The first day consisted of weapons draw, PCC/PCIs, and movement to Galloway Range for the platoon live fire. For us, they picked on of the LTs who had a good mission last week, and gave him until 0700 to plan and prepare the platoon for the exercise. It was raining pretty hard during the OPORD, but a well-built sandtable got the point across, and we got six hours of sleep beforehand. We did a blank-fire iteration in the morning, overseen by the company commander, which went well for us. In the afternoon, after some tweaking of the plan and additional rehearsals, we did the live-fire iteration to success. It was a hard day, but things went well for us, and we got to get about three hours of sleep back at the TTB. At 0300 the next day we woke up and began prepping for the next mission. The rest of the day and a good chunk of the night, we spent doing additional missions for the people who still needed leadership positions or who had NO-GOs from last week. The next day was devoted towards planning and preparation for a company attack. The PL position was again given to an LT who had a good mission the week prior. We got two hours of sleep that night back at the TTB, interrupted by a inspection of our IBAs, because an LT decided to remove his kevlar in order to save some weight during their platoon's live fire exercise. Needless to say, nobody was amused on either side. We woke up, took buses to the SP, and then began a 16 mile tactical ruckmarch with our gear and weapons to the ORP. The pace was 18-20 minutes a mile, wit hwater breaks at the 4, 8, 13, and 15 mile points. At mile 15 we donned our helmets and NODs. The company attack was a seizure of a large MOUT complex, with numerous, multi-story buildings. A lot of time and planning went into this, and by this time we were feeling the effects of no sleep and bitter cold. STill, the mission was a success, and by 1200 we were on our way back to Taylor Field for a DOGEX and equipment turn-in. Spirits were all-around rather high, despite our exhaustion. From that point onwards, we were done with the field (At least until Ranger School). All we had to do was clean and turn in our weapons and gear, and knock a few more classes out the way, and we were finally infantry officers.
Friday
for your rehearsals what are you going over.. Actions on, COB/MOB, EPW, A&L, indirect.. What are cadre looking for to beef up your evaluation. First, this is how I see IBOLC, "LDAC," only on steroids. Am I right or wrong?
ReplyDeleteMost of our rehearsals were setting up ORPs, security halts, emplacing SBF. Actions on is, of course, always the priority. Didn't worry a lot about specialty teams, because we all had experience doing it during our commissioning source training. Unlike in Cadetland, there is a lot less 'checking the blocks,' as far as what you do during your planning - they're looking for results, and part of getting good results is developing a good plan, with lots of fidelity, and ensuring everyone knows what they're supposed to do. For instance, on my first mission, I did my actions on planning while we were marching to our PB location, and briefed to to the SLs en route - so, no sand table or rehearsals, but because we had SOPs, and squads were familiar with their particular tasks, it took a minimum of coordination to ensure the plan worked and was understood. Since the plan was good and well understood, things went well. On my second mission, it was somethign we hadn't really done before, but I had plenty of time to conduct rehearsals and issue a detailed OPORD with graphics, so again, it worked. I thought at first it was going to be LDAC on steroids, but it really all came together the last few weeks. My advice is to not come in to the course with that attitude - it may be true at first, but if you sop up what knowledge you can early on, it helps tremendously when they ram up the game - and it's a rather steep climb, when they do.
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