Replacing Pioneers and Assault Troops

[Chewie]

I just had a meeting with all the Comand chiefs and yes Pioneer Platoons are being stood up in all the Infantry Btns
along with Mortar Pls...Give me back my Chrome Axe and apron please...

Andrew

 

[geo]

Heh...
BTW - any talk on Infantry Armoured defense Platoons?

(Hope they don't try to borrow sappers to make a 1st fill of Pioneer positions)

Reinventing the wheel........ always reinventing the wheel...... Sheesh!

 

[Kat Stevens]

Except it's now called a "circular mobility enhancement device" in order to free up more R&D cash, and fatten the contract.

 

[geo]

oooooooo..... we are wearing our cynical glasses today aren`t we?

(me too BTW)

 

[PPCLI Guy]

I just had a meeting with all the Comand chiefs and yes Pioneer Platoons are being stood up in all the Infantry Btns
along with Mortar Pls...Give me back my Chrome Axe and apron please...

Andrew

You must know something in MARLANT that we don't know in the Army.  So far, no specific mention has been publically made with respect to Mortar Pls.

 

[Scoobie Newbie]

We've got a box of C4 and det cord along with 3 PNR's but alas not time fuse or dets.  Sure would free up the Eng if they let us clear fields of fire and demolish grape huts.

 

[vonGarvin]

With the stand-down of Pioneer Platoons already started, will the Army be capable of providing sufficient Engineering support on operations?   

NECRO THREAD POST ALERT!
I just found this thread, and decided to try to answer the above question, after 8 years of mostly combat operations in Kandahar.



No.



That is all.


(And by "no", I mean no matter what anyone says, the engineers in TFK were busy doing pioneer jobs, and the engineer jobs were left to idle.  Bridges weren't being built and/or repaired, and the engineer squadron became just another company for the BG Comd.  A shame, really)

 

[Towards_the_gap]

NECRO THREAD POST ALERT!
I just found this thread, and decided to try to answer the above question, after 8 years of mostly combat operations in Kandahar.



No.



That is all.


(And by "no", I mean no matter what anyone says, the engineers in TFK were busy doing pioneer jobs, and the engineer jobs were left to idle.  Bridges weren't being built and/or repaired, and the engineer squadron became just another company for the BG Comd.  A shame, really)

To be slightly more exact, engineer sections became the 4th section in the platoons, at least in the AO I was in. Not that I minded, nothing says loving like an integral engineer section in a high-IED threat area.

 

[Infanteer]

My platoon had an engineering section embedded with it for pretty much the entire tour.  The section commander basically became my Platoon 2ICs number 2 when it came to the Tactical Infrastructure while his 2IC managed the Sappers so that every patrol would have 1-2 engineers.  It was great to have them focused on their "Mobility" role for our dismounted patrols.

So, it wasn't really a 4th section, but rather a specialist section that augmented the others.

That being said, some real engineering jobs came up from time to time and I lost that asset.  As well, US units in TFK would ask for Engineering support as, naturally, TFK was the formation HQ and is the usual home for that in both US and Canadian doctrine.  However, BG "owned" the Field Engineers so it would get cut from us to them.

I don't think Pioneer Platoon would have fixed the "engineerless" periods of the tour - if a BG deployed with a Pioneer Platoon into a COIN environment, it'd probably have its own tasks instead of being chopped to the platoons - I think BG QRF would have been ideally suited for an Infantry Battalion Pioneer Platoon.

However, pioneer capabilities embedded into the Rifle Platoons would have helped significantly (hence why I have been supportive of this idea in other threads); we had this to some extent in that the Engineer NCOs instructed my Riflemen on some of the stuff they did; getting the all-arms detector (I can't remember the designation) was a huge boon in the face of the IED threat.

 

[Blackadder1916]

. . . . . That being said, some real engineering jobs came up from time to time and I lost that asset.  As well, US units in TFK would ask for Engineering support as, naturally, TFK was the formation HQ and is the usual home for that in both US and Canadian doctrine.  However, BG "owned" the Field Engineers so it would get cut from us to them.

. . . . .

It's been a couple of decades since I've had first hand experience with US Army or USMC operations and even longer with a Canadian pioneer platoon, so my memory and understanding may be outdated.  In my old Cold Warrior mind, the US Army considered the division the proper level at which control of any and all engineering assets sat, the Marines were a little more liberal in their thinking. 

IIRC, there is (or was) no comparable pioneer (or combat engineering-lite) capability intergral to US infantry units.  Those tasks that were traditionally performed by infantry pioneer platoons (in the Commonwealth model) were either done by engineer assets attached from higher for the duration of an operation or centrally tasked on a case by case basis (or simply performed by non-specialized infantry . . . or ignored).  How were those tasks handled by US infantry units operating under TFK?  Has there been any change or were many of the mentioned engineering support requests for "pioneer" tasks?

If US units operating under TFK were there without their "integral engineer/pioneer capability" found in the brigade combat team, then it would be natural for them to request the resource from the Canadian formation supporting them. 

 

[Infanteer]

You are correct in that US infantry battalions have no integral pioneering capabilities.  After transformation, where Divisions were turned into placeholders, U.S. BCT's were given an engineering company each.  There are also support Brigades with larger engineering units that will be attached to higher HQs for augmentation.

Needless to say, an Infantry Battalion with a Pioneer Platoon in a CMBG with an Engineering Regiment is an "engineering rich" organization.  Even sans Pioneer, the CMBG still has 3 times the organic engineering capabilities of its American counterparts.

In TFK, there were a few specialist Engineering sub-units at the Task Force (ie, Brigade) level; construction engineers, CIED, etc.  The Field Engineering capability belonged to the Battle Group, so TFK would chop it (generally only a part of it) over to US units for support when they (rightfully) requested it.

 

[McG]

If US units operating under TFK were there without their "integral engineer/pioneer capability" found in the brigade combat team, then it would be natural for them to request the resource from the Canadian formation supporting them.

When the Canadian BG arrived in 2006 to takeover from the Americans in Kandahar, there were no Military Engineers integral to the force owning that AO.  KAF had construction/infrastructure engineers, and there were an element of Army Engineers in KAF who concerned themselves with the planning and financing of civil reconstruction projects (mostly seemed to be paving roads & drilling wells) from the Div (CJTF 76) perspective.