The Dinosaurs Ain't Dead!

In the summer of 1983 a team of M60AI$ from the 2- understanding of the basics of every aspect of gunnery. I 66th Armor Battalion competed against NATO’s most modem tanks as the U. S. representatives on the Northern Army Group (NORTHAG) Canadian Army Trophy (CAT) team. These tanks were derisively called Dinosaurs by competitors armed with more sophisticated vehicles, and this nickname was adopted with pride by the crews who took them down range. The Dinosaurs emerged as NORTHAG champions in CAT 83, and were third place overall in the competition that included ten teams, bested only by a magnificent performance by the M1 team from 3-64 Armor Battalion and by a German company armed with the most modern Leopard 1Als. The M60Al scores were made possible by reliance on old fashioned, attention-todetail maintenance and lots of hard, smart training. We submit these training techniques, strategies, and philosophies as being useful to all tankers, whether armed with the newest MI off the production line or the oldest Dinosaur in the fleet. Education Training teaches how something works. We believe this to be differentiated from education, which also teaches why it works. In the rush toward system-engineered, mark-sense, self-paced, GO/NO-GO training effectiveness, we have at times forgotten that a man can more easily live with a system if he knows why, as well as how, the system works. The battalion training program thus stressed Turret famili&ation was a basic &l. The training value of such basic questions as “what is the function of the ballistic drive?’ was multiplied by such follow-ups as, “what does the ballistic drive do when you turn off turret power?? Even as simple a question as, “what happens to the ghost image in the rangefinder as you range out?’ uncovers new knowledge when followed by, “now occlude right and answer the question again.” Questions like these far exceed the system-effectiveness criterion of minimum essential knowledge for safely operating the system. Nor are they intended to build a body of obscure, useless knowledge that is used primarily to haze new crew members (e.g. What is the thread pitch on a road wheel nut?) Rather, the turret familiarization technique is care fully structured to acquaint the crew member with his tank so thoroughly that he can readily, almost subconsciously, recognize even relatively minor malfunctions. If the crewman doesn’t truly know what the tank does when it’s working right, how can he recognize malfunctions when it’s not working right? Although we espoused this strategy from independent experience, we learned that the Belgians, whom we found to have a greater depth of technical knowledge than any other team in the competition, had arrived at virtually the same conclusions. Like us, they believe that you can never attain consistently high performance without a thorough understanding of the tank. Although the Belgians did not place highly this year, their high percentage of main gun hits bears a second september-October 1983 21

The TC of one of the winning MGOAls observes a hit down range. look. Their impressive and consistent past performmances (three wins, four-time runners-up, and three 3rd place showings in 10 previous CAT competitions) provides some evidence of the validity of their belief in the value of technical competence.) We believe it is the responsibility of each battalion in the field to turn the trained crewmen from officer, noncommissioned officer, and enlisted institutional courses into educated crewmen. Because of the time and resource constraints imposed on our institutional training system, the gap between training and education will always exist, and it will continue to be an implied mission of every battalion to fill it. Maintenance The crewman is the key to the maintenance of his tank. It is impossible for a mechanic, who may spend only a few minutes each day on the tank (and even these are rarely times when the tank is tiring), to be as familiar with the maintenance status of the tank as is the crew. An educated crewman, who understands the importance of an unlaced coupling, or a loose linkage, or a dead switch, is far more likely to demand, and receive, help from his mechanic. We found that the more the crew knew about their tank, the greater interest they took in keeping it in good order. The new calibration policy in TI’ 17-12-1 is highly maintenanceoriented. It forces the entire chain of command to concern themselves with maintenance because shortcomings, which could formerly be “zeroed away”, must now be ked. Even%hough they were preparing for an important international competition, our crew did not zero during their train-up period. Although in the short run it would have been easier in many cases to zero away the symptoms, we found it paid off in the long run to ferret out the problems. As a result, we found maintenance standards improved spontaneously from the bottom up instead of being imposed from the top down. One of the most interesting aspeds of the competition came to light as a direct result of the education and maintenance environment that was built up around the team. It became our practice, on each day of livefire training, to start with a single round at one of the calibration targets. 22

(Range time and ammunition restrictions precluded a full test.) Peculiarities of terrain and range fan on the practice range, made it necessary to set the panels out at 1,340 meters from the baseline. On an early occasion in our training, the Rangemeister inadvertently set up a target that was intended as the near (950-meter) panel of a conventional calibration test. To our surprise, and gratification, 11 of 12 tanks hit the target from boresight! The twelfth tank barely missed the target silhouette and was well on the surrounding 10 x 10-foot panel. This result was astounding to some of our older tankers, who in their younger days had come to expect that a first hit anywhere on a 12 x 12-foot panel at only 1,200 meters was a good performance by an M60AI. This initial surprise became normal expectation as training progressed, with hit rates well over 90 percent a usual occurance. In later stages, we experimented with the middle target from the calibration test at a surveyed 1,720 meters and found we could hit it with the first shot from boresight about 80 percent of the time. Indeed, so great was the confidence of our crews in their ability to hit from boresight that most crews had to be persuaded to zero immediately before firing for record “The contrasts between education and training do not mean that we can completely replace the latter with the former.” What explains the ability of the old Dinosaur to turn in such surprising accuracy? Ammunition like our M724 has been available for a number of years, and tanks are not known to mellow with age like fine wines. We believe that the combined effect of an educated crew operating well-maintained tanks merely uncovered the potential performance that this tank has always had. If this much heretofore untapped potential has been realized in the Dinosaur, how much more lies waiting in the M60A3 and Ml? Training The contrasts between education and training do not mean that we can completely replace the latter with the former. Proficiency in basic skills and tasks has no substitute. Although our training used the tank itself as the primary training aid, we incorporated several partial-task training exercises. The risk involved in such partial-task training is that the crew will learn the device rather than the underlying skill or, even worse, that they will develop bad habits that show up later in live fire. The key to using such training is a carefid analysis of what is learned, not learned, or wrongly learned, in each case and to incorporate countertraining in the plan from the start. Such analysis may force a change from the commonly heard, “It’s not perfect, but it’s better than nothing,” to alternatives such as, “It’s okay, as long as you do additional target acquisition exercises later on.”, or even, “It takes longer to unlearn all the bad habits than it’s worth”! This last sentiment, in fact, caused elimination of several timehonored training techniques. Here are some of the exercises we used, alorig with the rationale for their selection: Mini-Tank Range (MTR)-This exercise was set up to train crew dril and platoon distribution of fire. An M16 with.22 rimfire adaptor was set up in a modified Brewster mount to shoot into a witness board (something like a Stout board) immediately in front of the tank. The object of the exercise was not to hit the target. Since external parallax, ranging, obscuration, target acquisition, tracer intensity, trajectory, time of flight, and observation of fall of shot were so much different than on alive fire range, any results that relied on target hits would have been misleading. Rather, the purpose of the exercise was to test the crews ability to perform all the steps needed to fire a main gun round and to test their ability to execute correct fire distribution in response to a platoon fire command. The witness board has two basic advantages over a conventional MTR exercise. The first and most obvious is that an indisputable record of the results are provided by the impacts of actual projectiles. Unlike exercises in which the scoring evidence is a fleeting puff of sand or an ephe meral laser blip, the crewman knows he will be confronted with lasting evidence of any hasty or sloppy actions on his part. The impact record is used as an adjunct to the debriefing to ensure every target was engaged. (Remember that the goal of the exercise is correct fire distribution, not target hits). The second advantage of such an exercise is that crews no longer need to develop such techniques as parallax-corrected aimoff or unrealistic applications of BOT in order to beat the MTR. In the past, recognition of the need for such artificial techniques has contributed to soldier dislike for MTR exercises and added to the need for counter-training to correct bad habits. Countdraining in the unmodelled tasks is accomplished by thorough briefings and the pitfalls of the exercise compensated for by full-scale training. Battlerange Gunnery-A computer analysis early on in training showed us that no single battlesight setting could handle the small targets and large range band with which we would be confronted in CAT. We decided, however, that since every fire control must be at some setting or another, it was better for each tank to carry the exact range to some target rather than the range to an average target. This strategy required a careful reading of the competition rules, and a great deal of familiarity with the range. It may be argued that this technique is too competition-specific to be of general use, but we feel otherwise. This style of range intelligence is merely a substitute for the battlefield intelligence situation that is continually developing to the platoon’s front. The platoon leader who directs “Light section, watch the farm house; heavy section, watch the left edge of the small woods; 1’11 watch the road exit from the woods.”, is really directing his platoon to load, lay, and range to the most likely target locations to their front. (See ‘‘Soviet Tank Gunnery Training,”Jan-Feb 1983 ARMOR for similar Soviet practice.) If targets appear elsewhere, the platoon reverts to precision engagement techniques. This important difference between battlerange gunnery and battlesight gunnery capitalizes on some advance knowledge inferred from the current situation rather than dependence on the appearance of the average target. YA missed shot on a tank range wiU fall on soil in which thousands of rounds havepreviously impact& whereas a missed shot in a tank duel will more likely fall in a forest or barley field which was previously undistw-bed ” Single Shot Engagements--The greatest part of crew training consists of those actions necessary to launch the first round. Additionally, the battlefield cues available for sensing fall of shot are very different from those available for sensing on tank ranges. Consider, for example, that targets on ranges do not usually give an accurate hit cue (e.g. flash, burn, or explode), nor do they operate over typical terrain. A missed shot on a tank range will fall on soil in which thousands of rounds have previously impacted; whereas a missed shot in a tank duel will more likely fall. in a forest or barley field which was previously undisturbed. Thus, while first shots of training engagements may be fairly similar to their corresponding tasks on the battlefield, we may be fairly certain that subsequent shots on the tanks range will be dissimilar to their battlefield counterparts. Since there is so little similarity between subsequent combat shots and subsequent training shots, it then follows that we ought to devote no more attention to subsequent rounds on training engagements than is absolutely necessary. “Thepossibility of a second-round hit is actually detrimental during trainingy because it distracts one from examindon of thepossible causes for the initial round having missed the target.” There is a more insidious effect of multishot training engagements which reinforced our decision to minimize their use in our training. If the crew knows they have two shots to hit a target, they will have a very strong tendency to get off a quick first shot, hoping for a lucky hit, and then follow with a more deliberate second shot. Although fre quently successful against targets that don’t shoot back, this technique is a perversion of the adage ‘The tank that shoots first usually wins.”, which may be more precisely rendered as “The tank that shoots first accurately usually wins.” The possibility of a second-round hit is actually detrimental during training, because it distracts one from examination of the possible causes for the initial round having missed the target. Tank-On-Tank Duels-Every crew is faced with the speed versus accuracy dilemma. A shot that is fired too hastily may miss, while a more deliberate shot may arrive too late to save you. Attempts to address this problem with MILES duels have been only partly successful because MILES is not well-suited to gunnery training. Although not a mainstay of our CAT training effort, we found the introduction of livefire tank duels to be an interesting and instructive adjunct to our stationary ranges. The exercise starts by mentally folding the two-sided duel so that the

CSM McGuire proudly displays the CAT trophy won by CENTAG for 1983. two competing tanks sit on the same firing line. Two targets at the same range are presented simultaneously; each target representing the opponent’s tank. The tank that hits its target first wins, and the loser is declared dead. Short of a real twesided duel, we know of no exercise that allows the crew to reach a more realistic balance between speed and accuracy. Dry Firing-The well-known dry fire exercise was run on a ratio of at least onefor-one with live fire. Like the MTR, emphasis was on platoon fire distribution. After each engagement, crews recorded the targets they had acquired and f%ed on, and the ranges to those targets. “we fowtd that given a s o d understanding of the process, the crews were able to correctly and confidently boresight their tanks in about 4 minutes without IiuDeruision.” Ranging Exercises-A set of targets was precisely ranged with a survey instrument and used for ranging drill. Tank commanders practiced ranging for speed and accuracy and then, without time limit, for accuracy alone. Since the largest single error source in an engagement is a result of ranging error, this was an important drill. A computer program was available that translated ranging error into degradation of hit probability. We believe that this sort of near real-time feedback is important for crew motivation and for continuing evaluation of training. Boresighting-Because of limitations in range time and ammunition allowed under the rules, we trained up for the competition without zeroing. The crews were educated in boresighting theory and thoroughly trained in the proce dures. We found that given a sound understanding of the process, the crews were able to correctly and confidently boresight their tanks in about 4 minutes without supervision. This level of performance makes frequent tactical boresighting possible. Our crews now think nothing of reboresighting at the halt while the driver is checking oil levels. We found the Belgians to be similarly proficient (although they were somewhat handicapped by having to pass a single boresight from tank to.tank), and to be, if anything, even more insistent than we on the need for frequent boresighting. Because of the good results we had during training, and in view of the high crew confidence in the boresight-only strategy, we deliberated at some length as to whether to zero for the record runs. The decision finally hinged on the North German summer weather, which was unseasonably sunny. We had found that our tubes, which were the only ones in the competition not equipped with thermal shrouds, were susceptible to solar-induced warping on hot days. This fador, considered along with a brisk but stable crosswind, indicated that we should “zero in” the unique nonstandard conditions that existed. Crews were concerned (and rightly so) that if conditions changed markedly between zeroing and their record runs, they would be stuck with outdated corrections imbedded in the zero. We did take the precaution of calculating the wind correction imbedded in the zeroes (calculations were performed on the range with a programmable calculator while crews were zeroing) and advising the crews on corrections to make in the event the wind died. The entire zeroing procedure was undertaken with the full cognizance that it was a competition technique that would not be practical or achievable in combat. The Hot Firing Line-Although we pay lip service to the concept that nonfu-ing crews on stationary ranges will follow the exercise in dry fire, this very seldom actually happens. Crews usually get advanced notice of their turn in the firing order and feel motivated only as their turn approaches. During their allocated firing time, the action is fast and furious and the crew seldom has time to critique 24 the last engagement before the next one starts. Having had their brief, but exciting, turn at live fire, the crew knows that, their allocated ammunition expended, they will not be called on to fire again. We felt that this cycle, which gives each crew about onehalf hour of training in return for a 10-hour range day, was unproductive. We developed the “Hot Firing Line” technique and had good success. “When pride is on the line for each and every shot, crews simply do not become bored with dry firing, but use the opportunity to emure that they will register a target hit in the best time of the day.” To execute this, a minimum of two platoons are “bombed up,” conduct prefire and communication checks, and are ready to fire at all times. The remaining platoon can be on break, remedial training, breaking out ammunition, or debriefing. The two platoons on line may be called upon as individual tanks from the tower, or the engagement may be passed from the tower to the platoon leader. The tower merely calls “32, watch your front!” and pops a target. Running a tank table in this manner accomplishes several objectives simultaneously. The most fundamental result is that it provides the maximum possible training value from each round. Additionally, peer motivation is very effectively harnessed in such an exercise. Imagine being a tank commander or gunner facing a single target with a single round knowing that the results of your engagement will be instantly debriefed over the air for all to hear. A crew may have as few as six engagements spaced out through an entire day, but the prospect of being told, on the air, for all their peers to hear, “32, short line in 14 seconds,” will insure the crew is giving it 100 percent. When pride is on the line for each and every shot, crews simply do not become bored with dry firing, but use the opportunity to ensure that they will register a target hit in the best time of the day. In addition to providing more effective debriefing, the deliberateness of this exercise affords the trainer the opportunity to more efficiently monitor each crew for specific tendencies that may be causing poor hit results. After each engagement, the tank commander records on a formatted score sheet the range he determined to his particular target. These ranges have to be recorded because airing them on the firing net would soon give way to crew “G2-ing” as range intelligence is gained. By comparing the tank commander’sown score sheet to the one being maintained in the tower, specific tendencies may be deduced. Obvious ones are consistent short- or over-ranging, but if the tank commander comes up with good ranges and still is not hitting the target, then the most likely cause is gunner error or possible a mainte nance problem. At any rate, data are available to address specific crew deficiencies and assist in designing training to rectify these shortcomings. Since the whole line is hot at all times, there is no time wasted with communication checks, with the formalities of asking for, granting, and acknowledging receipt of permission to fire. The only answer needed to the tower’s warning is the round heading downrange. We found that firing proceeded much more quickly with no loss of efficiency. Crews even found time to pull after-operation maintenance in the extra time gained and still get some decent sleep. Certainly, training areas, ammunition available, and tank-peculiar factors will influence your training, but the skills derived from practicing random, oneshot, onetarget engagements followed by an instant public debriefing should be given serious consideration as a possible alternative to the current Table VI. This same routine can be easily and logically expanded to train two-tank sections or even platoons to engage more complex target arrays. Such expanded training demands not only rigid gunnery skills, but also exacting platoon fire distribution and discipline. This sort of exercise creates the possibility that an underprepared unit will find itself attempting to run on a main gun range before it knows how to walk. A 2- or 3- week gunnery cycle is simply not enough time to progress from Table VI to platoon gunnery. The coordination necessary for the platoon to respond cohesively, efficiently, and smoothly must be developed at home station with such exercises as the MTR. Hand-Eye Coordination Training-Although the tank is usually it’sown best training aid, there were times in the training week when, because of darkness, inclement weather, or lack of a suitable training area, we were forced indoors. A portion of such time was allocated to structured iterations of seleded home video games. Three game consoles were set up in the training room and crew members were required to play for record after strictly limited practice runs. Record scores were posted publicly. Though our conclusions are not scientifically supported, we believe that this sort of training improved hand-eye coordination, conditioned crews to react under stress, and helped instill a competitive spirit. The achievements of the M60Al Dinosaurs in CAT 83 are not presented here as a means of tooting our own horn. Rather, they are intended to draw attention to the lessons we learned in preparation for the competition. We believe that the techniques we developed can be readily adapted to any kind of tank and that the benefits gained will more than repay the effort. Our Dinosaurs performed better than they theoretically should have, and we believe this points to underdeveloped combat power in other tanks as well.

was commissioned in Armor as a Distinguished Military Graduate from the University of Santa Clara. He has commanded tank companies in CONUS and in USAREUR. He served as an advisor in the Mekong Delta and has had two tours in Germany. He is currently S3 of the 2-66th Armor, which competed in

CAT 83.

LIER was commissioned in Armor from the United States Military Academy in 1977. He has served in Armor units in CONUS and over 4 years in USAREUR. He is currently commander of C/2-66th Armor, which competed in

CAT 83.