I thought I would share this with y’all. When I was in Afghanistan I was attached to my current unit which was 1\/221 cav for a few months and when they left, the SecFor that replaced them was an arty unit from PA National Guard. At that time I had picked up my E5 and when the new SecFor arrived I suggested we use every Friday (that was our down day between mission weeks and going up on the OPs) to go train behind Camp Wright on the range. My reasoning behind that was because the guys that replaced the prior unit were Arty and they were being tasked out to serve an Infantry roll and they should know how to maneuver like grunts. It was also a great opportunity to burn off rounds and get some trigger time that you would not normally be able to do in a garrison environment. Especially if you’re in the National Guard.<\/p>\n
So myself and my other recall buddy from 1st Ranger Battalion set up a training plan that consisted of weapons manipulation, reflexive fire, stress shoots, barricade shooting, buddy team rushes etc. So one of our first training exercises was how to move in a squad wedge, react to contact and then break contact back to our vehicles. First I taught it on a white board, then rock drills, then we did dry runs (with no rounds) to make sure they executed it correctly, and were also safe (ie. going from safe to semi and not flagging their buddies). Then finally we went live.<\/p>\n
When we did the live portion of the training I always initiated the contact by shooting a star cluster at the mountain or firing on burst so they would have positive identification and also give the three Ds (distance, direction, description). Then to simulate what it’s like maneuvering under fire and how loud and chaotic fire fights are I had them bound back under fire from our crew serves mounted on the MRAPs which were M2s, Mk19s, and 240Bs. We also had them employ smoke for concealment, had the 203s gunners get used to shooting HEDP, and our SAW gunners maneuvering with their belt fed weapons.<\/p>\n
The training ended up paying off because the couple dismounted fights we got into the guys reacted to their training and were able to fire and maneuver.<\/p>\n
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Now that I explained how we set up the training I’m going to explain how react to contact and break contact is performed. All Army and Marine Corps infantry battle drills are all centered around having one element suppress while the other element bounds back or closes with the enemy depending METT-TC (Mission, Enemy, Terrain, Time, Troops and Civilians on the battle field) considerations. You can either be conducting\u00a0squad attack, breaking contact, reacting to a near or far ambush etc. but at the end of the day it’s all about being able to bound and suppress the enemy. So when you move in a squad wedge you’re going to have an Alpha and Bravo team. Whatever element comes in contact that element will immediately seek cover and concealment, return fire and everybody echos the three Ds (distance, direction, description). Then the squad leader will assess the situation and decide whether to either close with the enemy (by bounding or a flanking maneuver) or break contact back to a safer location. In this case for this iteration of training we conducted a break contact back to our vehicles. So the element in contact will suppress and the fire team not in contact will maneuver to a location where they can suppress the enemy so the team that initially came in contact can bound back. This process goes back and forth until contact is broken.<\/p>\n
I also wanted to point out that the Team Leaders in this training were E4s. The reason I did this was because I wanted them to get some leadership time and also\u00a0see who would be able to take charge and run a team in the event one of the NCOs is killed or wounded<\/p>\n
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Here’s the video of the various iterations we conducted: