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    Innovation, know-how pay off for commander and troopers of Oregon Cavalry unit

    NTC rotation force-on-force moves to hasty defense

    Photo By Spc. Michael Germundson | Oregon Army National Guard Capt. Michael Phillips, commander of D Company, 3rd...... read more read more

    SALEM, OREGON, OR, UNITED STATES

    10.06.2015

    Story by Staff Sgt. Patrick Caldwell 

    116th Cavalry Brigade Combat Team

    FORT IRWIN, Calif., - Nearly 12 months before the Oregon Army Guard’s 3rd Battalion, 116th Cavalry Regiment deployed to the National Training Center its commander, Lt. Col. Brian Dean, recognized that success against arguably the best opposing force in the world must hinge upon innovation instead of pure doctrine.

    In short, the Salem, Oregon resident, said his desire was to meld a set of tactics from existing doctrine and best practices that fit into the unpredictable environment at the NTC.

    Leadership and training also payed critical roles in the achievements of the 3rd Battalion during a high-profile three-week NTC exercise in August.

    “We did not know what our mission would be nor the terrain,” Dean said regarding the initial planning of the battalion for NTC.

    What Dean visualized was the creation of a straight tank breakthrough force.

    “I wanted to have what I called an armored fist, one company that was not task organized [linked] with mechanized infantry,” he said.

    At first Dean moved forward with a blueprint to task organize, or combine, his companies. For example, his two tank company’s – D Company and C Company – were married to the battalion’s two mechanized infantry units – B Company and A Company. Yet Dean also front-loaded a wrinkle into the plan. The fold in this blueprint revolved around the tanks in C Company and the mounted infantry from B Company. When the battalion kicked off its first major action at NTC – a Movement to Contact – Dean separated B and C Companies so that he now had a “pure” tank unit.

    The reason he decided to move away from the task-organized matrix at that point, he said, was his confidence in his leaders.

    “B Company’s commander, Capt. Kevin Beckley, has a personality that is very aggressive which transferred to his troops. So his company was chosen to take key terrain, infantry strong points and protect our rear echelons,” Dean said.

    That left the battalion C Company as a ready, pure-armor “fist.”

    “C Company boasts an outstanding, mature command team and disciplined, lethal troopers. I was very comfortable I could put Capt. Chris Miller and his company into any situation and he would provide an aggressive yet measured response,” Dean said.

    The breakpoint on Dean’s plan evolved quickly, during the movement to contact exercise. The 3rd Battalion did not receive the terrain he hoped for and that fact, created challenges.

    In that first scenario, the 3rd Battalion was ordered to start from a wadi complex – a dry, desert series of deep ravines – and move until it met the enemy. At the same time, the 3rd Battalion was the lead element of its parent organization, the 116th Cavalry Brigade Combat Team. As the point of the spear for an entire brigade combat team Dean said he understood that how the battalion performed in this test would set the tone for the next 12 days at the NTC.

    Dean sized up the terrain and said he did not like what he saw.

    “The wadi complex would significantly reduce my ability to quickly gain contact, seize the initiative and allow me to fight the OPFOR on my terms,” he said.

    The key objectives for the 3rd Battalion in the movement to contact exercise consisted of terrain features with distinctive names such as Iron Triangle, Hill 800 and Mouse Gardens.

    Dean said he decided to take a chance and to utilize an old military concept made famous by Confederate Cavalry leader Gen. Nathan Bedford Forrest. In short, Dean said he needed to get to his objective “first with the most men.”

    “Based on the situation I took a gamble. I directed my combat units to bypass the wadis, roll through inferior OPFOR outposts without stopping, bypass what they could in order to get to and tie into the Iron Triangle, Hill 800 and the Mouse Gardens complex,” he said.

    Once his battalion reached its objectives, Dean ordered it to form a hasty defense.

    “That would allow the OPFOR to fight at a disadvantage,” he said.

    Like all plans, this one did not survive completely intact. Friction – that well-known gremlin of military activities – descended as the battalion moved out in the form of a vehicle accident. Then several battalion units deployed through the wadi complex and not around it. A support unit on the battalion’s flank struggled, creating a gap on the 3rd Battalion’s flank.

    “We outpaced them [the unit on the flank] and we were in real danger of being flanked and turned from the south,” Dean said.

    Another problem, Dean said, erupted when one of the 3rd Battalion’s mechanized infantry company’s missed a link up with the advancing spearhead of the battalion. Once contact with the OPFOR was made, Dean said, that unit had to be fed piecemeal into the battle. Another company arrived just as the initial fight with the OPFOR was ending.

    Yet those miscues became overshadowed by the fact the lead enemy elements faced the 3rd battalion’s “tank pure” C Company. C Company quickly bashed through initial resistance and secured the objectives.

    “We actually got there [to the objectives] before the OPFOR. When the OPFOR began dying in large numbers in front of our tanks the tide of the battle and my personal concerns subsided. We had great success with only half of the plan being executed. That is when I knew we were going to do great,” Dean said.

    The initial victory during the movement of contact set the tone, Dean said.

    “It was instant confidence across the board,” he said.

    The commander of the 3rd Battalion C Company – the unit designated to be Dean’s “armor fist” – said the night before the movement to contact exercise his soldiers were not sure what was going to happen when daylight arrived.

    “The night before our SP morale was kind of down because we were all expecting to get hurt the next day,” Capt. Christopher Miller, a La Grande, Oregon, resident, said.

    “The battalion commander’s intent was to get as far west as possible as quick as possible. So we were going to go as rapidity as possible,” Miller said.

    Miller said his company moved out in front of the battalion expecting at any time to encounter strong enemy forces.

    “We got to the point where we expected to make enemy contact and nothing,” he said.

    Miller said C Company’s M1A2 System Enhanced Program Abrams main battle tanks moved quickly toward the battalions’ objectives with little resistance.

    “We got to the major terrain features, the key terrain where everyone wanted to defend from and then we started to see the enemy coming in,” Miller said.

    By then, though, it was too late for the opposing forces. The battalion already held the key ground.

    “They [the OPFOR] came in and they were sort of piecemealing toward us,” he said.

    From there C Company and the rest of the battalion formed up and held a defensive line and began to destroy the opposing enemy force.

    “From everything I heard from coaches and trainers this is where the brigade was supposed to be embarrassed. That never happened,” Miller said.

    The movement to contact wasn’t a cakewalk, Miller said. His company suffered substantial losses during the battle.

    “But we had killed enough of the OPFOR that they stopped attacking us,” Miller said.

    Miller said the battalion’s – and his company’s – performance at NTC was a corroboration on many levels.

    “We validated our training as a National Guard combined arms battalion. And I think we vindicated ourselves in that, hey, we really can train to standards and we deserve these combat platforms,” he said.

    Dean said one of the most poignant conclusions he secured from the NTC experience was the resiliency of his troopers.

    “The single most important thing I learned during the rotation is confidence in Eastern Oregon’s Own. Specifically that our Soldiers are trained and so lethal that they will figure out a way to win if we can get them to the right place in the battlefield at the right time,” he said.

    The 3rd Battalion is one of three maneuver elements of the Army National Guard’s 116th Cavalry Brigade Combat Team based out of Boise Idaho. The 116th Cavalry Brigade Combat Team consists of Guard units from Montana, Idaho and Oregon.

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    NEWS INFO

    Date Taken: 10.06.2015
    Date Posted: 10.06.2015 16:55
    Story ID: 178273
    Location: SALEM, OREGON, OR, US
    Hometown: LA GRANDE, OR, US

    Web Views: 508
    Downloads: 1

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