Supporting the Engineer Fight

02.12.2009

Courtesy Story

555th Engineer Brigade

By Capt. Jeannette Wilson
555th Engineer Brigade

In early 2007 the 5th Engineer Battalion, 555th Engineer Brigade transformed from a Mechanized Combat Engineer Battalion to a Modular Combat Engineer Battalion. With this change, the 5th Engineers faced two main challenges with the Battalion Maintenance Program, Battalion Maintenance office change transitioning from the 4- level maintenance to the 2- level maintenance systems and equipment recovery operations.

As a Mechanized Battalion, the 5th Engineers had the Battalion Maintenance Office, Support Platoon, and a robust maintenance section, along with the staff sections within the HSC. As a modular battalion, HSCs split into Headquarters, Headquarters Companies and Field Support Companies. The BMO shop no longer existed as we knew it, replaced by a Maintenance Control Section under the FSC. The HHC consists of the staff; the FSC now consists of the Distribution Platoon, Field Feeding Section, and Maintenance Platoon. However, this model applies to a Combat Engineer Battalion, and you may see different set ups in construction or effects battalions. The FSC is comprised of quartermaster, transportation, and ordnance personnel by MTOE, not authorized any engineers. The maintenance platoon consists of not just MCS, but also the FSC Maintenance Section and a Service Recovery Section.

The MCS picked up battalion maintenance management where the BMO shop left off. Although not a large change from the BMO Shop set-up, its placement in the FSC caused the greatest amount of concern. It is also robust in personnel. It consists of a 1st Lt. maintenance control officer, CW3 919 Engineer Tech, 915 Automotive CW3, E7 maintenance control supervisor and two E6 inspectors, and four 92A clerks. DA PAM 750-1, Commander's Maintenance Handbook lists the duties of the MCO, which includes prioritizing maintenance workloads, evaluating the Battalion PMCS operation, enforcing the Army Maintenance Standards within the Battalion; and requesting support from outside agencies such as the logistic assistance representative. This is only part of the list, but, more importantly, it shows that the MCO is focused on the Battalion Maintenance Program. If the MCO is in essence the "old BMO", they should be treated as such. Which implies that the MCO, with the team in the Maintenance Control Section are those who are making critical maintenance recommendations to the FSC Commander, Battalion XO and the Battalion Commander. This officer, if trained properly, is more than capable of adding to the battalion's maintenance capability.

The two warrant officers provide valuable advice and are the Battalion's technical experts. The non-commissioned officer maintenance control supervisor is closely tied to the motor sergeants and all that happens in the motor pool. While deployed, the maintenance control supervisor will greatly impact the maintenance program. Their experience is critical to quality control inspections and setting up motor pools in any environment. However, there is one more person to add, a CW2 919 in the S4 Section. Communication becomes very important between battalion staff, the FSC commander, and the MCS.

Therefore, the communication between the Battalion XO, MCO and the FSC commander is critical. The BMO was rated by and answered directly to the Battalion XO. With the MCS under the Maintenance Platoon, the FSC Commander now rates the MCO. This has the potential to create confusion if there is no clear guidance or communication between the Battalion XO and FSC commander. One course of action is the FSC commander receives all information from the Battalion XO and becomes the "Battalion BMO." Though this simplifies communications, it pulls critical focus from other areas of logistics that the FSC is required to support. If the FSC conducts missions the way it was designed, the commander must also focus on distribution platoon missions and Field Feeding. The second course of action is that the FSC commander is actively involved, as the battalion XO directs the battalion priorities. The FSC commander ensures that they are met and enforced. The Battalion XO runs the battalion maintenance meetings and engages the MCS directly. However, the FSC commander meets with the Battalion XO regularly to ensure there is no counter guidance and to provide critical input. More than likely, the FSC commander will spend more time in the motor pool and will communicate with the MCS daily. This allows the FSC commander to work in conjunction with the Battalion XO to meet the battalion commander's priorities.

The FSC commander and Company XO must ensure that the MCS does not focus solely on FSC maintenance. It is an easy trap to fall into, but must be avoided at all costs. MCS must focus on every company equally and prioritize who needs the most assistance, according to the battalion commander's guidance and priorities for the mission. The FSC commander must ensure that this happens. When the FSC conducts maintenance meetings, if the MCS attends to brief statuses, they must be focused on what they are doing for the battalion and how FSC specialty maintenance sections are impacting that fight. Or if FSC needs to provide overflow maintenance or provide mechanics to other companies in order to meet the mission. FSC commanders may want to have two separate maintenance meetings: one for company maintenance; the second focused on supporting battalion maintenance. FSC, 5th conducted one maintenance meeting where company issues were covered first and battalion issues were covered at the end of the meeting.

Another way to separate the MCS from the FSC organizational maintenance is through the rating scheme. The maintenance platoon leader, platoon sergeant, or Company XO can rate the motor sergeant. Once again it will delineate the difference in priorities for the MCS, and prevent them from focusing solely on FSC maintenance, instead of the battalions.

With a Lieutenant, two Warrant Officers, and E7 and a Warrant Officer in the S4 section, what do you do with everyone? With so many leaders there is great potential for confusion. The S4 Warrant Officer is easily accessible to the battalion staff if they remain at the battalion headquarters. However, not to MCS if they do not work in the motor pool. Communications are easily misconstrued and priorities of work are confused. What can easily happen is the S4 919 and personnel from the MCS are working on the exact same projects with the same out comes without realizing it. The only difference maybe is how they got the end product. How does a unit avoid this? The Battalion XO and FSC commander must be very involved with the priorities of work. Units may want to consider moving the S4 CW2 to the motor pool area so that they are all co-located for communication simplicity. Clear roles must be assigned. Even with clear roles, personnel from both offices did what they had to get the mission done.

Along with the personnel structure change, the maintenance levels also transformed. Many of us are familiar with the Army's four-level maintenance system, consisting of organizational, direct support, general support and depot level. It now consists of only two levels: field and sustainment maintenance. Under this new model units now conduct their own DS maintenance. There is no need for separate DS platoons or to evacuate equipment for 30 level repairs. Mechanics are expected to know how to conduct higher level maintenance and ensures that units are more self sufficient. Although painful at first, if a unit takes the time to train their mechanics, this is an amazing multiplier. Great amount of time is saved by not having to evacuate equipment, especially when in the field or deployed.

The greatest risk is that the mechanics and their supervisors are not properly trained. This can cost a unit a lot of money, time, and resources. In more serious situations, there is a potential for accidents. However, with the number of Warrant Officers and mechanics that do know DS level maintenance, this is negated, so long as the unit is willing to let the maintenance personnel take the time they need to train. The 5th Engineer Battalion made this a priority and also made the mechanics specialty schools as much a high a priority as engineer schools. This paid dividends later at NTC and deployment to Iraq when small FOBs did not have support maintenance. The 5th EN BN mechanics had the expertise necessary to maintain equipment critical to the fight.

The administrative portion is still important. Just because companies conduct their own DS maintenance does not mean that they can skip reporting, especially if equipment is evacuated. All reports still go through the MCS to higher echelons, just as it did with the "BMO disk drops". All the job orders should flow through the MCS. This ensures a centric location of tracking and keeps the print correct. If you skip this step, it affects 026 and capturing trends. It also ensures that the FSC is tracking what jobs come into the company to better manage priorities.

The unit cannot marginalize the MCS, and must empower it if the battalion maintenance program is going to be truly successful.Although it is a Lieutenant instead of captain running the section, the same emphasis and development must be placed on them. The S4 919 must be careful, conducting planning with the BN XO or BC without communicating with the MCS or FSC commander can have disastrous results. This leads to misinformation or inaccurate assumptions in application to mission planning. This causes unfeasible timelines and frustration on all parties. If the MCS was consulted, much of this is avoided.

The MTOE version of the recovery section works great in the garrison environment; however, the 5th Engineers greatly adjusted it for NTC and now in Iraq. The Engineer company maintenance teams had difficulty conducting recovery for their companies because of impacts on their maintenance programs. If they left for long periods, their entire shop would shut down, affecting the engineer's company's readiness. The FSC has the ability to send out a recovery team and still maintain a small crew to continue maintenance. This flexibility also allows the FSC to support the engineers from small missions to large scale operations, creating a faster turn-around to get destroyed and damaged vehicles back into the fight.

However recovery teams should only be used if the route-clearance teams cannot conduct like- recovery or the mission dictates that they continue in haste. The routes are often narrow, and the route-clearance team can more often than not quickly and easily get their own vehicles to a more secure area for them and the recovery team. During large scale operations, where maneuver time lines are critical, prepositioning the recovery-team ensures that equipment is quickly recovered from the battlefield in order to quickly continue missions. This requires the FSC and route clearance commanders to talk plans and intents.

The maintenance platoon leader plans and leads these missions. They are overall responsible for the tactical portion of the mission. Although an ordnance officer, the maintenance platoon leader must be trained on the unit that they are supporting, they must understand unit tactics, formations, intelligence, and know the operating environment, as well as, any engineer platoon leader.

According to DA PAM 750-3 the maintenance control supervisor NCO is the recovery supervisor. While deployed, the 5th EN BN used the maintenance platoon leader and platoon sergeant to lead recovery missions. With the amount of damaged and broken equipment and hours outside the wire, it was not feasible to take the maintenance control supervisor away from the battalion that often. Not to mention, the NCOs in the platoon have a wealth of knowledge from previous deployments. The Warrant Officers and the maintenance control supervisor went out on the more difficult missions.

• Date Taken: 02.12.2009
• Date Posted: 02.12.2009 10:46
• Story ID: 29943