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EX Cougar Salvo 2012

noneck said:
A few negatives:

-Support element seemed more interested in playing with the AZNG than supporting the PTA. Food was crap and on more than one occasion for my Coy, 3 hayboxes were delivered for 85 troops to have dinner, as a result the SNCO's and Officers did not eat. Water was not available on the Pl Attk and Coy Attk ranges (Both a Support element and CQ Fuc%up).
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I'll challenge this one.  Were the support troops really tasked as an NSE to the troops in the field, or were they part fo the PTA, performing CSS specific BTS?  Usually we do a bastardized system where we expect the CSS to perform their training and also provide support.  There should be CSS elements being trained as part of the PTA, plus CSS elements to support the exercise.

As for hayboxes:  That's likely a chain of command screwup.  The CSS folks delivered the rations they were instructed to deliver.  If companies fail to co-ord their requirements with higher you can end up with shortages.  In theory, the daily pers reports are used to determine quantities of food & water to push forward.  If companies can't be bothered to keep higher informed of how many pers they have (or to inform higher if they have additional folks present) food can run short.  There's also a significant C2 failing if such a problem recurs.

No water at the ranges?  CQ problem.  If the CQ requested water and didn't receive it, then it's a CSS problem.  If the CQ didn't bring any jerrycans from Canada (not unheard of on such exercises) the CQ needs some remedial jerry can PT - I'm thinking a fully loaded BFT while carrying an additional full jerrycan in each hand might help him or her remember them in the future.


In theory, troops are self-sufficient for 24 hours; CQs for the next 24 hours, and the Admin company carries the next 24 hours for the Bn.

Unfortunately, on Reserve exercises I have known, CQs deploy with empty trucks and expect to be magically filled once they arrive.
 
dapaterson, you hit it on the head with the bastardized training. It wasn't uncommon for our guys to be called off a training event to go provide support to the task force, or for us to do 35 hour days so some of the troops could get to participate in a certain event by covering their shifts etc. The pace was hectic and sporadic., but that appears to be part of the fun of being a techie.

During the dry smoker, I was ferrying troops around, and helping with a recovery until 2 in the morning. Though I would have liked a beer or two, I would have settled for simply being there to put my feet up. We were bitten by meal issues too. I had to buy my own chow after hours a few times when the MREs ran out.

I can't pin down the exact source of the issue, so I won't speculate here.



 
The question asked concerned the negatives around the exercise....I can only comment on the negatives as seen from the rifle company point of view.

I had heard much of the same reasons as to why things went wrong....great but they still went wrong and troops suffered. If you have a rifle company of 85 persons why would you send out food for 35?

Noneck
 
I did not attend, I did however get some feedback from my platoon mates.

What I gather from what was said (this is MY interpretation) was that 39 CBG does not know how to employ us. This has been a systemic issue which has been identified from before my swearing in.

(all this is from a MCpl with 9 years in, with basically no SA above the platoon level)

Root causes:
-Continuously evolving command relationship between the MP trade/units and the CBG(s?)
-TTP/BTS not firmed up/amended to reflect our new operational roles
-Lack of formal/informal interaction between officers/HQs?

Solutions:
-New MP doctrine needs to be firmed up/written before the corporate knowledge from Afg is lost.
-Invite one or two officers from (39) CBG(s) as observers on our exercises, such as Red Thunder and Golden Coyote. Col Brown seems like the obvious choice to me right now, but I think we should also make efforts to reach out to cbt arm COs to come and check us out on occasion.


 
noneck said:
The question asked concerned the negatives around the exercise....I can only comment on the negatives as seen from the rifle company point of view.

I had heard much of the same reasons as to why things went wrong....great but they still went wrong and troops suffered. If you have a rifle company of 85 persons why would you send out food for 35?

Noneck
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Having been in Log Ops, if I don't know there are 85 people somewhere and the last info I have is that there were 35, I'll send out food for 35.  If the folks o nthe ground don't take action to correct that info, tomorrow will see food for 35 again.

I've also seen plans that say "Half on haybox, half on IMP", only to have someone decide to change it to 100% haybox, but never informing the kitchen - or telling the kitchen when the hayboxes were being picked up.

Note:  I'm not saying any of this is acceptable; I'm saying that there are obvious planning and comms breakdowns.  Those have to be addressed, or else it's Groundhog Day all over again.

(I'd be curious to know whether or not there was a daily log brief or not; most of those issues are the sort of thing that should be resolved there)
 
dapaterson said:
Having been in Log Ops, if I don't know there are 85 people somewhere and the last info I have is that there were 35, I'll send out food for 35.  If the folks o nthe ground don't take action to correct that info, tomorrow will see food for 35 again.

I've also seen plans that say "Half on haybox, half on IMP", only to have someone decide to change it to 100% haybox, but never informing the kitchen - or telling the kitchen when the hayboxes were being picked up.

Note:  I'm not saying any of this is acceptable; I'm saying that there are obvious planning and comms breakdowns.  Those have to be addressed, or else it's Groundhog Day all over again.

(I'd be curious to know whether or not there was a daily log brief or not; most of those issues are the sort of thing that should be resolved there)
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I think the sad reality is that we don't practise this stuff enough before we do it 'for real' i.e., during a major exercise in a foreign country working with people we've never met for the first time. Trying to feed a thousand troops at once only once per year is probably going to mean big troubles. We therefore need a big reality check at the command level on what we can do right out of the gate, and a progressive program designed to gradually increase scope and performance so that we can be successful. You know, like we learned in all our training on how to do training correctly  ;D

 
I like where this discussion is going. It's certainly helping me frame my thoughts for our in house AAR. Thanks for the insights into the AAR process.
 
VIChris said:
I like where this discussion is going. It's certainly helping me frame my thoughts for our in house AAR. Thanks for the insights into the AAR process.
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Well, we are here to help; we're not from Ottawa.  8)
 
NFLD Sapper said:
noneck, my 2cents about drinking is their mess their rules....but those 21+ "should have" been able to drink......
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And IIRC, their rules are no alcohol in the field....21 or not ;)
 
The rumours that floated all the way back to Ontario suggested that rule depended on how high you were in the food chain,....................just sayin'.
 
Bruce Monkhouse said:
The rumours that floated all the way back to Ontario suggested that rule depended on how high you were in the food chain,....................just sayin'.
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I love the internet. Bad news about dubious leadership transmitted instantly to the world.  :nod:
 
From my point of view, there were two big issues I saw that caused grief all down the line. We had a very decentralized infrastructure, and people in critical points were being shuffled on a regular basis. To me, that looks like a recipe for messages to get missed, or delivered to the wrong people due to a lack of continuity, or literally being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

To add to the confusion, we had troops being pulled from their regular jobs to fill in for other trades. Balls will be dropped when this goes on. However, I see no reason why we can't cross train to some degree. Perhaps in training though, this should be done as a supervised activity, and not a stop-gap measure where incidents may be caused as a result of folks not knowing the job they're tasked with.

It was mentioned, and I'll second it from this experience, any time you leave your compound, you should have food and water with you. Not just in case meal plans get goofed, but if your truck breaks down, or you get lost out of comms reach, you gotta eat. In my lowly opinion, that's an individual issue. Now of course getting IMPs/ MREs to the troops is higher level problem.

I've heard some troops grumbling that they were left in the field too. To a certain extent, that's a troop level problem as well, at least in trades where you're heading out in twos or threes. It is imperative that you sign in and out of your CP, give an ETR, and have a backup plan if you can't make it back or your pickup doesn't arrive. I heard a couple dudes griping about being left out too long on location, even though they had essentially bummed a ride to that spot, and didn't tell their CoC they had moved. Sorry friends, your bus ain't coming.

I know for the guys in the combat arms who become essentially numbers in a company, this is impossible, and I can't offer a solution. Do we push more radios out to the smaller units? Enforce more frequent head counts? I' not sure as I don't operate in that part of the world.
 
VIChris said:
From my point of view, there were two big issues I saw that caused grief all down the line. We had a very decentralized infrastructure, and people in critical points were being shuffled on a regular basis. To me, that looks like a recipe for messages to get missed, or delivered to the wrong people due to a lack of continuity, or literally being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
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I can corroborate this. I had a drastically different viewpoint from most of you, being just GD ("Range Support Staff") and I, too, noticed that improvements could be made regarding communication. Too often was my section moved to a part of the field only to find out we weren't needed any longer, or set up targets/mod tents only to discover they were needed elsewhere or not at all.
Rations were an issue for us, as well. Nearly every meal besides breakfast was a problem - rations weren't given to us or there wouldn't be enough or would arrive to us several hours late. The sergeant in charge of us apologized maybe 5 times about this issue, even though he was doing everything in his power to fix the problem.

During the weather of near-Biblical proportions, a few buddies of mine who were tasked to the engineers that day were left out in the field without their kit. The engineers left, saying they'd be back in 10 minutes (taking the kit with them) but never returned. And that was when the storm hit. Long story short, they took an LS to try and make it back to Snake River but met up with some medics partway there who took care of them. For various reasons a WO jacked them the hell up but that's being seen by their chain of command, so everything should be fine.

Overall though, I felt it was a good experience. But CS being my first ex, I didn't really know what to expect in the first place, therefore no expectations were missed or fufilled...
 
I heard the story of those three guys today. The medics said they were pretty lucky to have found them when they did.
 
VIChris said:
...

It was mentioned, and I'll second it from this experience, any time you leave your compound, you should have food and water with you. Not just in case meal plans get goofed, but if your truck breaks down, or you get lost out of comms reach, you gotta eat. In my lowly opinion, that's an individual issue. Now of course getting IMPs/ MREs to the troops is higher level problem
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.

Leadership problem. IMPs and (untainted by POL diesel) water must be available for things like this; and, if it isn't then the troops shouldn't be sent out. I use the word "sent" purposefully. Ptes and Cpls do not "put themselves" out in the midst of nowhere to stand a duty guarding anything etc by themselves. If troops are venturing out of camp without said items, that is a leadership failure too. We call it the basics and apparently a refresher course on such by the leadership should occur if that's how it actually went down.

I've heard some troops grumbling that they were left in the field too. To a certain extent, that's a troop level problem as well, at least in trades where you're heading out in twos or threes. It is imperative that you sign in and out of your CP, give an ETR, and have a backup plan if you can't make it back or your pickup doesn't arrive. I heard a couple dudes griping about being left out too long on location, even though they had essentially bummed a ride to that spot, and didn't tell their CoC they had moved. Sorry friends, your bus ain't coming.
...
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I heard the same thing; also not a troop problem ... refer to my "duty" comment. Leadership does up Camp Routine Orders, Duty shifts to guard ammo, locations, timings etc ... The onus is on that leadership to brief those pers, feed and water those pers, know where those pers are, initiate radio checks and a physical contact with them if they experience a radio silence ... and most of all - to pick them the fuck up where they dropped them off and and replace them at shift end - and to check immediately when radio silence is being experienced. It certainly isn't leaderships job to forget they've placed someone somewhere ... Full stop.

Perhaps this was a different crew of "lost" troops than the 3 brought up earlier.
 
...and to add my 2 cents to what Vern just said,.......those are the friggin' BASICS of deployment.  If this stuff actually happened at this BASIC level I would shudder to think what would happen if they needed to conduct an in-depth 'lives could be at stake" type of deployment.

Hearing stories like this takes me back to the 80's when we just considered the reserves as some kind of glee club................
 
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