Two-Minute Drill: USAREUR Rewrites Playbook

When V Corps faced the possibility of the 1st Armored Division (1AD) deploying, one question was how to ensure the division’s tank and Bradley crews had current gunnery qualification. They turned to 7th Army Training Command (ATC) for the answer. What resulted, according to 7th ATC officials, was anew capability in training delivery: a sort of drive-through gunnery, with minimal logistics and support burden to the training units. The training is called the “two-minute drill,” and its goal, according to Lieutenant Colonel Timothy J. Russell, G3 operations officer for 7th ATC, is to push more than 200 1st Armored Division tank and Bradley crews through gunnery qualification as quickly as possible. That means providing the training units with literally everything they would need, from the M1A1 Abrams tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles to logistics and maintenance support, range security, and evaluators. “We got ahead of this thing right away. When we knew this deployment was a possibility, we came up on the net with V Corps and said, ‘We are willing to do this if you want our expertise,’” Russell said. He explained the game plan was for the exercise to be “an impromptu gunnery, with us providing all the support.” He continued, “The more 7th ATC support we could give, pulling in all our assets and with help from 1st Infantry Division, the more we could reduce the burden on 1st AD.” According to 7th ATC Commanding General, Brigadier General Robert M. Williams, the name of the exercise reflects the sense of urgency behind it. “The Two-Minute Drill is analogous to what a great football team does,” Williams said. “Right before the end of the game, when the game’sup in two more minutes, they go full press on offensive plays to get themselves to the goal line. So our two-minute drill is designed to get the great 1AD sharpened, as much as we can sharpen it, before it moves out.” The Players Major Thomas McKevitt, chief of operations for the Combat Maneuver Training Center (CMTC) and head of the exercise operations cell, outlined the crews involved in the two-minute drill. “The training audience is 1st Armored Division, 2d Brigade, 1-1 Cavalry,” he said. “The tanks and the Bradleys, and small-arms qualification within that, are the focus of the two-minute drill. We’re doing squad live-fire exercises for the infantry to hone their skills before they progress to the Bradley Table XII, which is the platoon mounted and dismounted qualification. They’re doing small-arms qualification while the Bradleys are qualifying Table VII and Table VIII… then we bring them back together for Bradley Table XII, which is the platoon qualification table.” McKevitt continued, “We have 77 tank crews that will actually qualify, and 138 Bradley crews — 20 of those crews are air defense artillerymen, fighting on the older version of the Bradley, the Bradley Stinger Fighting Vehicle, but they still have to shoot the same tables as the infantry guys.” “For the cavalrymen who are shooting the M3 Bradley, they don’t have the dismounted infantry, so they’re shooting Table VII, Table VIII and then a Bradley Table X, or a scout Table X if you will,” McKevitt explained. “That’s not a platoon qualification table, it’s a section. For this gunnery, they’re shooting three-vehicle sections. The Bradley infantry are shooting Table VII, Table VIII, and Table XII. The tanks are shooting Tank Tables VII, VIII, and XII.” “Because units would normally work their way through Tables I through VI before shooting the qualification tables,” McKevitt continued, “we’re experiencing some of the minor problems that you would normally see on your preliminary tables. But by design, the two-minute drill is a condensed gun line. We knew if we had to execute this, we wouldn’t have a whole lot of time to prepare these folks for future operations, so a lot of that had to be cut out.” 14 ARMOR —

“Normally, crews would use the preliminary tables and unit conduct of fire trainers, or UCOFTs, to practice crew skills such as fire commands,” McKevitt said. But because of the condensed gun line, they didn’t have that opportunity. So we’re seeing a lot of the mistakes that are usually made, and corrected, in the earlier tables. But that’s okay, they’re working through it, and that’s the point. Plus, it’s a confidence builder for these crews, with these weapons, that they can put steel on target.” McKevitt said some crews were firing their own systems, while some were using borrowed equipment. He explained, “1st Infantry Division has provided 14 M1 tanks and 14 M3 Bradleys in support of the two-minute drill. Those are split, so we’ve got a seven and seven Bradley split between Tables VII and VIII. And it’s the same thing for the tank range, their equipment is split seven and seven between those two tables. Now, the Cavalry deployed with Apache Troop’s equipment, and they’ve been sharing that equipment as they’ve progressed through the gun line, but 2d Brigade also provided a set, 14 and 14, that will be staged on the Bradley and tank Table XII. Because it’s a platoon qualification, you’re actually using four vehicles at a time, so they’ve got the combat systems there to support the qualification.” The Crews Following an after-action review (AAR) on their Table VII shoot, during which they received all “T” or go ratings, a Bradley crew from 1st Platoon, Bandit Troop, 1-1 Cav, which Bradley commander First Lieutenant Mark Sturgeon called “the best damn troop in the Army,” talked about their experiences during the two-minute drill. Sergeant Mathew Hintz, the gunner, said: “It went great. We haven’t really got a lot of practice, we came down here with a week’s notice. We shot and killed everything; we’re doing good.” “Shooting an unfamiliar Bradley added some difficulty,” Hintz said. “It takes a little getting used to when it’s not your equipment, and you don’t know all the deficiencies. But that’s part of it — do a [preventive maintenance checks services] PMCS before you go out, know what’s wrong with it, and as long as you know your job… you get over the deficiencies and go down range and kill stuff,” he said. Private First Class Garrett Pumphrey was filling in as driver for the gunnery. “Our driver’s back in the rear; I’m a dismount, normally. It’s good experience,” he said. Pumphrey took some mild hits during the AAR, and said he had learned, “I need to pull up a little quicker on the berms when maneuvering to a fire position.” But for a first outing, he said, he felt it went well. Specialist Vincent Storer was a dismount for the crew. “When they need some body to go in a building, or just checking to see what’s out there, put HE (25mm high-explosive ammunition) forward, it’sour job to do it.” Storer said he was prepared to take over any other crew position as needed. Special Teams: Observer/Controllers Sergeant First Class Jesus Gonzalez is an observer/controller with the Timberwolves Team at CMTC. “I’m a platoon trainer, and normally I observe and control platoon-sized mechanized elements, either tank or Bradley,” he said. On day three of the exercise Gonzalez said, “We’ve been here in Graf 6 days. We got alerted 7 days out, and we’ve been reconning all the ranges since January or February.” He explained that a number of ranges would be in use throughout the exercise, “Squad live-fire is Range 307, and that’s where the dismounted portion is being conducted.” Gonzalez elaborated, “Another part of the Timberwolf Team is up there. We’re doing Table VII for the Bradleys on Range 206, and Table VIII, qualification, is being conducted on 204.” Gonzalez conducted AARs for the gunnery crews, and said he’d seen mixed results in the early stages of firing. “A fair assessment would be that each troop has crews that are brand new, and some that are more experienced,” he said. “What we’re trying to do is use not only the field manual covering Bradley gunnery, FM 23-1, but also a more realistic approach. We want them to get as much steel on target, as many bullets down range, as possible.” Gonzalez said the drill provided valuable training, especially for the crews that had never fired together. “You get thrown into a crew where the Bradley commander, gunner, and driver just met, and you could deploy at any time, then any amount of time spent behind the gun shooting bullets is valuable,” he said. Gonzalez said he thought the two-minute drill was well tailored to get crews ready for deployment. “There was never a question whether 7th ATC could do this,” he said. “And I think it does help the units that are here — I would love to be on a Bradley crew, show up on a range, and find everything provided for.” Gonzalez said he would recommend one small change if the exercise were repeated. “The only thing that is a minus is that some of these guys are not shooting off of their own equipment,” he said. “Every Bradley is different from every other Bradley — if you have a car, then I lend you mine, you’re going to have to get a feel for it. With Bradleys… if nothing’s tinkered with, and you boresight the weapon and know your boresight, you can lock it up and shoot a month later, and you’ll know exactly what to expect.” “...by design, the two-minute drill is a condensed gun line. We knew if we had to execute this, we wouldn’t have a whole lot of time to prepare these folks for future operations, so a lot of that had to be cut out.” ARMOR — 15 Photo by SGT Manuel Torres-Cortes

Gonzalez suggested that the crews should boresight the equipment before firing. He explained, “2-2 Infantry provided the vehicles, and they boresighted them, but I think 1-1 Cav should have boresighted them, too. Then the crews would be completely confident that it was done right.” As crew-level gunnery went into its third day, Gonzalez said most of the hitches and hiccups had been worked through. “We had to iron out some of the issues: exactly how the flow of the crews coming through was going to work, and then you do have some equipment failures. Everybody talks about ‘throughput,’ they’re trying to get these vehicles through, but first we had to establish how to run them through, what the unit’straining objectives are and what we had to provide for the unit. Today is the third troop, or company, coming through, and from the first day its been a big change. The first day it took us four hours to shoot two vehicles, and yesterday and today we’ve shot 14, 15 vehicles and we still have plenty of time to shoot a couple more.” He said, “It’s all syncing it together. We’ll be here until we’re done — say 130 crews are coming through, it’s easy to do the math. If I know I can push 14 vehicles through a day, day and night, that tells me I’m going to be here about 2 weeks if everything goes perfectly. And like I said, the first day, it took four hours for two vehicles. You can’t always count on 14 vehicles a day.” He added, “You have to understand that these guys are firing only two of the Bradley tables required for certification... The crews that are new would be doing better on VII if they had started with, maybe, the UCOFT and then Tables IV, V, and VI.” Gonzalez explained that skipping the earlier tables meant the crews were still a little rough as they went into the two-minute drill. He said, “One of the terms we use is ‘switchology.’ The crews have to learn where all the switches are,” he said. “An experienced Bradley crewman can do it blindfolded, where the new guys would be bumping hands and struggling a little. But, they could have been told they were leaving in a week, and had no chance to fire at all. This drill is definitely a good compromise.” Special Teams: Logistics Deployment orders were announced for 1AD the very week the drill kicked off, which seemed to add to the “big game” mentality of those involved in the exercise. And special teams were an integral part of the 7th ATC strategy, according to Major John Romero, 7th ATC deputy chief of staff for logistics. “We have a lot of good professionals involved in supporting this,” Romero said. He explained that many of them were drawn from Hohenfels’ Combat Maneuver Training Center, including not only the observer-controllers to give AAR to the crews in gunnery, but subject-matter experts in all aspects of training. As an example, he pointed to CMTC’s Adler (German for ‘eagle’) Team, which serves as observer-controllers for support operations, working primarily with forward support battalions for maneuver units, when the team is “at home” in Hohenfels. Romero said, “They’ve integrated themselves into the two-minute drill to facilitate logistics operations. They’ve used their doctrinal background, and by virtue of being OCs, have a lot of it as institutional knowledge. So they are probably the best example of the fact that we have all the tools. They’re subject-matter experts in doctrine, they’re probably the cream of their particular branch in the Army, and they see a lot of examples to learn from in the box at CMTC. They’ve used all that as part of their toolbox to do the business we’re doing now — and it’s made my job ten times easier.” “That’s important because the job is not a small one,” Romero said, “We’re looking at about 1,100 soldiers from 1st Armored Division as the training audience.” Exercise support, he said, consisted of more than 300 soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment (CMTC’s OPFOR), and 246 from CMTC operations group in dedicated roles. Additional augmentees included around 160 support personnel, soldiers, and civilians, from 1AD, 1ID, CMTC operations group, 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry, 7th ATC headquarters, and the 100th Area Support Group, Romero said. “Logistically, it’s anew experience for 7th ATC because we’re replicating a doctrinal forward support battalion, we’re replicating a doctrinal support platoon element, and we’re replicating company support elements,” he said. “That’s a big plus for this, because now the training unit can come and concentrate on training. So you can just imagine what these 160 logistics guys are doing to replicate these functions.” One of the key people for logistics, he said, was Captain Frank Gilbertson, a member of the Adler Team, who served as battle captain for the two-minute drill logistics cell. Romero explained that the battle captain “addresses issues, tracks missions, and facilitates combat service support.” “As an example,” Romero said, “say som eone calls my battle captain and says, ‘I need a bus here, to do this.’ He’ll link up with the trans chief and give him the mission and a task to execute. He’s the central focal point for logistics operations.” 16 ARMOR — “You get thrown into a crew where the Bradley commander, gunner, and driver just met, and you could deploy at any time, then any amount of time spent behind the gun shooting bullets is valuable.”

Gilbertson said one of his main functions was to, “React to any shortfalls — make sure these ranges are hot, or that they don’t fail to go hot for any logistical shortfall. That’s what the whole G4 shop is doing.” Since tasked to support the gunnery in Grafenwoehr months ago, Gilbertson said he has attended several meetings and video teleconferences devoted to planning the operation. “The first VTC that I attended was in January, but there was talk of it for some time before that,” he said. “Major Livingston, my boss, is the one who was doing more of the continual coordination with Major Romero while we were still in the waiting stage. But overall, through this whole thing, Major Romero has been on point, working this on a 24-hour-a-day basis. Once we got here, we fell right in with him and his shop.” Issues his cell has been tracking, Gilbertson said, include information flow and accuracy. “The way this staff has reacted to the very short-fused logistical challenges has been outstanding. Every range has got more than enough ammo, fuel — we’re pulling in pieces from several different units that have never worked together, and we’re working with several different headquarters,” Gilbertson said, adding, “I’m very, very pleased with the performance. There are a lot of really smart people, civilians and green-suiters, who have come together to make this very difficult operation work.” Special Teams: Operations McKevitt described how the exercise was put together: “In the operations cell, we’re working 24/7, because when we’re firing the night tables... we still have to collect a lot of data that we have to keep track of. We’re not from Grafenwoehr — I’m the chief of operations at the Combat Maneuver Training Center, and we run exercise control down there during rotation. So when we developed the plan to support the two-minute drill, we knew that OC teams would be falling in on different ranges, whether they be small-arms ranges, or tank or Bradley ranges.” He continued, “During rotations, S3 Operations, that’s who we are, the teams report to us continuously and we provide changes, FRAGOs (fragmentary orders) and guidance, based on training objectives for the rotational units. So when we developed the plan and knew these teams were going to be falling in up here, we thought, what better way to facilitate command and control than deploying us up here, so they would have a familiar voice, familiar SOPs, that sort of thing.” McKevitt described the exercise headquarters as “a hodgepodge of folks.” He said, “You’ve got us providing the current operations, the battle tracking and command and control, then you’ve got the support cell with the G4 from 7th ATC, we’ve got support from the 100th ASG, we’ve got the ammo folks, we’ve got the G6, and it was challenging at first.” There wasn’t much time for setup before the ranges went hot, he said. “When we came in here the first day, at T minus seven, there were no phone lines, no computer lines, the maps were bare, we had to readjust furniture — we had to posture the headquarters for success,” he said. “We had already done a reconnaissance, so we knew where we were going, but once everybody ‘closed,’ we did a lot of detail work — move this guy here, that guy there, get a fax machine, let’s get the radios mounted here and that sort of thing. The advance party did a lot of that, because by the time I came up here, we were pretty much set. We just had to fine-tune everything.” Short of an actual deployment, McKevitt said, he had never seen something so complex, involving so many people from different units, come together so quickly. “Typically, we see it at CMTC when a brigade comes into a rotation, but it is phased. We’ll have alone task force come in, there’ll be some STX [simulated training exercise] training, they’ll start the rotation, halfway through the rotation they’ll be joined by another task force and they’ll do brigade ops, then one task force will leave, another one will come in — so it’s not all at once.” But the effort has been worth it, McKevitt said. “It’s been a great opportunity to help prepare the 1st Armored Division for a possible deployment. If they can leave here better than when they came here, and be successful wherever they’re going, I think as an organization it will feel good that we had a positive impact on their success. It’s a team effort,” he said. “CMTC and 7th ATC work together well on a daily basis,” McKevitt said. “They’re our higher headquarters. But, for instance, I really had never worked with Lieutenant Colonel Russell, the 7th ATC G3, before. And that aspect of bringing us together, working with the 7th ATC staff, I think it’s a benefit. I know a lot more people now, and that’s not going to hurt operations in the future, if we ever have to do something like this again.” Flexibility and Professionalism When the commanding general, BG Robert M. Williams, summed up the two-ARMOR — 17 minute drill, he stressed the “flexibility and agility” of the people involved. “One of the great virtues of the 7th ATC and CMTC is that they have traditionally been an extremely flexible organization,” Williams said. “Whenever we conduct rotations at CMTC to train the brigades, every one of them is different. That has, over the years, forced us to look at rotations and the way we do business in a different way than, perhaps, the NTC [National Training Center] and JRTC [Joint Readiness Training Center] do. In having to look at ourselves differently, and having to structure ourselves to meet those different types of rotational requirements, we have built in to the institution a kind of flexibility that I don’t think would be there otherwise.” That flexibility, he said, means 7th ATC can adapt quickly to new training requirements. “I think this has been a hallmark of the 7th ATC for a number of years now,” Williams said. “The two-minute drill, though, brings it into sharp focus, because without that embedded flexibility and agility, forged over a number of years of training the force here in Europe, we would never have been able to pull this off.” The two-minute drill capped off a challenging “season” for his command, Williams said. “The last three months have been very challenging months for the 7th ATC, the 100th ASG, and CMTC, as we have conducted a whole host of exercises in support of our soldiers and units who are earmarked against contingency ops,” he said. “The work that has been done by the people who work in these organizations has been magnificent. In the months to come, we very possibly will watch these units we have trained perform momentous acts. It’s important that all the people who work at 7th ATC and CMTC understand that the success of these great organizations began right here. We should be extremely proud of our accomplishments. I’m very proud of our people, and I’m very proud to be part of their team.” Karen S. Parrish edits the “Training Journal” for 7th Army Training Command, Grafenwoehr, Germany. A former Army journalist, she has also written for or edited Army publications at Fort Benning, Georgia; Taszar, Hungary; and Camp Able Sentry, Macedonia.