Infanteer said:
I've always seen "Warning, Security, Recce, Plan" as an Armoured Corps thing - they are the only folks I've seen using it.
What about the core functions? Find, Fix, Strike, Exploit? Those work well in all phases of war and there is a reason they are quite universal.
If you are thinking in terms of the Combat Team Commander's Course, then yes, the "DS Scenario" tends to be a pesky Motorized Platoon with a tank and a few obstacles. But you'll find that the CTCC is quickly breaking that mould. When you move to actual BG/Bde training, it is far more dynamic. Tango2Bravo and I were involved with a previous MAPLE RESOLVE serial which saw a Bde (-) going head on with a BG (-) and resulted in an excellent, dynamic, force-on-force environment that saw all phases of war executed and significant lessons learned.
Great point on Find, Fix, Strike, Exploit.
I worked the CTCC in April and it stuck pretty close to the mold. There were 4 or 5 atks that were executed on some seriously compartmentalized terrain or were allocated aviation but that was it.
Tango2Bravo said:
The Combat Team manual uses Warning, Security, Recce, Plan as the framework when a situation is encountered (roadblock, defile, enemy position). This does indeed come from the Armoured Corps where it has been used for Troop level drills forever. You meet something - you report it to avoid blundering in (Contact Report). You array your force to allow for security (lead troops and recce get on line). You check out the problem (either from the troops in contact or ISR or both). You make a plan (the estimate). Is the combat team quick attack a drill? Parts of it certainly are. Perhaps the framework is a drill, but the plan remains a decision-making process as opposed to a condition reaction to an order or situation.
Find, fix, strike and exploit are found in Land Ops and Battle Group in Ops (as well as the new Act manual). This certainly works as a conceptual framework in any situation.
When our only collective training is the Combat Team Commander's Course we can get some fairly stylized tactics. CTCC is indeed good for getting basic drills down, but we need fairly free-play force on force to really learn lessons. CMTC has been doing that since the shift from Afghan Maple Guardian to the "full spectrum" Maple Resolve series.
Any way I can get my hands on the new BG in Ops and Act manuals that we've been discussing while I'm down here?
Great to hear from both you and Infanteer that the Maple Resolve ex's really seem to be quite dynamic and result in solid lessons learned. Look forward to being involved with those.
I think we're in agreement here. Cbt tm attacks certainly have an element of originality. After my last post I was laying in bed thinking that there is defiantly some originality in there that I've probably over simplified! Two separate commanders attacking the same enemy could have completely different plans. There can be variances in form of maneuver, posns for attack posns, support by fire posns, task org for assault elements and the firebase, and differences in the fire plan. It is the framework for the attack that doesn't really change and what allows it to be conducted so quickly with little coordination, which is also its strength. Having said that I *think* we both agree that they are not the best method of training but it appears that our Bde Ex's are pitting our units against thinking adversaries forcing us to come up with creative, unique, solutions to unique problems (this is what I would argue a hasty attack does not achieve.) So let's get back to the doctrine.
In my first post I mentioned the US' Operational Terms and Graphics pub. No one has really commented on my assertion that we should have something similar. I would argue that this would be our doctrine's greatest failing, for all the reasons I've laid out thus far, and probably the easiest to remedy.
Lets look at the concept of the main effort. I've come to see the main effort as the natural expression of a force's Center of Gravity. At the tactical level my center of gravity should be a unit, not a phase, or action. This should cause the commander to conduct an analysis of both himself and the enemy to determine his CoG and his enemy's CoG and Critical Vulnerability (CV) and lead him to weight the ME to be able to take decisive action. Weighting the ME can come in many forms such as attaching enablers or putting them is DS, giving priority of fires, or even giving enablers to supporting efforts allowing the ME to focus on their sole task while the SE's shape the battle space for the ME. We use an effects framework (Marines consider it a Battle Space framework akin to Deep, Close, and Rear) of Shaping, Decisive, and Sustaining operations. I will often overlay this on my phasing of the operation. During the Decisive phase my main effort should be attacking the enemy's CV. All other efforts are a supporting effort to the ME.
After reviewing Land Ops I had a look at page 4-28 on the Main Effort which emphasizes that the ME should be a an
activity vice a unit. To me this seems to disconnect the concepts of the ME and the CoG as Land Ops on page 6-9 defines CoG's as tangible things. Now before we start saying "who cares" in my experience this causes for some different ways for the two forces to operate. Canadians like to put two units on the obj in the assault. 2 platoons on the cbt tm hasty attack, 2 sects on the hasty pl attack. This works with the decisive event being the assault and the ME being the assault itself as opposed to one of those platoons on the assault. For the Marines, in my time with them, you'll rarely see two units on the assault. You'll see a single unit, it'll be the ME, and it will likely have been Task Organised in some way to ensure its success. This lines up with their perspective that the CoG is a unit and thus it should be the ME and all other units should support it. I've struggled with this myself as my instinct is to think "I need to get some damn bodies up on that obj... two coys up!"
What are people's thoughts on this? I lean towards the ME being connected to the CoG concept and therefore it is a thing and not an event. It is the thing that will
achieve the decisive event but not the event itself. I would suggest considering the ideas of setting the conditions for the ME to do its work which will lead to a successful operation and more concretely, if we look at some of the stuff written in the past few years regarding the importance of suppression in combat, specifically infantry combat, what role does that play in how we task, task organize, and establish the ME. Do we need two coy's on the obj if we have a heavy enough weight of fire to suppress the posn?
Sorry folks. No idea why that is all underlined.
Thanks to dapaterson for sorting this fool out with his underlining.