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LESSON ONE
PRACTICE EXERCISE
ANSWER KEY AND FEEDBACK
Situation: You are a mechanized infantry officer who must prepare your troops and equipment for desert operations somewhere in the Middle East. You and most of the soldiers under your command are inexperienced in desert operations and will require several weeks of desert training prior to departure overseas in accordance with METT-T (Mission, Enemy, Terrain, Troops and Time Available). Desert training will take place in the Southwestern United States where the extremely arid terrain includes mountains, rocky plateaus, sand dunes, salt marshes and dissected terrain.
| 1. | According to a situation map of the training area, you are about to enter a rocky plateau area interspersed with flat areas and sand dunes. Your best movement plan would be to | |
| A. | travel only at night to avoid being sighted by the enemy. | |
| B. | travel only at night or early morning when the sand is damp and traction is better. | |
| C. | travel day or night but keep to the outer perimeter of the sand dunes and flat areas. | |
| D. | travel during the day through the rocky plateau, which may offer water, shade, and concealment. The rocky plateau may offer sources of water, as well as cover and concealment. Although you should avoid travel through sand dunes, they are not as prone to flash flooding. Movement at night is dangerous in mountain and rocky plateau areas. |
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| 2. | You have a training mission to capture an airfield in a poorly mapped sand-dune area. Although neutralized by air power, you must drive there through sand dunes. A careful route reconnaissance has been made. Before entering the sand, you first command your drivers to | |
| A. | select a gear that will allow the vehicles to maintain torque without wheel spin and to minimize changing gears. A sandy desert may be nearly flat or broken up by dunes. The best time to drive on sand is at night or early morning when the sand is damp and traction is better. A surface crust, caused by chemicals cementing sand particles together, covers some areas. In some cases, it is possible to drive on this crust to keep the dust down. Use the following techniques when driving in sand. (1) Before entering sand, you should select a gear that will allow the vehicle to keep as much torque as possible without causing the wheels to spin and to minimize changing gears. (2) A lack of steering response in a tracked vehicle indicates that sand is building up between the rear sprockets and the treads. If you allow this to continue, the sand will build up and force the track off. You can throw the sand off by "shaking" the vehicle with the steering or by backing up. You must evenly distribute vehicle loads and use rear-wheel drive where necessary to avoid digging in the front wheels. Drivers should switch to all-wheel drive or change gears before a vehicle becomes bogged down. |
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| B. | maintain momentum if sand builds up between rear sprockets and treads. |
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| C. | use four-wheel drive only after a vehicle bogs down. |
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| D. | climb the crust of a downwind side of a dune and halt at the crest to check the angle on foot. |
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| 3. | During your desert training, you learn about arid-area vegetation and wildlife that | |
| A. | like rodents, you conserve your moisture by halting at mid-day for a designated sleeping area away from the direct heat of the sun. Smaller animals like rodents conserve their moisture at daytime by burrowing underground away from the direct heat of the sun. Available vegetation is inadequate for much shade, shelter, or concealment, especially from the air. This may induce temporary agoraphobia (fear of open spaces) for some soldiers new to desert conditions. It usually disappears with acclimatization. The desert has few areas such as trees to protect large vehicles. You should sleep in your vehicle during short halts. For more than an hour, designate a sleeping area with a protective perimeter. Always let someone know where you plan to sleep. Use ground guides when moving vehicles into an area where troops might be sleeping. Sleep on a cot above the ground. The ground is hotter than the air above it. Also, snakes, spiders, and scorpions don't get to you so easily if you're on a cot. |
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| B. | some troops wake up after their first night with a case of agoraphobia, although bugs and snakes are dormant at night. | |
| C. | you have no difficulty finding shelter and camouflaging in areas that have a water table within one meter. | |
| D. | for best protection against chemical attack, your troops should sleep directly on the ground dispersed away from large vehicles that may be targets. | |
| 4. | When issuing your operation order, an important considerationto mention is | |
| A. | ground transportation should stick to only well-maintained roads and trails. | |
| B. | structures or ruins are to be avoided as defensive positions. | |
| C. | avoid contact with high-mineral or high-salt content soil or even water for wetting your uniform to cool off. Arid regions have areas of surface soil with high mineral content (borax, salt, alkali, and lime). Material contacting this soil wears out quickly, and the water is very hard and undrinkable. You may get a skin rash by wetting your uniform in such water to cool off. You cannot tell your people to stick to roads and trails, since they are scarce in the open desert. You may find only simple commercial links. Some surfaces, such as lava beds or salt marsh, may preclude any routine vehicular movement. Yet ground transportation often can travel in any direction. You may need to make defensive positions of the ruins of earlier civilizations that are scattered across the deserts. You may find ancient posts and forts which invariably command important avenues of approach or dominate the only available passes in difficult terrain. Irrigation canals can be an effective tank obstacle and may limit surface mobility. However, you must consider the effect of destruction of an irrigation system on the local population in an operation estimate. |
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| D. | tracked vehicles should use irrigation canals for evasion and to prevent getting lost. | |
| 5. | Your men are engaged in light activity in 79 degree WBGT (slightly less than 105 degrees fahrenheit) temperature. To prevent heat illness in your command, you ensure your troops | |
| A. | acclimatize by progressively reducing their water intake. | |
| B. | condition themselves to stop sweating when exercising during periods of high air temperature. | |
| C. | drink only when thirsty or when suffering water depletion symptoms of fatigue, cramps or vomiting. | |
| D. | drink at least six quarts of water per man per day. An important water requirements guide, based on 80 degrees WBGT, suggests six quarts per man per day for light activity such as deskwork, guard duty or radio operating. Once the U.S. Army and the Israeli Defense Forces tried to condition men by progressively reducing their water supplies during training. This "water discipline" caused hundreds of heat casualties. Remember, you can't drink too much water! The more you sweat, the more moisture you lose. Sweating is the main cause of water loss. You will have a heat stroke if you stop sweating during high air temperatures or heavy exercise. It is an emergency requiring immediate medical attention. Thirst is not a reliable guide for your water needs. Thirst as a guide will cause you to drink only two-thirds of your daily requirement. |
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| 6. | After desert training is complete, you know your troops will experience jet lag upon arrival in the Middle East and will require some after flight recovery time. Ideally, you would allow your troops a recovery time of | |
| A. | one hour for every time zone crossed. | |
| B. | eight hours for every time zone crossed. | |
| C. | one day for every time zone crossed. Jet lag affects eating and sleeping habits, mental agility, and general attitude. Jet lag should be seriously considered when beginning desert operations after traveling from a great distance. You should allow a recovery period, ideally, of one day for every time zone crossed. Climatic stress of sudden and extreme temperature shifts in arid areas can cause chest colds. Wear warm clothes at night to prevent chills. A disease such as plague, typhus, malaria, dengue fever, dysentery, cholera, and typhoid is found in the desert. Some can be prevented by vaccines or prophylactic measures. You need high levels of field hygiene and sanitation where there are no vaccines or prophylactic measures. You should check the color of your urine; a light color means you are drinking enough water; a dark color means you need to drink more. |
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| D. | two or three days maximum. | |
| 7. | After you arrive in the Middle East, one of the first things you notice when you step off the aircraft is how hot it is. You can find relief from heat gain with all three of these factors EXCEPT | |
| A. | controlling hot, blowing sand-laden winds. | |
| B. | avoiding conductive heat from direct contact with the desert sand and rock. | |
| C. | getting started on acquiring as much of a suntan as possible the first day. You should acquire a suntan in gradual stages, in the early morning or late afternoon. This gives some protection against sunburn. On the first day, leaders should not permit troops to expose bare skin to the sun for longer than five minutes. Then you can increase exposure gradually at the rate of five minutes per day. In all operational conditions your people should be fully clothed in loose garments. This also reduces sweat loss. You will notice intense sunlight and heat when stepping off the plane. The air temperaturecan get as high as 140 degrees Fahrenheit (60 degrees Centigrade) during the day. You need to shield from direct sunlight, hot blowing winds, reflective heat (the sun's rays bouncing off the sand), and conductive heat from direct contact with the desert sand and rock. Don't sit out on an open runway! |
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| D. | shielding the reflective heat of the sun's rays bouncing off the sand. | |
| 8. | The DMZ generally runs from the north to the south, and you are on the west. You must be particularly alert to a | |
| A. | mid-day chemical attack with the sun dangerously exposing M5 impregnating kits. | |
| B. | night infiltration when your defense is handicapped by the extremely poor range of light. | |
| C. | prepositioned searchlight rotating in the west. | |
| D. | morning attack with the sun comparatively low and behind the enemy. An assaulting force should try to have the sun low and behind. The attacker sees enemy targets plainly, while defenders are handicapped by glare, mirages, and haze. You must keep out of constant direct sunlight items such as C02 fire extinguishers, M13 decontamination and reimpregnating kits, and Redeye missiles. Light levels are more intense. Moonlit nights are crystal clear. When winds die down, haze and glare disappear, and visibility is good. You can see lights, red flashlights, and blackout lights at great distances. Also, noise carries far. A prepositioned searchlight is placed far apart from another searchlight. They are beyond enemy artillery range, and concealed from enemy ground observation. Units can determine their locations by resection, using the vertical beams of the lights. |
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| 9. | You decide to convoy at night to minimize the use of water. An important consideration about desert operations at night is | |
| A. | units should start their engines at 30-second intervals for psychological effect. | |
| B. | red filters must be put over lights to prevent detection by enemy passive night-vision devices. | |
| C. | light and noise can be seen or heard from miles away. Because of this, you need strict light and noise discipline. Enemy passive night vision devices can pick up light sources at greater ranges than the unaided eye. Units should start all engines together. This confuses the enemy on the number and direction of vehicles. External lights, if you must use them, should be dark blue or dark green and capable of being dimmed by rheostats. Permanently cover items such as brake lights. When dust is an observation hazard to a maneuvering force, teams should move in levels with "bounding" overwatching elements on the upwind side. |
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| D. | drivers are prone to the optical illusion of refracted light obscuring a vehicle on bounding overwatch. | |
| 10. | You drive over a ridge and come upon a uniformly-colored open area of several miles. There appears to be a large lake with scattered islands. On one island you see a row of enemy vehicles that appear to be moving. You take aim with mortars and artillery. Chances are someone ignorant of desert effects would have a range estimation that causes rounds to | |
| A. | fall short because of optical illusion. A uniform color of the land and even lighting at midday can make it difficult to distinguish changes in elevation. Soldiers may aim with a recoilless rifle without noticing the stretch of low ground in between. The round falls short, because of optical illusion . An observer may miss intermediate features in the landscape, and must think about what he sees, and look for the unexpected. (Such problems decrease at dawn and dusk, when shadows define terrain features.) The mirage effect makes objects appear to move. It also blurs distant range contours such that it seems like you are surrounded by a sheet of water from which elevations stand out as "islands." The mirage effect makes it hard to identify targets, estimate range, and spot personnel. However, on high ground, you are above the super-heated air close to the ground and overcome the mirage effect. |
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| B. | fall behind the target because bodies of water look farther away. | |
| C. | have a tightly-grouped pattern after any mirage effect is overcome by getting to low ground. | |
| D. | hit the target with greater accuracy when terrain features are more visible around mid-day. | |
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