BATTLE TASK STANDARDS

“DuPuy's experience had taught him that Army training needed to be focussed on the performance of well-defined tasks directly related to performance in combat, ... all it (the training system) lacked was a disciplined approach.... DuPuy created such a training system. The most important element was standards, without which quality performance is meaningless.”13
Sullivan and Harper
Hope Is Not A Method

You need some idea of where you are going before you set off on an adventure. Battle Task Standards give you a set of benchmarks to ensure standardization, consistency, and validity in the training plan. These standards have been developed to serve as tools for measuring and comparing the standards of training in a unit against a required or at least desirable standard. They also provide a progressive framework of those tasks that need to be performed during unit training.

Battle Task Standards are a starting point towards more detailed and valid performance measurement and evaluation, and Brigade Commanders and COs should employ them accordingly. The importance of their development and maintenance at army level cannot be over-emphasized.

COMMANDERS' EVALUATION EXERCISES

Periodic evaluation exercises are required at all levels. Battle Task Standards can assist in setting the goals and outside trainers/evaluators can help confirm the degree to which Battle Task Standards have been achieved. In the final analysis the training needs to be evaluated to confirm the object has been achieved, and it needs to be evaluated by those in command. Commanders must assess the standards achieved by subordinate units against specific training objectives. The contractual agreement between the brigade commander and. the CO concerned, or the CO and his subordinate commanders, is a good starting point for these assessments.

TRAINING EFFECTIVENESS EVALUATION ASSISTANCE

COs and commanders periodically need externally provided assessment and evaluation by individuals or teams who are current, objective and oriented toward providing training assistance. Schools and central staffs are best structured to provide this type of support. This requirement is a mandatory precondition for improving doctrine, tactics, SOPs, drills and battle procedure. Schools and central staffs are especially important in collecting, consolidating and rapidly disseminating the lessons learned. Regrettably, this is not done in the Canadian Army except in the artillery, and even there it is left to the individual COs to decide whether to have an assistance team or not. Commanders, branch directors, schools and training/doctrine staffs should receive post-exercise reports and consider the recommendations. There is no way to achieve common and high standards without outside assistance, and commanders and COs should incorporate external assistance teams as a integral part of their training effectiveness assessment.

UMPIRES AND CONTROLLERS

We have pretty much lost the talent and expertise in the field of umpiring and controlling exercises. Perhaps this is because of limited time to plan training on a shortage of people. This has to be revived if we want to bring realism and energy into an exercise, and if we want to exercise a higher degree of accountability. Besides, it may well give desk-bound officers a chance to get out into the field, back into the doctrine and in touch with realty. Umpires and Controllers play a vital role in training delivery and training effectiveness.

PUBLISHING AND DISSEMINATING LESSONS LEARNED

Over the past few decades the Canadian Army has been particularly weak in producing, publishing and adopting lessons learned from training events and from experience in various operations. During World War II the Canadian and British Army “Training Memoranda” put up-to-the-moment lessons learned in the hands of commanders in very little time. The Canadian Army Journal of the fifties and sixties also did so. This was seen as an essential component of training feedback, a necessary step in training refinement, and a vital component of preparing for war.

Today if training demonstrates: deficiencies in doctrine, procedures or equipments, then these observations should be recorded and forwarded through the chain of command and to the Army Lessons Learned Centre. Progress cannot be made if commanders at all levels neglect to identify and act upon problems and weaknesses. The brigade commander must foster the importance of activities such as exercise debriefings and ensure that lessons learned are promulgated quickly and with complete candour. The U.S. Army “After Action Review”, or AAR process has proven to be most effective within their system. It is our professional obligation to note and take action, avoiding or overcoming the mistakes of past experiences, while training for the future.

COMMANDERS' VISITS

A brigade commander will visit brigade units in training whenever the opportunities arise - which should be often. This is part of his job and responsibility and should be considered a normal component of the broader training evaluation process. In addition to the planned visits, casual visits should happen frequently. Visits should never be without purpose, even the most casual of visit, and there may well be times when a commander is looking for something specific - such as the standard achieved at a particular point in time, especially when units are training for a specific mission.

Whenever possible, commanders should be included in the training, but not as a VIP. Brigade commanders should enjoy soldiering and should not mind getting cold, wet and tired. Spending a day with a section, in a tank, in a gun detachment or on a DP can reveal a lot about a unit, and besides soldiering is fun and it's always good to get back to our roots.

Brigade commanders should expect to receive specific briefings on those exercises involving two or more sub-units of any unit. Perhaps a captain, lieutenant or warrant officer from the unit concerned could give these briefings on behalf of the CO. If only one sub-unit is engaged in training, the brigade training staff may brief the brigade commander, unless the exercise is outside the local training area or is particularly noteworthy because of foreign participation and/or public interest.

During visits to training activities commanders expect good briefings from NCOs and junior officers, to include:

I strongly recommend the study of Montgomery's aide-memoire, “Some General Notes on What to Look for When Visiting a Unit,” which can be found at Appendix A to Jack English's “Failure in High Command: The Canadian Army and the Normandy Campaign.” I would suggest that those are the very things commanders should be looking for.

INSPECTIONS AS A TRAINING EVENT

“The British General (Montgomery)) conducted rigourous inspections of Canadian units, watching exercises and interviewing officers and senior NCOs in infantry' battalions.”14
- Granatstein
The Generals

Although not training per se, commander's and CO's inspections can and should be used as a training event - but it takes a clever plan so that time is not wasted in unit preparations. The inspecting officer must know in advance what he is looking for (e.g., conduct of battle procedure, functioning of the chain of command, an operational capability), what the indicators are (e.g., passage of information, standardization, sloppy drills, low scores) and how to discover the indicators (e.g., testing, looking, asking). Inspections are meaningful and productive activities for commanders at all levels and can be great training vehicles. Besides, they help inspecting officers to keep in touch with the units and give them the opportunity to talk with many of the troops, especially on a one-on-one or small group basis. As an evaluation tool, inspections are but one more way to see some aspects of the operational capability of a unit.

Once when inspecting a particular sub-unit I simply asked the first soldier of the first troop if he had been inspected recently. When he said no, I confirmed this with the next soldier. With a second negative I moved on to the next troop where the responses were similar. At that, I told the battery commander to tell me when his battery was ready for me to drop by. I wasn't really interested in whether the soldiers had holes in their socks or if their kit had deficiencies. On that inspection I wanted to see about the passage of orders and the efficient use of battle procedure - which were sadly lacking. The officers learned from this experience.

Being inspected by one of my commanders, he asked that my officers put the pneumatic mortar into action. The pneumatic mortar was a simulation device that I didn't even know we had in the quartermaster stores. I learned a thing or two there. Our Colonel Commandant, ever with a cigarette dangling from his mouth, accompanied our Commander and dumped out naphtha gas from one of-the lanterns on the QM shelf. What an uncanny knack he had for finding the one that still had gas in it! When he came to the shovels hanging on the wall his comment was “Dull tools for dull tools”. Who ever sharpened their shovel? - unless of course they had fought in Korea and had to use it in earnest. Like I said, valuable lessons can come from cleverly conceived and properly conducted inspections.

In my view, commanders at all levels should always be inspecting and putting things right - that's what officers and NCOs are meant to do.

THE DIRECTED TELESCOPE

Commanders at all levels have the right, necessity and obligation to know what is going on throughout their organization. Montgomery was noted for his `phantom system' of staff officers strategically placed at subordinate levels, reporting directly back to him. He said: “You will not have time to visit sub-units in the front line; if you want a line on how they are working, send some other officer to get that information for you.” Wellington, Napoleon and Patton were all noted for similar ways of learning what was really going on. On the other hand, the extremes were the 'chateau generals' of the First World War, who were completely out of touch with the front, or alternately those commanders under Westmoreland in Viet Nam who went overboard, constantly interfering -with the authority of subordinate commanders.

Each commander must find the best way to become and remain informed, in a way that fits his personality and that of his organization. Informal channels, like `gathering information by walking about', checking with the Regimental Sergeant Majors or Second-in-Command's network, asking the right questions of medical officers and padres or at the family support centre are some of the ways of assuring oneself that the formal feedback one is receiving really does coincide with reality. RSMs are particularly important, as they are legitimate eyes and ears for commanders and are usually a good source of what is going on at the lower levels and amongst the soldiers. As a young captain, I shall always remember a shadow under a tree as I made my tour of the battery area during the 'graveyard shift' - about 3:00 A.M. I challenged the shadow only to find the Regimental Sergeant Major, a veteran of World War Two (Military Medal) and on his second of three tours as RSM, just out and about having a look-see. He seemed quite happy with what he saw and no doubt discussed it with the CO.

Commanders must learn about the effectiveness of the training of their subordinate organizations to determine their effectiveness as a whole, and they need to direct their telescope to assure themselves of the reality of what they see or the info/observations they gather.

“The best form of welfare for the troops is first-class training. - Erwin Rommel