THE MANEUVER FORCE IN BATTLE 2005-2012 MANEUVER CENTER OF EXCELLENCE FORT BENNING, GEORGIA OCTOBER 2015 THE MANEUVER FORCE IN BATTLE 2005-2012 The Soldier is the Army. No army is better than its soldiers. The Soldier is also a citizen. In fact, the highest obligation and privilege of citizenship is that of bearing arms for one’s country. — General George S. Patton, Jr. October 2015 Maneuver Center of Excellence Fort Benning, Georgia 2015 CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ I EDITOR’S NOTES ................................................................................................... III CHAPTER 1 MISSION COMMAND........................................................................ 1 CHAPTER 2 LEADERSHIP ...................................................................................11 CHAPTER 3 TEMPO ...........................................................................................35 CHAPTER 4 INTELLIGENCE................................................................................52 CHAPTER 5 RECONNAISSANCE .........................................................................67 CHAPTER 6 COMBINED ARMS ...........................................................................79 CHAPTER 7 TERRAIN ........................................................................................99 CHAPTER 8 MANEUVER ..................................................................................115 CHAPTER 9 TACTICAL PATIENCE ....................................................................147 CHAPTER 10 FIRES ...........................................................................................155 CHAPTER 11 SUSTAINMENT ..............................................................................177 CHAPTER 12 SECURITY .....................................................................................195 CHAPTER 13 COUNTERINSURGENCY OPERATIONS ...........................................205 CHAPTER 14 INFORM AND INFLUENCE ACTIVITIES ...........................................217 CHAPTER 15 PERSONNEL RECOVERY ...............................................................229 CHAPTER 16 HUMAN DIMENSION .....................................................................242 CHAPTER 17 CONCLUSION................................................................................257 GLOSSARY .....................................................................................................259 INDEX .....................................................................................................271 INTRODUCTION “In our schools, we generally assume that the organizations are well-trained and at full strength, that subordinates are competent, that supply arrangements function, that communications work, that orders are carried out. In war, many or all of these conditions may be absent.” — George C. Marshall Today’s maneuver leaders face an unpredictable and complex operating environment against a spectrum of adaptable enemies, all while resources continue to diminish. The 2015 edition of Maneuver Forces in Battle is a unique look at maneuver leaders and their Soldiers across the Range of Military Operations as they adapted to enemies during the surges in Iraq and Afghanistan and their transitions to national sovereignty. The lessons learned over the past decade of conflict are critical for our leaders to understand and internalize as we prepare for the increasing complexity on the future battlefields. The vignettes in this manual take the reader across the Warfighting Functions and the range of military operations through the eyes and actions of our company-grade leaders who often found themselves at the decisive point of military operations. I am proud of the Maneuver Center’s efforts in this endeavor, which captures the tactical experiences of our Maneuver Leaders since 2005. These past ten years have featured pivotal moments in our Army’s history, and the vignettes here illustrate those moments at the squad, platoon, and company levels, where war is personal and real. War by its very nature is unpredictable and chaotic. This is, in part, because war is a human endeavor, executed by humans facing an enemy who is adaptive and creative. Furthermore, this work represents the first endeavor by the students and instructors at the Maneuver Center of Excellence—not just Infantry, or Armor, or Cavalry—but combined arms effort, studying together in the same way as they fight together. There is no guarantee that lessons extracted from these vignettes will apply to the next conflict. Few of Marshall’s lessons from 1934 would resonate with today’s maneuver leaders. However, the lessons learned by this generation of Maneuver Leaders, lessons often paid for in the blood of our Soldiers, provide an example of how our Army that adapted in conflict, adapted technologically, adapted in approach, and adapted in thinking. Sir Michael Howard wrote to a generation of officers in 1961, “It must not be forgotten that the true use of history, military or civil…is not to make men clever for the next time; it is to make them wiser forever.” As I write this, and as our efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan become ii Introduction the substance of debate and study, I believe that professional military education remains a core component of our profession. An excellent way to begin the discussion is to study the combat experiences of our maneuver leaders who integrated combat arms in their conflict. Austin S. Miller Major General, US Army Commander, Maneuver Center of Excellence Fort Benning, George October 2015 EDITOR’S NOTES Ten years ago, I had the privilege of editing Infantry in Battle— From Somalia to the Global War on Terror. Throughout these ten years, many things have changed in the world and here on Fort Benning. Our Nation continued its evolving fight against terror both in Iraq and in Afghanistan, and the Maneuver Center of Excellence stood up, bringing the Infantry and the Armor schools together to train the way the two branches fight—in concert. We have continued to add to the collection of monographs, written by students—Infantry and Armor— who came here to study in the Maneuver Captains Career Course, and it is from those papers that these vignettes come. Therefore, I would first like to thank those officers who spent many hours and more than a few drafts to capture their experiences for the Maneuver Center’s Donovan Research Library archives and for this work. In many ways this book was more difficult to start. We reviewed over 500 outstanding papers and then chose those that best supported the topics the senior leaders on Fort Benning wanted us to cover. I would like to thank MAJ Isaac Howard for his hard work on this task. I would also like to thank CPT Will Garvin who wrote several discussions and ensured we selected only the best vignettes, participated in the editing process, and patiently answered all of my questions. Once again, the talented Small Group Instructors in the Directorate of Training wrote the discussions, in particular MAJ James Trask, MAJ Mark Evans, MAJ Eric Evans, MAJ Lawrence Rubal, MAJ Courtney Dean, MAJ Andy Love, MAJ Aaron Childers, MAJ William Sitze, CPT Widmar Roman, CPT Matthew Wilkinson, CPT Brett Matzenbacher, CPT Mikel Resnick, CPT Erika Holownia, CPT James Lucas, CPT Stephen Harnsberger, CPT Robert Humphrey, CPT Daniel Huff, CPT Jonathan Erwin, CPT Kyle Trottier, CPT Thomas Flounders, CPT Daniel Wilcox, CPT Jason Walsh, CPT David Trinh, CPT Michael Skok, CPT Andrew Jenkins, CPT Timothy Blair, CPT Beau Hughes, CPT Scott Krasko, CPT Daniel Clinebelle, CPT James Vance, CPT Jamal Khan, CPT Stephen Spaulding, CPT Justin Ottenwalter, and CPT Lloyd Wohlschlegel. This book would not have been completed without the support and feedback from COL David Snodgrass and COL Timothy Davis, Directors of DOT; LTG H.R. McMaster, who commissioned the book; and MG Austin Miller, who approved it. This was truly a “combined arms” effort. Joanie Horton Editor CHAPTER 1 Mission Command "Mission command establishes a mind-set among leaders that the best understanding comes from the bottom up, not from the top down.” — General Martin E. Dempsey Mission Command INTRODUCTION: The term ‘Mission Command’ is relatively new in our doctrinal literature, replacing the Command and Control Warfighting Function. It is worthwhile to look at the different definitions to appreciate the specificity that the term Mission Command brings to our military vocabulary. The FM 3-0, dated February 2008, defines the Command and Control warfighting function as the related tasks and systems that support commanders in exercising authority and direction.” Mission Command, on the other hand, is defined in ADRP 3-0 (Unified Land Operations, May 2012) as “the exercise of authority and direction by the commander using mission orders to enable disciplined initiative within the commander’s intent.” This change is not a matter of semantics. Because of the complexity of the modern battlefield, the requirement to fight distributed across time and space, and the speed at which we are able to operate today, leaders at the lowest levels must understand and share a common operating picture and exercise disciplined initiative to win. On 14 August 2009, Alpha Company, 3-75 Ranger Regiment, was assigned a clearance mission in Afghanistan that would take the company through extremely difficult terrain with high mountain ridges and thick vegetation to capture or kill