Infantry Battalion Training: Is It Good Enough?
AUTHOR Major E.L. Kent, USMC
CSC 1989
SUBJECT AREA - Training
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Title: INFANTRY BATTALION TRAINING: IS IT GOOD ENOUGH?
I Thesis: Infantry battalion training has suffered from a variety of
ills, to the point that there can be a justifiable concern as to whether
the training conducted by the infantry battalions of the Marine Corps is
good enough to prepare them for combat.
II. Issue: Infantry battalions will be the point of any combat effort
when the Marine Corps again goes to war but training has been suffering
from a lack of emphasis from all levels in the chain of command. The
battalions suffer from a loss of training time due to mandatory training
that, in many cases, has nothing to do with gaining-combat related
skills. In addition, time is lost to preparing for major inspections as
well as having to perform unscheduled demonstrations. Additional problems
center around a lack of training management as the Marine Corps does not
emphasize training management. Personnel turbulence adds to the poor
state of training as some units are still trying to accomplish rudimentary
individual trainig within days of a major deployment. Many of these
problems rest back with the battalion commander and his philosophy of
training and most solutions to solve these challenges will be a result of
how committed all commanders are to fixing the problems.
III. Conclusion. The current training of infantry battalions is barely
good enough. Leaders at all levels must recognize the problem and work
extremely hard to insure that training receives the emphasis that it must
have in order for the Marine Corps to accomplish any mission when it next
goes to war.
INFANTRY BATTALION TRAINING: IS IT GOOD ENOUGH?
OUTLINE
Infantry battalion training has suffered from a variety of
ills, to the point that there can be justifiable concern as
to whether the training conducted by the infantry battalions
of the Marine Corps is good enough to prepare them for
combat.
I. Introduction
II. Necessity for well trained battalions
A. Hours available
B. Necessity to train platoons and sguads in order to
have fully combat ready battalions
1. Offense
2. Defense
3. Patrolling
4. Fire support coordination
III. Training problems faced by battalions
A. Available time
B. Time lost
1. Mandated training
2. Major inspections
3. Demonstrations
4. Large exercises
C. Training management
1. High tempo
2. Lack of officer training
3. Meet hourly requirements vice objectives
4. Lack of training philosophy
D. Lack of proper leadership
E. Lack of imagination
F. Personnel turbulence
G. Untrained trainers
H. Zero defect mentality
IV. Solutions
A. Address problems already discussed
B. Actions required by higher headquarters
V. Conclusion
A. Need for highly trained battalions
B. Training is barely satisfactory
C. Action must be taken to improve
D. Good training must be accomplished every day
Skillful senior commanders can bring their armies into battle under
favorable conditions but the small unit leaders are the ones that win the
battle. Given anything like equal terms, the best trained army will win.1
This observation is patently true to anyone that has ever seen the chaos that
is war.
In studying combat performance and what motivates men to fight,
sociologists stress the importance of the Marine's loyalty to his primary
group. These primary groups are squads, sections, crews, and platoons.2
Writings from different disciplines suggest that small unit training, which
knits the primary groups closer together and provides training opportunities
for small unit leaders, is at the heart of an army's effectiveness.3
The United States Marine Corps exists for the sole purpose of doing battle
with this country's enemies, whenever or wherever required. A Marine infantry
battalion will be the point of this effort for a Division Commander. In order
to accomplish this extremely important assignment, these battalions must be
highly qualified and competent in all aspects of making war costly to the
enemy, while at the same time, doing battle at a minimum cost to itself. The
core of any infantry battalion is its rifle squads. Through these squads, the
battalion executes it plans and pursues its objectives and because of this all
important fact, a squad must be very highly trained. This requires a
tremendous amount of time and effort. Unfortunately. there are finite amounts
of time and resources available to an infantry battalion commander in which to
train his battalion to fight and win on the battlefield.
Battalion training has suffered from a variety of ills, to the point that
there can be justifiable concern as to whether the training conducted by the
infantry battalions of the Marine Corps is good enough to prepare them for
combat.
First, let's define what training an infantry battalion must conduct in
order to accomplish any assigned combat mission. Effective training to any
infantry battalion must be directly related to something that the Marines will
have to do in combat. There are three types of training that must be
accomplished and addressed by a commander. One type is individual training.
Individual training is that training that is conducted for the Marine to give
him the skills and knowledge he needs to do his specific job.4 Collective
training is designed to prepare a group of individuals (crews, teams, squads,
platoons, companies) for wartime roles.5 Unit training is classified as being
mission oriented and all unit training is intended only to prepare a unit, as a
unit, to perform those tasks required for accomplishment of an assigned
mission.6 A combination of all three types of training must be planned and
accomplished by a battalion in order for it to be well trained. This training
must be planned for all subunits within a battalion to include all aspects that
relate to tasks required in the offense, defense, patrolling, and fire support
to include mortars, artillery, naval gunfire and air.
There are many reasons for the lack of viable training conducted by an
infantry battalion. The major problem facing the battalion is a lack of time.
This actually poses several sub-problems under the heading of training time.
Battalion training time is gobbled up by a strange phenomena called mandated
training. Most mandated training requirements come from outside of the unit.
Most often this mandated training comes from Headquarters Marine Corps (HQMC)
and Division, although Regiments will also get into the act. Examples of this
type of training are the Marine Corps Troop Information Program, training on
food conservation and socialization training (defensive driving, sex education,
race relations, etc.). Many of these requirements are not pertinent to
individual or collective training. An example of what impact
mandated training cab have on a battalion can be seen in an infantry battalion
that prepared a yearly training schedule and planned to execute its mandated
training objectives first. after taking into consideration weekends and
authorized leave, it was the second week in October before combat training
objectives could be scheduled to be met.7 The unit was unable to meet both the
mandated requirements as well as the combat training requirements.
In addition to the mandated training requirements, the battalions are faced
with preparing for major inspections from all higher headquarters. The desire
to look good in front of the Commandant of the Marine Corps Inspector General
Inspection causes many higher headquarters to lose sight of combat training in
favor of time wasting and unnecessary pre-inspections. Far too many times, an
entire IG inspection will last less than eight hours but several hundred
training hours will be spent in insuring that a unit looks pretty. An example
is a unit that spent over four hours preparing to take an IG Physical fitness
Test, an event that actually required a little over an hour but the Division
G-3 wanted to insure that there was a full dress rehearsal in order to work out
any bugs.
In addition, higher headquarters will receive and task out demonstrations
for VIP's, unaffectionately known as "Dog and Pony Shows", that will waste an
exorbitant amount of training time, again a case of the demonstration for
VIP's lasting two hours but taking up to ten times longer in rehearsal and
movement time. In too many cases, these demonstrations will be unplanned in
the battalion's training schedule and will disrupt planned training.
Large exercises are major culprits in the theft of training time. Major
blocks of time are spent, both in preparation and execution, for large U.S.
and allied operations but little if any time that is of value to individual or
collective training is spent during the exercise. Teamwork 84, a major NATO
exercise conducted north of the arctic Circle, is a prime example. The
battalion was embarked 18 February 1984, conducted a crossing of the North
Atlantic conduct an amphibious landing in Norway on l6 March, spent six days
ashore conducting an operation where the battalion was a training aid and was
then backloaded on 21 March. The battalion then preceded to spend the next
three weeks in liberty ports before departing for home. The battalion returned
home on 27 April. A total of 70 days were spent without a single day spent in
training the subordinate units of a battalion do their job. This exercise,
although required to demonstrate a capability to our enemies, none the less
wasted at least 55 days of training time.
Headquarters Marine Corps must take the lead in solving the problem of lack
of training. All Marine Corps directives should be reviewed to insure that all
mandated training requirements are justified as being essential by the
respective HQMC branches. Then, the training branch at Headquarters should
review these requirements and discard all training that doesn't have a direct
correlation to combat skills or safety.
Major inspections have been around for a long time and won't ever
completely disappear but their impact on training time must be minimized. This
responsibility rests with the division commander. If his priorities are
spelled out and the top priority is combat training and he has expressed his
desire that training won't suffer from preparation for inspections, this
particular problem will have less impact. In addition, although the IG
inspection won't go away completely, the Commandant, General Gray, has mandated
that the frequency become less which is a major relief for all units.
A real solution to having to participate in "Dog and Pony Shows" would be
for them to be outlawed but this is not realistic. The division operations
section can soften the impact on a battalion's training by using the yearly
Training, Exercise and Evaluation Plan (TEEP) to assign responsibility for
demonstrations for specific periods of time to regiments. Regiments could
then assign them to individual battalions This would occur on an annual basis
and although there might have to be changes, it would allow the battalion
commander to know when his training might be disrupted by having to conduct
demonstrations. He could then use this opportunity to manage his training to
allow for the greatest flexibility and least impact on training.
Large scale U.S. and Allied exercises are mandated and are normally cast in
stone. From these, there can be little relief but Headquarters Marine Corps,
the headquarters of both Fleet Marine Forces (FMF) and the division need to
take a hard look at the number of exercises that they have scheduled and decide
if all of the exercises are absolutely essential or if the desired results
could be attained through another means, such as the Tactical Warfare
Simulation Evaluation and Analysis System (TWSEAS), a computer-supported
simulator with a sophisticated audiovisual system and comprehensive
mathematical model designed to train the maneuver commanders and their staffs
in combined arms operations. Another solution would be to use only staffs for
these large exercises and let the Marines continue to train without
participating in the exercise. Battalion commanders must also be aware that
even in battalion level exercises the actual training gained by subordinate
units is minimal. He must make use of tactical exercises without troops
(TEWTS) or Pegasus, a free exercise game designed to train regiment and
battalion staffs. These are all vehicles that can be used to train the leaders
while saving a maximum amount of training time for the squads and platoons. In
any case, everyone involved in leadership positions must work to guarantee that
small units have enough training time to hone their warfighting skills.
Training management within an infantry battalion provides many problems for
a commander. Many Marine units are not training to the standards necessary to
win on the modern battlefield.8 This is due to officers and NCO's that cannot
train or manage the required training. There are several reasons for the
problems associated with training management. Some of these same problems
continue to crop up not just in training management but also as significant
problems in their own right. Personnel turbulence is such a problem and will
be discussed later. The high tempo of operations that most battalions face
causes a large number of problems in training management for both the battalion
operations officer and the commander as it is difficult to put together a
training plan that can build all the combat skills required for the unit.
Compounding this problem is a lack of understanding by the principal officers
in training management. The Marine Corps has fallen down in the area of
teaching officers to effectively manage a training program. The Basic School
contains no training management instruction in its program of instruction
(POI). The Infantry Officer's Course contains two hours, with six hours
presented at amphibious Warfare School and two hours at Command and Staff
College.1O From the time that he is commissioned until he completes Command
and Staff College, a total of ten hours is dedicated to teaching an infantry
officer about how to manage a unit's training. It is obvious that the
battalions do not contain enough leaders that can manage their unit's training.
Another aspect of training management is that too many units train to meet
hourly requirements rather than to achieve objectives as set down either in
occupational skill manuals or as directed from the appropriate commanders. If
training directives state that units will conduct one third of their training
at night this condition will be met, but proper objectives will not be set out
prior to the conduct of the night training. This training time stands a fine
opportunity of being wasted.
Battalion commanders are not properly trained or educated about training
management so it is no great surprise that the majority do not have a training
philosophy. This causes the operations officer to have no clear idea about
where the battalion commander places his training priorities or wants the
training to take the unit.
Training management must be improved in order to maximize the training time
available. Proper management will also cause the training to be of a nature
that should insure that the greatest amount of learning takes place.
Battalion commanders must do everything that they can to control the tempo
that they set for their battalions. Higher commanders must also take a long,
hard look at the tempo of their operations to decide what can be done to slow
down what has been an extremely high tempo for the battalions.
The Marine Corps must begin to train all officers in training management.
All of the curriculums must be looked at with an eye to increasing the time
allotted to training management at all levels of Marine Corps schools. If this
is accomplished, battalions would then begin receiving commanders that would
have a training philosophy and that would understand the necessity of setting
training priorities so that the operations officer could then plan the training
to meet.
Training inspections at all levels should be set up to evaluate the actual
training vice the paper work that accompanies training. This, in conjunction
with skill training standards that should be developed by HQMC, would allow for
evaluations by all levels in the chain of command of the training that had been
conducted, which should then move the units away from just meeting hourly
requirements and towards effective training.
Too many battalions suffer from a lack of proper leadership when it comes
to training. Leaders from the battalion commander on down will fail to provide
the leadership that will result in a tight cohesive unit as they will be afraid
to let their subordinates plan and conduct the training. An example can be
taken from the conduct of squad training. Young squad leaders are not given
the opportunity to exhibit their knowledge or demonstrate their competence as
far too much of the squad training is planned and conducted by either the
platoon commander or platoon sergeant, not the squad leader. The squad leader just
serves as a mannequin who carries out the directions of his seniors. The
responsibility for the training doesn't rest on the squad leader's shoulders and
his professional growth is arrested by the inability of his leaders to trust him
with training his squad. Without this responsibility, the squad leader will never
develop the self-confidence required to lead in combat. Commanders, at all levels,
must be mindful that competent tactical leaders do not grow on trees but are
nutured.
The weakness in proper leadership has to be solved from the top down and the
solution lies with the battalion commander. If he is willing to allow his company
commanders the flexibility and latitude to conduct their training and then mandates
that all training will be conducted at the appropriate level, it would go along way
towards solving this particular problem. Squad leaders would then plan and conduct
the training of their squads while being supervised by the platoon commander. This
must be the status quo in order for the battalion to be both properly trained and
lead.
Lack of imagination during training detracts from the overall success of
training. Marines will repeatedly end up training over the same terrain with the
same objectives, both on the ground and for the purpose of the training exercise.
This lack of imagination dulls initiative and enthusiasm and ultimately limits the
knowledge that will be retained as, after several hours of boring training, the
learning curve takes a nose dive and the learning stops, although the training may
continue.
Imagination must be encouraged by all levels in the chain of command. Thinking
leaders of all levels must be encouraged by commanders at all levels. Ideas must
be sought from all Marines. Through this, the battalion will improve in many areas
and training should improve as junior leaders, when they realize that their ideas
are valued, will be more active in their approach to training.
Another area of concern is the amount of personnel turbulence that a
battalion sustains throughout the training year but specifically just prior to and
after a major deployment. In many cases, battalions will be lose up to 20% of
their trained Marines and gain a like amount of untrained Marines within thirty
days of their deployment. There will be no time for the unit to train the new
arrivals on the individual skills necessary for survival or on the unit standard
operating procedures (SOP) on the multitude of things for which a unit has SOP's.
Even without a major deployment staring unit commanders in the face, the normal
turnover rate can run as high as two hundred percent annually.11 This turbulence
causes commanders to provide instruction on all three training levels at the same
time which places a tremendous burden on an already over taxed training management
system.
Personnel turbulence is an area that may not be able to be solved. In fact,
certain levels of turbulence are characteristic of battle and this turbulence can
help to develop adaptability under pressure in both individuals and units.12
However, at a minimum, the battalion's personnel turbulence should be kept to a
minimum in the sixty days prior to a major deployment. This would allow the
commander to develop a remedial training program to cover individual and
collective training for new joins prior to the unit's departure from the U.S. An
end result of this action would be a more cohesive battalion.
Lack of effective and competent trainers in the form of noncommissioned
officers causes the training conducted to lose its effectiveness. Exposure alone
does not produce training. If rushed through the training simply to get it over
and the Marines feel that the instructors are not interested in their learning, an
effective training atmosphere is not created.13 Most NCO's have not received the
training that will make them effective trainers.
The training of the trainers, the NCO's, needs to be conducted both in unit
schools and by division schools. Divisions need to set up and maintain separate
training schools for NCO's, squad leaders and platoon sergeants.
Battalion commanders still have a requirement to hold school to teach battalion
SOP's to new leaders; as well as holding an interim school for platoon
sergeants and squad leaders if quotas for the division school don't meet the
needs of the unit.
Although the POI's of the NCO school and the Squad Leader's and Platoon
Sergeant's Schools should contain a package on how to conduct training, the
responsibility still rests on the battalion commander's shoulders to insure
that effective training is conducted.
A problem that has always been with the military to one degree or another
is the zero defect mentality. It shows itself in the company commander who is
afraid to let his lieutenants make mistakes for fear that the battalion
commander might be watching or the battalion commander that choreographs his
unit's training when he learns that the division commander will be in the field
viewing the unit's training. This mentality causes a loss of initiative and
enthusiasm among the young leaders in a unit and seriously detracts from the
overall quality of the training.
The Zero Defect Mentality, although present, must be stamped out. The
emphasis has started from the top with the Commandant but commanders at all
levels must strive to eradicate this attitude. Training must be vibrant,
exciting and challenging in order to be effective. If leaders are afraid to
make mistakes, then training will be without enthusiasm. The training that is
then conducted will make a unit look good although not insuring that that unit
is good. Commanders cannot accept this mentality but must state their position
against it and then follow it up by allowing their leaders the latitude to make
a mistake of commission.
I think the answer to the question that I posed in the beginning is that
the training is good enough - just barely, and Marines will eventually pay for
this barely adequate training if action is not taken.
Infantry battalion training is the stuff that insures that the Marine
Corps, when it is called upon, can do its job. The essential characteristics
of a good Marine Corps battalion is that it is well-trained and
well-disciplined. These two characteristics are apparent in every unit
achievement, whether in peace or war. Discipline derives from training and
training permeates everything a military organization does.
Marine Corps training needs to be rethought and hard decisions have to be
made by all levels within the chain of command. Training, real training, has
taken a back seat to looking good and leaders don't understand the all
encompassing need and nature of training. Colonel Pat Collins, USMC, in his
paper, Marine Corps Training.... A Time for Change? states the situation in a
most succinct and complete manner when he writes:
" A professional Marine, be he officer or noncommissioned officer, must
learn early in his career not to think of training as the insatiable enemy
that endlessly consumes his time. True, he and his troops will be training
most of everyday; but, training is not just a priority to be emphasized
this week because a senior commander is now pushing it, as he was
"maintenance" last week and "safety" or "equal opportunity" the week
before. Training affords a commander the opportunity to explore the
variety of problems and missions that will always confront him. Uhen a
commander of a military unit takes this attitude, most of his problems--and
those of his troops will be met and solved in the course of daily training,
and thus, will cease to be problems. The same attitude will prevail again
over new problems."14
Good training is an absolute necessity and an able leader can provide it if
he has in his military soul a genuine concern for the Marine and the Corps'
wide variety of missions
Footnotes
1 LtGen. A. S. Collins, USA, Common Sense Training (Presidio Press,
1978),p.133.
2 IBID,p.133.
3 IBID,p.134.
4 Col. Pat Collins, USMC, "Marine Corps Training...A Time for Change,"
dtd September 1984 (Department of War Studies, King's College, London,
U.K.),p.268.
5 IBID,p.l87.
6 IBID,p.189.
7 IBID,p.198.
8 IBID,p.IV.
9 Maj. P. K. Van Riper, USMC, Maj. M. W. Wydo, USMC, Maj. D. P. Brown,
USMC, "A Analysis of Marine Corps Training", dtd June 1978 (Naval War
College, Newport, R.I.),p.201.
10 IBID,p.203.
11 Col. Pat Collins,p.203.
12 IBID,p.203.
13 Bradford, R. G., Gorham, W.A., Havron, M. D., Nordlie, P. G.,
"Tactical Training of the Infantry Rifle Squad," Human Resources Research
Office, George Washington University (June l955),p.41.
14 Col. Pat Collins,p.l.
Bibliography
1. Bradford, R. G., Gorham, W. A., Havron, M. D., Nordlie, P. G.
"Tactical Training of the Infantry Rifle Squad." Human Resources
Research Office Report, Technical Report 18, George Washington
University, Washington, D.C., (June 1955).
2. Collins, Arthur S. Common Sense Training. San Rafael, CA: Presidio
Press, (1978).
3. Collins, Pat, Col, USMC. "Marine Corps Training...A Time for Change?"
Background Paper Number Two for The Department of War Studies,
King's College, University of London (September 1984).
4. Marshall, S. L. A., Col, USA. Men Against Fire. Gloucester, Mass: Peter
Smith, (1947).
5. Van Riper, P. K., Maj, USMC, Wydo, M W., Maj, USMC, Brown, D. P., Maj,
USMC. "An Analysis of Marine Corps Training." Naval War College
Research Paper (June 1978).
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