Aussie Armor Training/Tactics Superior to US ?

[tomahawk6]

The author is a US Army LTC with recent experience with the Australian Armored Corps.He feels that Aussie training at company/platoon level is superior to the training of US armor/tactics.

http://foreignpolicy.com/2016/05/02/hey-shut-up-about-being-the-best-military-in-the-world-because-we-might-not-be-a/

After two years of teaching at the Australian Army’s School of Armour, he reports, “My primary takeaway from this assignment is that Australian mounted tactics training at the company level and below is much better than our U.S. tactics.” They’re notably better at live fire training, he adds.

If you don’t believe me, he adds, just go and look. “For those who doubt how poor our tactics training is now, a visit to an Australian ROBC [Regimental Officer Basic Course] or Crew Commander’s Course (six-week tactics course for corporal and sergeant vehicle commanders) will likely change your view.”

 

[Colin Parkinson]

I wonder if it is caused the same way that IDF tankers lost some of their tanking skills fighting in Gaza and had to relearn them in Southern Lebanon? Most US tankers have been fighting none tank enemies and COIN warfare has ruled.

 

[George Wallace]

This is the LINK to Lt. Col. Terrence Buckeye's article in the US Army ARMOR publication.  It includes illustrations.

http://www.benning.army.mil/armor/eARMOR/content/issues/2016/JAN_MAR/1Buckeye16.pdf

 

[Red 6]

This is all stuff that we used to be superb at, and the Armor branch will get there again. Fort Irwin is back up to speed and our modern tankers and scouts will find the skill set that we lived by in the old days. It's going to take several more years form the Armor Center to find its stride at Fort Benning. Armor and cavalry officers aren't the same as infantry officers. (Although the Army has somehow overlooked that.) It always seemed to me that part of a brand new lieutenant's initial training took place with his platoon. But that is obviously predicated on having a good platoon sergeant. It would really be instructive to know how lieutenants in different armies are performing after they've been in their assignments for a year. 

There are multiple collective tasks that have atrophied in wars fought from FOBs and with time, the sharp honed focus will return. From what I read in the article, the Australians are doing outstanding work and there's a lot of food for thought. To me, one of the very best ways to share best practices would be through actual exchange NCOs at these school houses. They're the SMEs at gunnery, small unit tactics, logistics, and leadership.

I was just reading somewhere a few days ago that in many armored units, lots of soldiers have never shot crew gunnery tables. It's sort of outside the scope of this thread, but we've homogenized the BCTs so much, the picture has gotten awfully fuzzy. Hopefully now that the ARFORGEN cycle is settling into somewhat of a predictable system, units will start getting back to the basics. The was just last week an article in the Army Times on that topic and the entire training program is going through a reset focusing on basic soldier/team/crew skills. I totally agree with LTC Buckeye's statements about simulations. Some technology is super important, like UCOFT. But I always thought SIMNET was a total waste of time.