Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Leah Kilpatrick | A barrage of U.S. Army M1A2 Abrams tanks from the 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment,...... read more read more
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FORT HOOD, Texas – “We train as we fight.” It’s been said so frequently it’s become cliché. Perhaps because it’s true.
The Soldiers of the 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team “Greywolf,” 1st Cavalry Division have spent the year maintaining their physical fitness by conducting physical readiness training; maintaining their marksmanship proficiency by qualifying on their individually assigned weapon systems; maintaining crew, squad and platoon proficiency by conducting gunnery tables.
But none of those training opportunities encapsulates the spirit of “training as you fight” as much as the brigade’s recent rotation to the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, California.
“My training objectives were to synchronize intelligence collection, fires, mission command and sustainment, with maneuver, which I define as the brigade fight,” said Col. John Woodward, the commander of the Greywolf Brigade. “We were able to train on these individually, but only at the National Training Center do they provide the resources where you can train and fight as a brigade against the best (opposing force) in the world.”
In addition to the resources accessible at NTC was the space to operate as a brigade’s worth of combined arms firepower.
“You don’t have the opportunity to do that in a homestation training event, just because you can’t get all of your enablers, all of your maneuver units, into the fight at the same time, so the National Training Center is a place where it allows you to stress every warfighting function simultaneously,” Woodward said.
Training made better with partners
The ability to incorporate the same interoperability, both joint and coalition, that has defined the conflicts of the last 15 years only added to the relevance.
For the 10-day force-on-force battle, Greywolf partnered with the 155th Armored Brigade Combat Team “Dixie Thunder” from the Mississippi National Guard; 1st Attack Reconnaissance Battalion, 227th Aviation Regiment, 1st Air Cavalry Brigade; 1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards from the British Army; Detachment 1735 from the 344th Tactical Psychological Operations Company; and Company B, 411th Civil Affairs Battalion.
“We’re never going to fight by ourselves again, so I think the significance is for us to not only test but to exercise our interoperability,” Woodward said.
Where Greywolf had shortages, its enablers were able to fill the gaps to ensure a smooth training opportunity for all units involved.
“With the partnership with the 155th, the way we were able to capitalize on that is we had some shortages in personnel in specific (military occupational specialties),” Woodward said. “They had the opportunity to send people to help us fill that need. The 155th ABCT also sent some key leaders who had not been to NTC in order to prepare for their upcoming NTC rotation later this year.”
This collaboration among units enriched the learning environment as tactics, techniques and procedures were shared and refined.
“You train as you fight, and it’s best to train with the partners that are going to be there with you in the fight,” said Lt. Col. Martin Fox, commander of the 1st Battalion, 155th Infantry Regiment, 155th Armored Brigade Combat Team. “It helps reinforce those relationships and enables you to implement the plan and mitigate the weaknesses.”
Fox said 46 of the 55 Soldiers that Dixie Thunder sent to augment Greywolf at NTC were from his battalion, and only two had ever been to the National Training Center, so this training opportunity allowed them to gain valuable experience to bring back into their formations to manage the expectations of their Soldiers in preparation for their own NTC rotation in the summer of 2017.
“The benefit for the 155th would be getting Soldiers multiple training opportunities in different places, being able to train with someone other than who you’re used to training with,” said 1st Sgt. Micquel Miller from 1-155th Infantry Regiment, 155th ABCT.
The Greywolf Brigade and Dixie Thunder had previously partnered during last year’s NTC rotation, the eXportable Combat Training Capability exercise at Camp Shelby, Mississippi last summer; and the Multi-echelon Integrated Brigade Training exercise at Fort Hood this summer.
“Your training objectives are being met while our training objectives are being met,” Fox said. “It’s a two-way street in every way we can make it that way.”
But Dixie Thunder weren’t the only ones who benefitted from Decisive Action Rotation 17-01.
“This is our first time, at least while I’ve been at the unit, working with the UK, so it’s a pretty cool interoperability piece,” said Capt. James Raymond, commander of Company B, 1st Attack Reconnaissance Battalion, 227th Aviation Regiment. “We get to see some of their TTPs. They get to see some of ours. We’ve definitely worked downrange together, so we’ve built those relationships. Very rarely do we get to see them at homestation, so NTC is one of those great training events.”
“In the aftermath of Afghanistan where we were working very tightly together, this reinforces that close bond, the fact that we’re used to each other,” said Lt. James Cowen of 1st The Queen’s Dragoon Guards. “We’ve got the language. We use very similar tactics and equipment. This is just maintaining all those lessons we learned in Afghanistan, making sure we don’t forget any of that, and we can carry it forward to any future operations.”
Adapting to the changing face of war
While the conflicts of the past 15 years have been primarily counterinsurgency fights, the focus is shifting to training to defeat a more conventional fight – a decisive action fight.
“Although the focus is now decisive action, you’re never going to separate yourself from the COIN fight,” Woodward said. “That’s always going to be present, so you’re still going to have to work with local governments, host nation security, Department of State, USAID and other NGOs, so that part of the battlefield is going to always remain constant, but with the more decisive action fighting a more conventional fight is what we’re now training to defeat. In the COIN fight, the counterinsurgency fight, those wars were not an existential threat to the United States, compared to North Korea and Russia. So those near peer forces are what we have to be prepared to defeat on the battlefield as well.”
With the resources in place, the enablers at the ready and the mission established, Greywolf was primed to try and defeat a tough opposing force.
“The brigade exceeded all of my expectations during our recent NTC rotation,” Woodward said. “A specific area where I thought the brigade staff really excelled was planning for and giving me many options as the commander to afford multiple dilemmas for the enemy commander. One of the things that made these options available was the great work by our tank and Bradley crew members and maintainers. Each fight, we executed at or better than a 90 percent operational readiness rate for tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles, which is a testament to their disciplined approach to fleet readiness.”
The leaders of the tank and Bradley crews placed the mission and the accompanying praise squarely in the laps of their Soldiers.
“I would attribute that to the Soldiers and the diligence they applied toward their work ethic on the maintenance side of the house with the tanks,” said Sgt. 1st Class Robert Patitucci, Company C, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd ABCT. “It’s not us (the leaders). We just tell them (the Soldiers) what needs done, and they do it. Inevitably, it falls back to the Soldiers doing their due diligence and maintaining their equipment. We have excellent NCOs to drive that, but it’s the Soldiers who are the ones that do it.”
1st Sgt. Phillip Dudley, the first sergeant of Company C, 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd ABCT, attributed the success of his Bradley crews to an extensive maintenance program at homestation.
“In the past our focus on maintenance hasn’t always been where it should be, so I think, with my background being light (infantry), I’ve never spent as much time in the motor pool as I have here,” he said. “We’re in the motor pool three times a week. By being there so much, you start to identify issues with your equipment that you wouldn’t necessarily be able to identify otherwise.”
Being able to count on that well-maintained equipment in the clutch made all the difference, he said.
While the Greywolf Brigade can pat itself on the back for a job well done, Patitucci said there is still room for improvement.
“There’s always room for improvement,” he said. “Even excellence can be improved upon.”
| Date Taken: | 11.03.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 11.04.2016 13:41 |
| Story ID: | 213850 |
| Location: | FORT HOOD, TX, US |
| Hometown: | FORT IRWIN, CA, US |
| Web Views: | 218 |
| Downloads: | 2 |
This work, Partnership provides mutual benefit in decisive action fight, by SFC Leah Kilpatrick, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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