The Tank XO ... 21C or TOC-IC?

Recently, I was rereading the MayJune 1996 ARMOR magazine and, as always, I was searching for the articles dealing with the M1A2 MBT and digitization of the battlefield. As a company grade officer in the FUE (First Unit Equipped) M1A2 battalion (3-8 CAV), I am always looking to integrate as much professional knowledge as possible into developing the TTP for how to fight this new tank. Reading MAJ Pol-ing’s article, “M1A2 update,” I was anxious to hear the insights of an officer who has had first-hand experience with the M1A2 outside of 3-8 CAV. As with any opinion, I found great merit in some of his points and disbelief in others. I was glad to see him recognize the M1A2 tank commander’s difficulty in deciding where to locate himself in the hatch, without suggesting that anyone but that TC knew the answer to that question. Somewhere in the first paragraph of his section, “Doctrinal Considerations,” however, I began to have great problems with his opinion. I was surprised to hear him suggest that a tank company XO should fight from a C2V. Tank officers who have been on the M1A2 are usually focused on learning how to fight the tank to suit tanking, rather than change tanking to suit the tank. His doctrinal considerations could not have been more wrong. The tank company XO must fight from a tank. First let’s examine one of MAJ Pol-ing’s considerations, the assumption that CPT Krenzel’s1 proposal “involv[ing] the company XO playing a much larger role in the company’s use of digitization and reporting information to higher headquarters” was a “bold proposal.” This is without basis. First, in CPT Krenzel’s article, his use of digitization was in reference to the information management side of digitization only. If you remove the word digitization from the quote and replace it with information management, I am confident that he and his battalion and company commanders would agree this perfectly describes how successful company XOs from 3-8 CAV fought at the NTC in M1A1 HC MBTs, yes I said M1A1! If this was the way an M1A1 XO fought his tank/company, then the only difference is the tool, not the task. If he could manage the task before this tool, and cannot now, get rid of the M1A2! However, in my experience as an M1A2 XO, it’s easier to apply the tool to make the task easier. My point is not that being an M1A2 TC is easier at first, but that it should be in the long run. If it isn’t easier, then the tank doesn’t meet the needs for which it was created. When considering doctrinal changes, as MAJ Poling is, it is easy to confuse arguments over doctrine with the related arguments over system types. We should clearly separate the two arguments and consider doctrine itself as a separate tool used by the soldier. In MAJ Poling’s article, he uses the capabilities of this new tank to define the role of the company XO. By doing this, he has effectively changed the job to meet the needs of the tool, thus breaking the basic rule that an item’s form must serve its function. Using the form and function rule as a basis for the argument to decide which platform the XO should be in, we must first define the XO’s doctrinal role, then choose the platform that best meets his needs. For this discussion, I assume that the XO is the second most senior officer in the company, that he is the only officer in the company, other than the CO, who integrates all company/team assets to accomplish his mission, and that he has experience leading a tank platoon, as well as in battalion operations, from either a specialty platoon or assistant staff point of view. I will assume that an M1A2 is a tank (with digital capabilities) and that a C2V is an operations center (with digital capabilities2). I also assume that, when full up, every unit within a battalion has a redundant leadership so that the second in command has full capability to assume the role of the first without degrading his unit or a subordinate unit’s redundant command. For example, in the platoon, the platoon sergeant has dual net capability. If he did not, he would degrade his platoon in one of the three essential elements of an Armor unit’s ability to fight (shoot, move, and communicate) when he took over for his platoon leader. Additionally, when the platoon sergeant takes over, he does not disrupt the redundant command of his subordinate, the wingman, in any way. Finally, I will assume for my discussion that I am on the offensive in order to simplify the argument (I do hope all can agree, without much heartburn, that armor was intended to be used on the offensive). What is the company XO’s role? I believe that most company and battalion commanders would say they expect the XO to build and maintain combat power, assist the commander in the decision-making process, keep them constantly informed of the company’s status, ensure class I, III, and V happen without delay, and any number of other key tasks. What probably won’t be mentioned, but what you will experience in your first EXEVAL, is that they expect the XO to be a fully functioning commander in charge of a fully functioning company the minute his commander’s MILES whoopie light goes off. Not only do they expect this but, at that moment, any other task that conflicts becomes secondary. To be able to assume command immediately, nothing the XO does to perform his duties can place him in a position that will not allow succession of command. Without more in-depth discussion, I will accept that being the second in command is the XO’s primary responsibility. He is the redundant leadership at this level, so his form must meet this function. He must have the ability to coordinate all company assets to accomplish the mission, and assume full responsibility of the commander’s duties. Therefore, we must consider the functional requirements of being a commander. The CO of any combat arm must have the ability to focus the efforts of his fighting units by locating himself at the decisive point of his battlefield to influence the outcome. The commander must be able to “lead the charge,” that is, join his men in the fight to inspire them and lead by example. Therefore, the commander must be able to position himself within the battle, as well as be able to join the fight. A platoon leader in his tank could assume this role if the XO’s platform did not allow it, but not without degrading his pla- 22 ARMOR — May-June 1997 The Tank XO... 2IC OR TOC-IC? by First Lieutenant (P) Daniel W. Peck toon by removing its redundant command. Therefore, the company needs someone with this capability. If an XO’s responsibility is to assume this role, then his form, or platform, must also be able to include those abilities required of the commander. Now, what about all those other logistical responsibilities? If taking over is just a contingency, shouldn’t the XO’s tools allow him to easily perform the other actions required by his position? Looking at the logistical coordinator for the battalion, however, the battalion XO, you will see he is not in a tank. His responsibilities in these areas are too important to become secondary when his commander falls. Why isn’t this true at the company level? Both XOs are responsible for all classes of supply, replacement, repair, and maintenance. They each have responsibilities in many different directions. Or do they? The battalion has organized itself so that it will assume all responsibility for building, finding, collecting, or providing these assets and responsibilities so that they come to and from the company in one package, the LOGPAC. By assuming this role, they allow the company to focus on these responsibilities in cycles. Before the battle, building combat power is the company’s foremost responsibility. Once the attack begins, the company must move, and move rapidly, so the battalion allows them to switch primary focus to fighting the tanks. Building combat power becomes secondary to the company so that it will not slow its pursuit. Then, after the fight, repairing the tanks and preparing for the next fight again becomes the primary focus. To make full use of its tanks’ strengths in pursuit and exploitation, the battalion cannot afford this luxury of cyclic CSS; it must constantly build, feed, and repair while the companies maintain battle momentum. The battalion XO is therefore placed in a operations center where he can continuously manage the assets that build and maintain the companies’ combat power during all stages of their cycle. By placing him in an operations center, the battalion level XO’s primary responsibility is not to assume control of the fight when his commander falls, thus creating the need for the battalion S3. The battalion S3 can assume command3 without degrading his unit or his subordinate companies’ redundant command. If the battalion did not assume these logistical responsibilities, it is quite possible the company XO would have a similar role to the battalion XO, but then the company would need another first lieutenant in a role similar to the S3 at the company level. It is obvious, given the complexity of the company vs. battalion, and the different role — constant vs. cyclic — of the logistics system, that the battalion XO’s role in an operations center is not similar enough, as its name suggests, to a company XO’s to help in defining the company XO’s role. During the fight, the company XO has the great responsibility of acting as the company’s battle captain. To do this, he needs tools that assist in information management. His focus is the task of collating, sorting, and distilling the flood of battlefield information into usable information and intelligence for his company and battalion commanders, so his platform must provide the ability to manage this information. At higher levels, this function is handled by someone in an operations center out of the fight, so they can calmly gather many types of information and provide them to the battalion commander as needed. Wouldn’t the company commander have the same needs of his XO? As brought out by many articles warning of some of the potential downsides of digitization, such as CPT Bateman’s (“Force XXI and the Death of Auftragstaktik,” Jan-Feb 96), we must remember that the only reason the battalion commander needs this information and someone to manage it is because he can never truly see or feel his entire battlespace himself. The critical difference between a company and battalion is that the company CAN see its entire battlespace, and this is why a company commander provides priceless information to the battalion commander that his staff cannot. The XO’s role as battle captain is more to manage this information flow, freeing his commander to fight his platoons, than to manage it separately from the fog of war. Part of that fog is emotion and morale, and the battalion commander must see and feel that fog, not see through it, because it affects his soldiers and his battlespace. If a company XO was in an operations center, the information that he provides to the battalion would have the same disadvantages that come from information from the staff. The company XO must therefore be in a position to provide that true vision of war to the battalion commander in his role as battle captain. Given his primary role as second in command, his responsibilities of managing the cyclic logistic system, and his additional role as company battle captain, we can easily define what the XO’s platform must include. First, just as the commander, he must have the same mode of transportation and weapon as his men on the line, and the ability to communicate with his men and higher. For a tank company, this means a tracked vehicle with a cannon5 and dual net radios. He must have the ability to manage logistical assets during specific cycles, so he needs the ability to reach battalion logistic nodes by radio or on land. Because it is not a constant need, this does not require a third net, simply the ability to change frequencies. To reach them on land he needs any vehicle capable of moving him from forward positions to the rear and back. Finally, as battle captain, he needs the ability to manage information that he or his commander personally observes, from and to company and battalion. This requires an open hatch, or periscopes, and at least dual net radios, as well as any analog or digital tools which will help him manage that information. It’s irrelevant whether those tools are laminated status cards with grease pencils and a map board, or digital report formats using a cursor and a map screen. Any way you slice it, the company XO’s role REQUIRES

A TANK.

Notes 1CPT Krenzel served as an M1A2 tank platoon leader in A/3-8 Cav(MBT) during the first company-level test of the M1A2 in the U.S. Army. Based on his experiences as an M1A2 platoon leader, then as an M1A1 HC XO, he ARMOR — May-June 1997 23 At right, members of A/3-8 Cav at the first digitized battalion EXEVAL. Continued on Page 34 ability problems in every exercise that it has been integrated to the M1A2 IVIS in 3-8 CAV. Eventually these problems will be worked out. Force XXI is also currently working on several C2Vs recommended by the Armor, Artillery, and Infantry communities based on a variety of vehicle chassis. 3Whether the battalion XO or the battalion S3 assumes command during a battle is another argument, but for the purpose of my argument I accept that the man forward, in the tank, will be controlling the fight (thus, commanding) until reorganization is possible. 4Although many of you will strongly argue the issue of when information becomes intelligence to the conclusion that only a staff makes intelligence out of information, my point in that using the term Intelligence is merely to compare the XO’s responsibilities at the company level to those of the staff at battalion level. His job clearly has similarities, at times, to the functions performed by many different staff officers at higher levels. 5To those of you who argue putting the XO in a tank is taking a gun out of the fight... where do you think that gun is when you take away his tank and put him in a C2V? 34 ARMOR — May-June 1997 TANK XO...from Page 23 First Lieutenant Daniel W. Peck is a Distinguished Military Graduate of the University of Miami, Fla., where he earned a BA in international business. He has served as the mortar platoon leader, an M1A1 HC platoon leader, an M1A2 platoon leader, and tank company XO in 3-8 CAV(MBT) at Ft. Hood. A graduate of ABN, AAS, IMLC, AOBC, CSSP, and the Motor Pool Operations Management course at Ft. Hood, he is currently attending AOAC. and experience to perform all of the regular infantry tasks, such as patrols and checkpoint operations. Their M16s, M60s, and .50 cals are adequate to settle or discourage most disputes. M9 pistols are woefully inadequate, and main guns a bit of an overkill for the remainder of the armored battalion. This does not suggest that mortarmen are the answer to all our problems. Nor does it offer the 11Cs as a ready force to do anything and everything — I assure you they are busy enough already. But it is clear that there are too many peacekeeping missions and not enough infantry to support them all. The platoons that are still operating with old M106A2 carriers and M30 4.2-in. mortars would be better served with the new M1064 and M120 mortar, but fielding has been slow. A final note about the equipment involves mortar ammunition and its very serious impact on the platoon mission. As described in the Mission paragraph, the FA often assumed the indirect role after a battle hand-off from the mortars. This is in partly due to the accuracy of the FA systems, but is more related to the ammunition available. Since HE missions were unlikely, unless a full-scale conflict broke out, that left smoke and illumination missions. Mortar smoke comes in only one variety, white phosphorus. Field artillery units have a High Concentration round in their repertoire. For the same collateral damage reasons, it is obvious that the likelihood of mortars firing WP smoke is very small. That left illumination as the only likely round to fire. While, in a show of force, an illumination round can show the enemy that they are in the wrong place at the wrong time, and should do their best to remedy the situation, I believe it is clear that the mortar platoon is artificially and extremely limited in its capability to perform its primary mission in these kinds of operations. Time The only luxury that the mortar platoon had in Bosnia was time. Time to do the job right. Fire missions were still practiced at combat speed, but the platoon usually had time to ensure deliberate planning and execution for each mission. The supporting artillery battalion PADDS team surveyed the QRF firing points, an unusual circumstance for the mortars, which increased the accuracy of our positions. We developed a play book so that gun crews would know the orientation and position of their tubes, no matter where their firing point was, and what target they were aiming at. Firing points were reconned, cleared, and deliberately selected to support numerous targets. There was time to prepare defensible and safe fighting positions, time even to make an otherwise cold, wet, and despicable checkpoint into a place to be proud of. There was time to do all of these things. The number one rule in peace enforcement operations is: Always improve your position. The challenge in future operations may be to do all of these things even when you do not have the luxury of the time to do so. The Joint Endeavor operation for Task Force 4-67 and Thunder Platoon ended in late September and early October, 1996 when CONUS-based military police units relieved us in place. There may be more U.S. units who pull rotations in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the circumstances could be very different than those that Thunder Platoon encountered. Nevertheless, I hope that the lessons of the recent past will apply to the missions of the future. Notes 1The term Stability Operations (STABOPs) is chosen over Operations Other Than War (OOTW). STABOPs better describes the nature of the mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina. 2While the Posavina flood plain is by comparison very trafficable for armored vehicles, many of the mountainous regions to the south greatly restricted IFOR movement. First Lieutenant Clark C. Barrett was commissioned as an Infantry officer after graduating from the U.S. Military Academy in

1993. His military education includes IOBC, BFVLC, and the Airborne Course. He was assigned to 3-5 CAV as a mechanized infantry rifle platoon leader and battalion S4. In May 1995, he branch transferred to Armor. He has served in Bosnia as the mortar platoon leader, tank platoon leader, and tank company XO with 4-67 AR. He is currently the XO for D Co., 4-67 AR. The author wishes to thank SSG (P) Manuel Madrid (Blue LDR) and SSG Donald Evans (Red LDR) for their professional service during Operation Joint Endeavor and their help, advice, and input during the preparation of this article.