Make Reporting Routine Again

Fall 2017 Make Reporting Routine Again by CPT Nicolas J. Fiore Incorporate reporting into your gunnery training program and realize improved performance throughout collective training and external evaluations (exevals). Without good reporting, gunnery is little more than mounted marksmanship practice. Fortunately, units can easily and doctrinally combine standard fire commands with common reports. Try these ideas to use crew gunnery as an opportunity to ingrain reporting into crew muscle memory and train tactical mission-command nodes in preparation for collective training, Tier-1 exevals and deployment. Idea in brief Many units experience difficulty getting timely and accurate reports during force-on-force (FoF) field-training exercises.1 One possible explanation is that reporting is rarely taught in foundational training, so crews and leaders do not always incorporate reporting into the muscle memory they rely on when they are in contact. Gunnery is the foundational training for Armor and Cavalry units. Although gunnery trains crews to operate their weapons platforms, it does not prepare crewmen well for collective training and combined-arms maneuver. Instead of waiting for collective training to teach reporting, get a head start and build good habits by requiring contact and situation reports during crew gunnery. These fundamental reports are critical for maintaining shared situational understanding, synchronizing individual engagements with the collective fight and allowing command posts (CPs) to maneuver more assets to assist troops in contact. Incorporating reporting into crew gunnery also gives CPs early practice so they gain proficiency before battalion and brigade command-post exercises (CPXs) and simulations. Finally, with the advent of Objective-T reporting and Integrated Weapons Training Strategy (IWTS), units need to start training mission-command systems earlier in the training cycle. Crew gunnery is often the first opportunity to train CPs. Idea in practice Evaluate and score reporting within the existing detect-identify-decide-engage-assess (DIDEA)-based nine-step standard fire-command structure. After the “termination” step in the fire command, vehicle commanders must send a correct (according to standard operating procedure (SOP)) contact or situation report to their platoon leader or company CP or sustain a crew cut. Including reporting in the crew’s gunnery score is likely to cause resistance initially, but it is doctrinally correct, easy to evaluate and will reward your unit throughout collective training and exevals as the unit prepares to deploy, fight and win in the current operational environment. Battalion commanders should direct their master gunners to incorporate reporting into the engagement scoring criteria because crews will perform to the grading standards. For example, failing to report in accordance with the battalion SOP can be assessed as a 10-point crew cut. Master gunners must then train the reporting SOP during gunnery-skills testing (GST), vehicle-crew evaluator (VCE) academy and in the gunnery simulator so all crew members and VCEs are comfortable with the reports. Executive officers should use the reports generated in crew, section and platoon gunnery to formalize SOPs and tracking tools for their CPs. Use the same DIDEA process to evaluate these mission-command processes and aggregate CPs to a battalion CPX to load-test communications systems. S-3s should plan these mission-command exercises into the gun-line so that systems can be evaluated months before the first battalion FoF field problem and to integrate combined-arms teammates from across the brigade whenever possible. Move beyond mounted marksmanship Mounted marksmanship, also known as crew gunnery, has been the foundation of mechanized training in the U.S. Army for the 100 years since tanks and armored cars were first used in battle during World War I. Gunnery is a logical outgrowth of dismounted marksmanship training, but it is not the only measure of individual and crew tactical proficiency. For example, Russian armored competitions focus on mobility and tactical maneuver.2 Also, U.S. Soldiers in Afghanistan found that requesting indirect strikes from artillery and aviation platforms was more effective than employing direct fires. In the future operating environment of multi-domain battle, Soldiers may find the importance of direct fire eclipsed by the lethality and availability of cross-domain fires. Semi-autonomous systems may even improve direct-fire targeting to the point that human marksmanship as a tactical competency could become as obsolete as hand-to-hand combat is today. In response to our current operating environment, U.S. Army units should require gunnery to train more than just direct-fire marksmanship. Gunnery is and will likely remain the U.S. Armored Corps’ preferred method of training and metric for measuring crew proficiency, but in its current form, gunnery does little to contribute to the collective-training proficiency required for units to succeed in FoF exevals and combat-training center (CTC) unit-validation exercises. These exercises require units to coordinate resources and mass battlefield effects, so tactical reporting to maintain a common operating picture (COP) and coordinate maneuver are as important as the ability to engage individual enemies with precision direct fires. Reporting is the foundation of that COP; it is the trigger for commanders to employ more resources to a situation and helps staffs anticipate transitions between phases of the operation.3 Unfortunately, the CTC observation reports continue to highlight that reporting needs to be improved across the board to enable unit mission-essential-task-list (METL) performance.4 This

Fall 2017 article proposes to remedy this common deficiency in unit exeval performance by integrating reporting during foundational training instead of waiting to incorporate reporting requirements later in the unit’s training cycle. If units sow a culture of timely and accurate reporting during foundational training such as crew gunnery, mission-command nodes at all tactical levels will reap the benefits of improved performance throughout collective training. Fortunately for commanders and tactical leaders at all echelons, it is easy, inexpensive and doctrinally sound to incorporate reporting into each gunnery engagement to build reporting into every crew’s tactical muscle memory. Train reporting with crew gunnery Every crewman in the U.S. Armored Corps is intimately familiar with using fire commands in gunnery. Most crewmen can tell you that the first element in that fire command is “Alert” and that the fire command ends with a termination. They may not recognize, however, that the “alert” step in the fire command is actually an abbreviated contact report,5 and that after terminating an engagement, the vehicle commander (VC) should report the engagement, current situation and enemy battle-damage assessment (BDA) to higher headquarters.6 When an alert is combined with the target description, direction and distance (Steps 3-5 of the fire command), the crew has just received a contact report in “3-D” format (description, direction, distance). The final termination step, often “target [destroyed], cease fire,” contains the nucleus of a BDA report. Our crews are proficient at internal reporting because they train it with the nine-step fire command and are evaluated to ensure they complete all steps. Even though that fire command already enables reporting to higher headquarters, crews often are not evaluated on the quality, accuracy and timeliness of their reports to higher; the predictable result is that crews are not proficient at reporting and often fail to send any reports at all during collective training and evaluations. Field Manual (FM) 3-20.21, Heavy Brigade Combat Team (HBCT) Gunnery, formalizes the crew direct-fire engagement process for all platforms using DIDEA.7 DIDEA is an active decision process that crews experience in the form of the more-familiar nine-step fire command. In both processes, there are two places where reporting to higher should naturally and doctrinally occur (marked with stars on Figures 1 and 2). Star 1 in both figures denotes an opportunity for a VC to give a brief contact report at the alert step of the fire command. At the termination step of the fire command, marked by Star 2 in both figures, a VC should be required to send at least a complete contact report and, if practical, a situation report according to the unit SOP. For descriptions of contact and situation reports, see Figures 1 and 2. To clarify expectations at Star 1: although the information required to send a contact is available to the VC at the alert step and is technically possible using crew communications systems, sending even an abbreviated contact report such as “Contact, tanks” would be extremely difficult for all but the most expert crews. Master gunners should not require a report to higher at Star 1 but instead focus on training reporting at Star 2 (termination step). For commanders who have mastered the engagement process, it is doctrinally sound to use a contact report (see Table 1) to higher headquarters as the alert to the crew, and this technique could improve the crew’s engagement. For example, if the crew is operating under restricted weapons-control status, there is an advantage to reporting early in the fire-command process instead of waiting until the complete command is issued to ask for permission to engage. Early contact reports also afford platoon leaders and company commanders the opportunity to give collective fire commands that mass efficient di-Figure 1. The DIDEA engagement process. (From FM 3-20.21, Chapter 5, Section I) Figure 2. Elements of a fire command. (From TC 3-20.31-4, Direct-Fire Engagement Process (DIDEA), Chapter 4)

Fall 2017 rect fire on groups of targets. Finally, reports sent at Star 1 will be received a minute or more before a report sent at Star 2 and will have the advantage of seizing the unit’s attention before the shooting starts. Despite these advantages, given the time constrained need to rapidly engage enemy targets for crew survivability, master gunners should use crew gunnery to train termination reporting (Star 2). Star 2 occurs at the brief pause following each engagement’s termination. In FoF collective training, these pauses are frequent and can last a long time, so it is critical that units train crews to report as soon as possible after the first enemy contact. Crews must be comfortable sending a contact report while still in contact – that is, the crew may have to report before they have destroyed all enemy in their sector. Otherwise, there is risk that the crew will fail to report in time for higher to react and assist, or the crew may be destroyed before they remember to report.8 After terminating a single-target gunnery task, a proficient crew should be expected to send a situation report (sitrep) (Table 2) that contains the enemy contact’s information. If there are multiple engagements in the gunnery task, the crew should send a contact report (Table 1) after engaging the first target (for example, while reloading or scanning to acquire the next target) and send the complete sitrep after all targets are engaged. To prepare for collective training, commanders should also send a sitrep whenever they cross phase lines (PLs) and transition phases (if the table is conducted under tactical control measures), and digital COP sitreps should be used to complement voice-transmitted abbreviated sitreps. Commanders and master gunners should assess reporting in addition to evaluating crews for marksmanship, fire commands and safety. For example, VCEs can grade a contact report against the battalion SOP and assign a five-point crew cut for errors or a 10-point crew cut for failing to report. The crew is already conducting internal reporting through DIDEA-based fire commands; it is a small incremental step to ask them to conduct external reporting at the termination of each engagement. There are simple formats available in the battalion SOP, and all VCs will have to learn those reports anyway to conduct collective training. There is, however, exceptional value in starting to train reporting early because the habits set during crew gunnery become the baseline for that crew’s performance. Crews who incorporate reporting starting with Table II will continue to report in all future training events. This will make sections, platoons and companies more lethal and survivable and help battalion and brigade CPs be more adaptive and responsive in the face of a thinking enemy. Reporting links individual engagements into collective action The character of war continues to stress the importance of collective action over individual combat. Reporting is critical to the mission-command systems that synchronize action across all domains and warfighting functions to defeat threats and accomplish missions.9 When crews are too focused on the engagement at hand and fail to report to higher headquarters, our proverbial combined-arms phalanx disintegrates into a number of gladiators fighting individual combat, and much of the resources a brigade deploys to enable joint combined-arms maneuver go unused. The result is a less lethal and survivable battalion, company or platoon; too often, the first report of contact is also a leader’s “dying breath” transmission that his entire element has been destroyed. The higher element may not even know where to commit the reserve or what enemy it may face. With accurate and timely reporting, crews can gain the opportunity to ask other platforms to observe, suppress or kill for them. This ability to mass additional effects from other platforms increases the crew’s lethality and survivability, which will become increasingly important in the future multi-domain battlefield environment as platforms need to mass effects on their target while minimizing their own sig-FM 6-99: BLUE-1 SALUTE format is the doctrinal standard. 3-D format is most commonly used in dismounted operations. According to the SOP, may abbreviate. For example, “Contact, tanks, TRP 2,” even dropping the transmitter’s call-sign and “out” to maximize brevity. SALUTE format: S – Size A – Activity L – Location U – Uniform/unit T – Time E – Equipment 3-D format: D – Description D – Direction D – Distance Table 1. Contact report (spot report). A contact report is sent any time a member of an element identifies a threat to alert the element for orders to react.

Fall 2017 nature. As currently executed across the Armor Corps, gunnery training emphasizes crew proficiency and neglects collective action. Elements start to incorporate basic reporting at section and platoon gunnery, but fire and maneuver are largely controlled through repetitive rehearsal because leaders and CPs aren’t yet proficient. This foundational failure of training strategy severely impacts collective training as tasks, conditions and standards become more complex. At battalion combined-arms live-fire exercises (CALFEXs) – supposedly the capstone evaluation for a unit that has certified all subordinate elements – commanders are inhibited and reporting is fragile. Units at CTCs consistently have difficulty exercising mission command as a warfighting function,10 which undermines the commander’s ability to exercise mission command (the philosophy),11 and the root of the problem is at home-station training.12 One problem is that CPXs do not generate reporting traffic at representative levels of volume, variety and velocity, so CPs at all levels struggle to gain proficiency. As a consequence, staffs may not learn to analyze information well, and system managers miss an opportunity to test their teams at full capacity. If a unit chose to train mission-command systems to the same degree as marksmanship, that unit should perform better entering an exeval or National Training Center (NTC) validation exercise. Mechanized and cavalry units spend a large portion of their training time and budget shooting gunnery, but gunnery can also be an excellent opportunity to develop responsive and robust mission-command nodes. The immediate purpose of incorporating reporting into crew gunnery is to cultivate the habit of sending contact and sitreps, but the principal benefit is to train mission-command nodes at all echelons. Main CPs control current operations for the commander. In maneuver units, tactical reporting from subordinate elements feeds the targeting process and helps the CP synchronize more resources to assist the maneuver element in contact.13 Gunnery is an excellent opportunity to train CPs because there is an active feed of information that CP personnel can process using the same DIDEA framework that drives crew engagements: radio-telephone operations can be evaluated and trained on their ability to handle reports; executive officers can battle-track; and the operations sergeant major can validate and improve battle drills. Proficient CPs and staffs will learn to identify commander’s critical information requirements, triggers and transition points that require concise reporting to the next higher echelon. As gunnery moves to collective training, the same contact and sitreps are the triggers for CPs to integrate combined-arms assets such as unmanned aerial vehicles, close air support and engineers. Contact reports should also serve as a warning order for the fire-support team to prepare for a call-for-fire request. Also, battalions can use the information generated by these reports to integrate air defense, electronic warfare, chemical-biological-radioactive-nuclear and even cyber elements into training events. Finally, as staffs become comfortable receiving information and analyzing it to anticipate battlefield events, commanders can be more responsive to an adaptive and complex enemy. CTC rotations and exevals, as a reflection of the operating environment, are increasingly complex and require CPs to manage a synchronized combined-arms effort to fight and win. Improving reporting through unit mission-command nodes will also enable the entire unit’s ability to use mission-command philosophy at the tactical level. Instead of yoking their organization to an execution checklist to control (and synchronize) operations, proficient CPs can actualize mission command for their commander. Although Army Doctrinal Publication (ADP) 6-0, Mission Command, does not specifically mention reporting, it describes the process of information exchange as essential in enabling commanders to conduct operations because it is the basis for creating and maintaining shared understanding and mutual trust.14 FM 6-99: BLUE-2. Level of detail varies by echelon. Receipt of transmission should always be confirmed. STAR format is common in mounted formations. According to the SOP, may abbreviate. For example, “Call-sign, location, continuing mission, over” to maximize brevity when there is nothing significant to report. STAR Format: S – Slant (strength) T – Trace (location) A – Activity R – Recommended action Example platoon sitrep, STAR format, with contact report in 3-D format: Call sign – Blue 1 S – Slant 2/2/1 (tanks/Bradleys/squadrons) T – PL Raiders A – defending, destroyed two BMPs, 2,500m east R – continuing mission Table 2. Sitrep. Leaders send sitreps to inform higher headquarters on the element’s activity and progress toward accomplishing the mission.

Fall 2017 Senior commanders genuinely want to extend trust so their subordinates can exercise disciplined initiative, but trust depends upon credibility, and credibility is earned through demonstrated proficiency. Commanders whose CPs consistently demonstrate good reporting are trusted to operate with more degrees of freedom because the higher echelon receives a continuous but managed flow of information as the tactical unit develops the situation. Commanders and their staffs can use gunnery-based CPX experience to build cohesive and proficient teams that ensure the flow of relevant and accurate information and gain the trust of their higher commands. Armor and Cavalry leaders should train reporting during foundational training so their units are prepared to link individual engagements into collective action. Crews who train contact reports in gunnery will remember to report during collective training. CPs that practice mission command in iterations of gunnery will already have baseline proficiency when FoF training increases the complexity and load of the information they process. Staffs who practice integrating combined arms and multiple-domain efforts during platoon and company live-fire exercises will be ready to employ the additional resources and thrive in the complexity of FoF maneuvers such as exevals and CTC validation exercises. If staff and CP proficiency can credibly exceed the higher command’s expectations, battalions and brigades may even experience the trust, empowered initiative and adaptability of mission-command-driven operations. There are many ways to train reporting and CPs, but since cavalry and mechanized formations already spend so much time in crew and collective gunnery, incorporating reporting into foundational training is the most efficient way to improve collective performance. Objective-T and IWTS evaluate reporting The transition from FM 3-20.21 to TC 3-20.0, Integrated Weapons Training Strategy, in Fiscal Year (FY) 2018 will change the way the Armored Corps approaches gunnery. The new IWTS will reboot maneuver weapons training for all weapons, systems, platforms and small units in the Army (squad through battalion).15 IWTS’ goal is to standardize weapons training across the Army and to ensure Soldiers understand both how to operate their weapons as well as how to employ them tactically. All weapons training will move through six tables, starting with a class on the fundamentals, then progress through virtual and training aids, devices, simulators and simulations (TADSS)16 training – culminating with externally evaluated livefire qualification (Table 3). The major changes begin with collective training, starting at the section level, which will also be structured in six progressive tables (Table 3). HBCT gunnery conducted section qualification in three tables: sections progressed from Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System to TADSS to live-fire qualification. IWTS adds tables that will require the sections to conduct situational-training exercises (STX), fire-coordination exercises (FCX)17 and field-training exercises (FTX) training before the section can qualify and progress to platoon collective training. These new tables will require crew proficiency in Table 3. IWTS tables. Tables for individual and crew weapon systems are from TC 3-20.0’s Chapter 1. Collective-training tables for a maneuver squad, platoon and company are from TC 3-20.0, Chapter 5, Tier 2. Collective-training tables for a maneuver battalion are from TC 3-20.0, Chapter 1. IWTS tables for individual and crew weapon systems Table I Table II Table III Table IV Table V Table VI

PMI/GST

Live Engagement Skills Trainer/Advanced Gunnery Training System etc. Virtual Drills Live – TADSS Basic Live – live-fire Practice qualification Live – live-fire Qualification Live – live-fire IWTS collective-training tables for a maneuver squad, platoon and company Table I Table II Table III Table IV Table V Table VI Class Live

STX-V

Virtual

STX

Live – TADSS

FCX

Live – live-fire

FTX

Exeval Live – TADSS Live-fire exercise Exeval Live – live-fire Notes: Table VI for a company is a CALFEX. As used in this table, the term “live” means hands-on training in combat uniform on combat-configured equipment, whereas “live – live fire” means combat-configured Soldiers and equipment shooting live ammunition. Structuring training in six tables has been the Army standard for gunnery since 2009 but may feel new for small arms, rockets, mortars and other weapon systems. IWTS collective-training tables for a maneuver battalion Table I Table II Table III Table IV Table V Table VI Staff exercise (STAFFEX), SOP or class Live STAFFEX or COM-

MEX

Blended Logistics exercise Multi-echelon Live FCX and CPX Multi-echelon Blended

FTX

Exeval FoF Live - TADSS CPX and CALFEX Multi-echelon Live/blended

Fall 2017 reporting as early as Table II, and reporting within the section and to higher headquarters will be externally evaluated in Table V and VI. Crews who practiced sending contact and sitreps at the termination of each engagement in crew gunnery will be able to focus on the maneuver and fire-integration training objectives, and command nodes will already be proficient at receiving the reports prior to exevals. Units must train these six tables at every echelon (squad/section, platoon, company and battalion) to report Tier- 1 readiness. Units at each echelon will be pressured to rapidly progress through the qualification tables while meeting all training and evaluation outline (T&EO) criteria18 for METL tasks because brigades must complete a brigade FCX and battalion CALFEX before they can report T-1 status.19 At battalion level (Table 3), most of the collective training focuses on exercising command nodes in communications-exercise (COMMEX) and CPX format. By training reporting and company CPs during crew gunnery, battalions will be able to progress rapidly through the required CPXs and demonstrate proficiency at the battalion FTX and

CALFEX.

IWTS is integrated with the objective task-evaluation strategy, or Objective- T, to nest weapon-systems proficiency and METL proficiency. Just as in HBCT collective gunnery, an element’s evaluation score reflects both marksmanship and mission task proficiency as evaluated against the T&EO.20 The first performance measure in most maneuver task T&EOs, regardless of echelon, is to maintain situational understanding using sitreps. Contact reports are steps in the “execute” critical performance measures, and throughout the evaluation leaders are required to report the developing situation to their higher headquarters.21 Units should start training crews and CPs to use these reports as early as possible in the training cycle so that when the battalion FTX and CALFEX are conducted, reporting is smooth, accurate and timely. These collective training events will be externally evaluated and are critical for preparing the unit for the complex and dynamic operating environment the brigade will face during its CTC validation exercise, but commanders can start preparing for them before collective training by evaluating reporting during crew gunnery. Improve unit performance at battalion, brigade exevals Habitual reporting is foundational to everything else a unit during its mission validation exercise.22 August’s Cavalry Leaders’ Warfighting Forum did not mention a need to improve unit marksmanship, but it did discuss at length the difficulties units had in establishing situational awareness to maintain mission command.23 Armor and Cavalry leaders can dramatically improve collective performance outcomes by incorporating reporting into foundational training. Gunnery is the best place to start training reporting because crews already conduct internal reporting via the nine-step fire command, and the DIDEA process naturally and doctrinally allows VCs to send contact or sitreps to higher headquarters after terminating the engagement. CPs and leaders at all echelons need practice receiving and analyzing these reports to make decisions and synchronize effects; there is no reason to wait until collective training to develop these mission-command processes. Finally, IWTS and Objective-T will require units to change the way they plan, execute and assess collective training. Units will be rigorously evaluated throughout their collective trainup, and a unit’s METL performance is fundamentally correlated to its proficiency at reporting. These training and evaluation changes are necessary because in the future operating environment commanders will need to mass greater effects faster than ever before, ideally without creating a signature that gives away our most forward maneuver elements. The Armored Corps should take this opportunity to move beyond gunnery as high-tech mounted marksmanship and start training gunnery in a way that prepares crews for collective training and combined-arms maneuver on a multi-domain battlefield. CPT Nic Fiore is an intermediate-level education student at Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, KS. Previous assignments include tank-company commander, Company C, 2-12 Cavalry Regiment, 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, Fort Hood, TX; battalion assistant S-3 for plans, 4th Squadron, 2nd Cavalry, Vilseck, Germany; battalion assistant S-3 for current operations, 4th Squadron, 2nd Cavalry, Kandahar, Afghanistan; Mobile Gun System platoon leader, 2nd Squadron, 2nd Cavalry Regiment, Vilseck; and Stryker reconnaissance-platoon leader, 4th Squadron, 2nd Cavalry, Diyala, Iraq. CPT Fiore’s military education includes Maneuver Captain’s Career Course, Basic Officer Leadership II and Armor Basic Officer Leadership III courses, Combatives Level I and Ranger, Airborne and Air-Assault schools. CPT Fiore holds a bachelor’s of science degree in civil engineering from the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, NY, and a master’s of business administration from the Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth College. CPT Fiore’s awards include the Bronze Star and Meritorious Service Medal. Endnotes 1 Center for Army Lessons-Learned (CALL) Bulletin No. 16-14, CTC observations, 3rd and 4th Quarters, FY 2015 (published May 2016). Improve Observation #14, reporting procedures and mission command. 2 Russian tank biathlon, https:// en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_biathlon. I also recommend YouTube videos such as “Russia: World Championship Tank Biathlon holds final competition day,” posted Aug. 13, 2006, at https://youtu.be/y4jI-RAc2-qk. 3 Army Doctrinal Reference Publication (ADRP) 3-90, Offense and Defense, Chapter 1 on tactics: A commander seizes, retains and exploits the initiative by achieving and maintaining a better understanding of the tactical situation than that possessed by enemy decision-makers. 4 CALL Bulletin No. 16-03, CTC observations, 1st and 2nd Quarters, FY15 (published October 2015). Improve Observation #3, the common operating picture. 5 FM 3-20.21, Heavy Brigade Combat Team (HBCT) Gunnery, Chapter 8, Section II, on fire commands. This section does not require a contact report but states that contact reports to higher by the VC or gunner can serve as the alert in a fire command.

Fall 2017 Acronym Quick-Scan 6 FM 3-20.21, Chapter 10, Section III, on reports. This section recommends sending either a BLUE-2 (sitrep) or BDA report in accordance with unit SOP. 7 FM 3-20.21, Chapter 5, Section I, on the engagement process. DIDEA is an iterative, standardized and systematic approach to target engagement in both surface and air domains to ensure rapid destruction of the correct target. 8 Senior-leader comments during the online Cavalry Warfighter’s Forum Aug. 4, 2017: “Slow reporting results in dead scouts. … This was evident in the [Gainey Cup] live-fire exercise event.” 9 Army Technical Publication (ATP) 6-02.53, Techniques for Tactical Radio Operations. This manual is an excellent reference for all radios (including digital networks) that allow reporting to enable warfighting across all phases of the operation. 10 ADRP 3-0, Operations. Mission command (the warfighting function) is the related tasks and systems that develop and integrate those activities enabling a commander to balance the art of command and the science of control to integrate the other warfighting functions. 11 ADP 6-0, Mission Command. Mission command (the philosophy) is the exercise of authority and direction by the commander using mission orders to enable disciplined initiative within the commander’s intent to empower agile and adaptive leaders in the conduct of unified land operations. 12 Senior-leader comments during the online Cavalry Warfighter’s Forum Aug. 4, 2017. 13 ATP 6-0.5, Command Post Organization and Operations, Chapter 1 on CPs. 14 ADRP 6-0, Mission Command, Chapter 2, about “the mission-command philosophy of command: create shared understanding.” A critical challenge for commanders, staffs and unified-action partners is creating shared understanding of their operational environment and the operation’s purpose, problems and approaches to solving them. Shared understanding and purpose form the basis for unity of effort and trust. 15 The new version of TC 3-20.0 is available for download in final draft but is not yet published. Its supporting manuals (squad through battalion) are not yet available to the force, but the Maneuver Center of Excellence has detailed information in the Army Knowledge On-line’s Master Gunner Toolbox, https://www. us.army.mil/suite/files/43325400 (Common Access Card log-in required). 16 TADSS are intended to enable progressive training in preparation for live-fire training and as a way to mitigate risk, reduce cost and improve feedback in complex training. 17 FCX are live-fire events that train commanders, staffs and key leaders in planning and integrating direct fires, indirect fires, attack aviation and close air support in support of maneuver. The key task is for one platform to identify a target and coordinate for another platform to engage it. For example, a vehicle can identify an enemy, report the contact and direct the other vehicle in the section to engage. 18 FM 7-0, Train To Win in a Complex World, Chapter 3, on conducting training events. T&EO criteria are used to assess an element’s proficiency at a task. The October 2016 objective task-assessment guidelines, commonly referred to as Objective-T, use a matrix to determine the element’s overall proficiency. Common inputs to the matrix are conditions complexity, combined-arms integration, meeting 100 percent of critical performance measures and greater than 90 percent of all element and leader-performance measures. 19 TC 3-20.0 introduction. The brigade combat team (BCT) collective live-fire gates require BCTs to achieve T status in a BCT FCX and maneuver battalion CALFEX for the brigade to report Tier-1 readiness. 20 TC 3-20.0 introduction. 21 FM 3-20.21, Chapter 18, Section I, on evaluating collective gunnery. Elements conducting collective gunnery are scored on a combination of their collective task assessment and their marksmanship. Elements are also required to send a digital report and must call for indirect-fire support. 22 T&EO for conduct a movement-to-contact for a combined-arms battalion (armored BCT), task number 17-BN-1074. This T&EO is written in the new Objective-T format. It clearly denotes critical performance steps and leader steps; discusses what conditions qualify for a dynamic environment and complex threat; and enumerates required leader and personnel presence for the evaluated unit to achieve a T (fully trained) rating. 23 Senior-leader comments during the online Cavalry Warfighter’s Forum Aug. 4, 2017: “Reporting over distance from the lowest echelon to the highest headquarters is incredibly important to everything [the rotational training unit does while training at NTC].” ADP – Army doctrinal publication ADRP – Army doctrinal reference publication ATP – Army technical publication BCT – brigade combat team BDA – battle-damage assessment CALFEX – combined-arms live-fire exercise CALL – Center for Army Lessons-Learned COMMEX – communications exercise COP – common operating picture CP – command post CPX – command-post exercise CTC – combat-training center DIDEA – detect-identify-decide-engage-assess Exeval – external evaluation FCX – fire-coordination exercise FM – field manual FoF – force-on-force FTX – field-training exercise FY – fiscal year GST – gunnery-skills testing HBCT – heavy brigade combat team IWTS – Integrated Weapons Training Strategy METL – mission-essential task list NTC – National Training Center PL – phase line Sitrep – situation report SOP – standard operating procedure STAFFEX – staff exercise STX – situational-training exercise TADSS – training aids, devices, simulators and simulations T&EO – training and evaluation outline TC – training circular VC – vehicle commander VCE – vehicle-crew evaluator