace]

I have a question.  Is what is being taught, necessarily out of date, or just that the instructor can not put the points into the proper context.

The example of the "Fall in for Battle" to me has to be put into context by the instructor as something like a "Checklist" that a Section Comd must do with his troops prior to their going into battle to ensure that they have all that they require, and are prepped in all ways to complete their mission.  When this is done, can be anywhere, and any time.  It does not have to be in the immediate "dismount to engage", but could be done before rolling out of KAF on a seven day patrol, or rolling out of KAF to go to a FOB for a month, or what ever.  I think that many of our so called "archaic" procedures are not so much archaic, but just not taught in the proper context.

I can use the example of teaching ORBATs to students.  I have asked if any are familiar with ORBATs in a class, and no one will put up their hands, where they are familiar with themin their everyday lives.  Hockey Teams/Franchises have ORBATs.  Government bureaucracies have ORBATs.  City, municipal, provincial and federal governments all have ORBATs.  Everywhere we look, there are ORBATs.  There is a hierarchy to almost every aspect of our lives.  Those are ORBATs, even if not in name.   Is ORBAT an archaic term to use, just because we teach OPFOR, or is it just that many do not have the imagination to apply it to a different aspect of life? 

Do we have to "recreate the wheel" everytime people don't have the imagination to apply something to a current situation?  Is an IED nothing more that a Booby trap of old; pressure release, electrical contact, pull, remote detonated, radio controlled, timed fuse, timer, etc.?  Someone couldn't put it into context, so they "recreated the wheel".

The Instructor gets the TP and Lesson Plan.  It is up to them to teach the lesson in the proper context and using the proper and current examples.  If they don't have the knowledge and imagination to teach, and teach like autotoms, then it is the fault of the Instructor, more than the System.  The System has failed, in that it has allowed poor instructors teach.

 

[Infanteer]

I have a question.  Is what is being taught, necessarily out of date, or just that the instructor can not put the points into the proper context.

It's both.  The "Fall in for Battle" is clearly not putting the point into proper context - as I explained in my above post, pre-combat checks are still conducted - just not buy yelling and screaming.

However, some doctrine is out of date.  What is Anti-Armour Company?

 

[George Wallace]

However, some doctrine is out of date.  What is Anti-Armour Company?

Much the same as the Rifle was when we were not commited to operations requiring them Domestically or Internationally. 

 

[ArmyRick]

Coming from a former DP1 infantry instructor perspective, there is not a whole lot of time wasted on "Fall in for battle".

As GW noted, we have plenty of a-stan vets at our school here who still teach the basics and put the additional tips based on being in contact.

We are not as far back in the stone age as you may think.

 

[KevinB]

One of my biggest beefs with the system in general, is that more modern methods are not used to teach certain things.

Buffing a floor and various other kit and quaters issues are desgined to teach attention to detail.  I can think of a million other skills that could be taught that are specifically attnetion to detail oriented adn RELEVANT to combat, because unless your inviting the taliban etc to a mess dinner, I still have not found any use for shiny floor that could not have been better taught doing somthing else.

 

[helpup]

Necro post or not some recent points do add to this.  Basi now incorperates FOB routine in the feild portion.  Of course no extra trg time was alloted for this and the schedual reduced in the interm for the amount of troops we are pressing throug.  Personally I think teaching FOB duty at basic is a waste of time and resources.  Sure it makes it relevant to the troops but I have to ask at what exense.  FOB's and routines are also included in Meaford and they take a mini Urban Ops package and shoe horned it into the Trg.  Again I asked so they increased the time table for Trg.  Nope but hey it is relevant to what they are doing over there. There for it is a must.  From what I have seen over the past few years the quality of troops we are getting into the Bn has fallen on both there basic wpns handling skills to feild craft.  I do not need a Pte to come to Bn knowing how to do a VCP and searches.  That is what BN trg is for.  They have dropped Trg to incorperate these currant things.  To be fair some of this was done prior to Afghan in the name of the DP system.  The reasoning being "oh let the Bn Trg them"  Well the Bn's are very busy on work up's or undermanned on reconstitution ( dont get me started on the phase system)  We now have guys trained on a particular MG in 3 days, as part of the PSWQ,  trouble was my MG Crse was over 5 freaking weeks long and included, C5, C6/ w SF 50 Cal, Turret and AD role.  We knew our Wpns after that Crse.  Now I may as well run the troops if I can once I get the NCO's back up to speed on it and dont forget the therory stuff that as NCO's we use to be taught on our small arms.  That is harder to come by. 

As we mentioned earlier in this post.  Basic SQ or BSL are a baseline, sure keep it interesting but teach them the full deal.  Let us ( Bn's ) do Msn specific and refining. 

As to the fall in to battle. funny you should mention it as we use a form of it very often and we are on work up trg.  My pl is constantly dispersed on Crse and Sect's adhoc for particular Trg. A Sgt asked me how do I organize it and a older one shouted with a laugh " Fall in for Battle." two min later his troops knew what group and team they were in, quick kit check and brief on what they were about to do and off they went.  Watching him laughing about it I asked the other one if he recalls it now......... by differant names we do a form of that more often then many may think or recall. 

Lets learn our lessons, lets train for what we are currently fighting. Let us not forgo the basics in the name of streamlining.  A soldier needs to come to Bn highly profiecient in his Wpns drills ( all wpns that a Pl would use less SF kit,in the dismounted role)  Let him come knowing his Ar$e from his head for basic feild craft, formations, moving where directed.  Let him be familiar with the basics of OBUA but for crap sake stop not teaching him to that level to make it relevant to the Stan.  Finally let him be fit enough to fight, smart enough to listen and dedicated enough to follow through. 

Give the Bn time to use our experience, ( and yes we have some vets with bad experience or focusing on this is the way we did it for our tour so that is the end all to be all ) we can, have and will use the latest lessons learned work them through it and adapt what we know for the way it is over there know anticipating what it could become...... After that may the Gods of war smile on us and drop an omnipotent foot on them.

 

[vonGarvin]

I think that the previous poster makes some very enlightening points.  In short, keep the "basics" in basic training, for heaven's sake!  This would go well for both officer and ncm training. 
(an aside, I do recall the "fall in for battle" and the "parade-square-esque" drill that it is.  Having said that, it does work to get the troops shaken out, vice the variety of methods I have seen attempted over the years.)

 

[Jammer]

Ack,
The idea behind waxing floors as well as K & Q is to develop that attention to detail initially to most mundane of tasks that will/should naturally carry over to more complex evolutions as the new soldier, sailor, or airman progresses through their training.