Chosen Soldier - Dick Couch [92]
“How’re they doing?” I ask Jan. The previous evening, he had counseled each of them and went over their peer reviews and peer rankings.
“Overall, they’re doing fine. It’s a strong group. The two officers are solid and Sergeant Hall’s a very stable influence on the younger and less-experienced men. We in the cadre can only do so much through drills and exercises. They need to be talking to each other in the barracks and in their bivouacs out in the field—talking about what they did and how to improve when they go back out. They learn from each other as much as from us. Hall keeps them centered and focused. All of them are performing to standard with the exception of three—two of the X-Rays and one of the others.”
Each man, Jan explains, has to move properly in a tactical environment and demonstrate individual skills during the drills—patrolling, proper fire discipline, fire and movement, CQB, EPW searches, safety, and the like. They have to show situational awareness in a tactical situation and move quickly and professionally under the direction of the team leaders. But they also have to lead. Each man has to display tactical leadership in the three key roles—squad or B-team leader, A-team leader, and C-team leader. In 811, three men have failed to do that to Sergeant Janss’s satisfaction.
“During the next three days of fieldwork,” Jan continues, “they’ll all get a turn as team leaders, but I’ll be focusing on the three who need the work. Last time out it was recons and ambushes. This time out it’ll be recons and raids.”
The skill set is much the same for a raid or an ambush. In an ambush, the target is moving, and the reconnaissance is primarily done to find a site suitable to attack the moving target. A good ambush site is one where the team leader can establish proper security and position his A- and C-teams to good advantage. The C-team needs a good field of fire to engage the enemy, and the A-team needs a concealed position from which it can conduct an assault once the C-team has the enemy under fire. The team leader and his B-team have to be in a position where they can initiate the action and control the ambush. In a raid, the target is stationary.
“In a raid, the reconnaissance is everything,” Jan explains. “We compress the time frames here for training purposes, but to conduct a good raid, you want to observe the target for at least twenty-four hours before you make the hit. You want to study the activity around the target—sentries, guard posts, barbed wire or land-mine defenses, strong and weak points of the security, and so on. Then you want to plan your attack accordingly. There may be intelligence about an enemy reaction force nearby, which will limit your time on target—force you to make a rapid strike and clear off the target quickly. In a real situation, the patrol leader would lead a recon element to the target, then make his way back to a secure position to brief his team. For this training, we do it differently. There’s no training value in guys sitting around waiting for the squad leader’s return, so we’ll send out two or three recon teams and have them work the target for twelve hours or so. Then we’ll run three separate raid drills on a single target.”
Eight-one-one has three targets on this field outing: an enemy base camp with a derelict helicopter parked nearby, a makeshift control tower near one of the parachute drop zones (DZs), and a cruise missile installation with an old Air Force Regulus cruise missile blocked up on a wooden cradle.
“What I’m looking for is tactical surprise and violence