← Off the Radar, Special Operations Training Detachment
Off the Radar, Special Operations Training Detachment
Sustain the Fight: How Logisticians Prepare and Win with SOF at NTC Pt. 2 (Ep. 50)
00:27:22
Loading summary
Transcript25 lines
- [00:01]
A
Special Operations Training Detachment SOT D West. Burro team coming at you from ntc. Off the radar. This is off the radar. I'm your host, Captain Connor Mang, an observer coach trainer for Special Operations at the National Training Center. Welcome to part two of our discussion with Goldminer 07 and 40, where we get a logistician's perspective of RSOF integration with conventional forces here at ntc. Do you think that the broad kind of menu that a CSSB or BSB brings here, do you think that a lot of the soft units tap into it fully to kind of really get everything they can out of it when they're forward, and then, you know, vice versa? I feel like we've talked a lot about field feeding companies, fuelers, medical support, mortuary affairs, things like that. There's just a lot of enablers that, you know, I wouldn't even think to ask, and I know a lot of that goes back to that LTP question, but do you feel like those assets are being. You know, obviously they have a mission to support the Brigade, and that's their primary, to support that joint force maneuver out here while we're. Whatever the Brigade is tasked to do. But do you feel like the SOF units are really pulling as much as they can within the realm of realistic possibility, or do you feel like, hey, there's a lot of things that we can offer that we just. We just don't have a dialogue about?
- [01:38]
B
I think it's the second one, though, I'll pitch to you, since, you know, you've seen it for the last year. But I think that's. It's almost like. Because the soft units are as good as they are. You know, the common mantra that I've heard, you know, two is one and one is none. So when you've already come out anticipating where the failures are going to be and being prepared to deal with that, then there's less of a need to do that, reach back, or tie into the other units that are out there. So some of it's, you know, they're victims of their own success. Yeah, I'd say there's. There's a lot of things that we can provide that potentially haven't been making good use of.
- [02:12]
C
Yeah, I agree with that. I mean, in my time of being here, I personally have not seen any interaction between the BSB and the sof. Unless I was missing something, maybe I was off somewhere else and a conversation was being had, but I cannot say I have seen any interaction.
- [02:33]
A
Right. No, that's. That's A great insights R Major. I. I know that there's opportunities because when you think of something as simple as me and Michael were talking about it, we send some of the ODAs. Some of the CA teams will become red soft so they'll come out and play the enemy during the rotation. And he was talking to me about one of their favorite things is they know certain areas where you guys will run logistical resupply or supply trains through certain areas. And they love ambushing and rating whatever package you guys are sending. And so that goes into the piece of. You guys also have to be masters of your sustainment or your logistical skills. But then there's also that survivability piece and just general soldier skills that still need to exist. And I'm wondering where there's opportunities where hey, if something simple like hey, we need an AXP established and then we need kazavac that maybe the BSP is providing and where there's room for coordination, collaboration, that interdependency. Like I need you guys to be able to provide this asset for me, but then I also probably need to be able to provide you guys something to be able to make that happen. Sergeant Major, through your time here, going back to what I just said, can you talk a little bit about what some of the challenges are for BSPs out here? Is it survivability of troops when they're moving to and from or are we talking more kind of what sir, you were saying? Just the failures of doing your specific job as like a refueler or as a field supply hospital or field. Field hospital. What are you seeing trends for like logisticians and things like that?
- [04:27]
C
I think one thing definitely that the BSBs need to get better at is their survivability. The base defense seems to be not a priority. Everybody starts concentrating on receiving that division log pack or you know, the flow of supplies to the fscs. And, and some units are really good at receiving those supplies and getting them out and bulk to bulk transfer with fuel. But the base defense, just the basics. Are we digging hasties? I mean BSBs normally stay in place for about 72 hours, but they don't even get to that point where all sector sketches are turned in or you know, hiding in plain sight and doing those basic soldier skills when it comes to like base defense.
- [05:33]
A
Right, that's valuable. We're talking right now at Burrow Team about the understanding that you just have to accept you're always being monitored at some via some medium. It may not be physically somebody, you know, the enemy looking at you through, you know, binoculars or through their weapon system. It may be, you know, some type of UAS platform. It may be a EW capability or there's a signature there. And as a bsb, I would imagine that you're not just, you know, spreading out and kind of disappearing into the desert. This is a large package of vehicles and tents and personnel. So I'm sure that's, that's a challenge in itself versus, you know, a CA team of four people can kind of find some micro terrain and if they're using, you know, camouflage and camo nets, we can disappear pretty, pretty easily. Or an MSS for, you know, soft oda. So that's, that's interesting that you say that Sergeant Major, because I think that's, that, that goes back to like every soldier needs to be able to know, you know, and I think maybe we've forgot some of these soldier skills about digging hasty fighting positions or just what does a sector sketch look like? So if I'm pulled off of this LMTV on a 240, the next guy or gal that comes up here knows exactly where my fields of fire are. You know, I, as a lieutenant in the infantry, that was, you know, that was, we'd like to say that's our bread and butter when we establish a patrol base. And I think that the, it's just amazing how the principle still applies when you're talking a bsbs, you know, area that they're operating in. That's the exact same concept. It's, you know, security is number one. And then how are we improving our survivability from overhead, on the ground, things like that. Can we talk a little bit about? So we've talked a little bit about, you know, out in the box, the survivability. What are some of the friction you guys see at the headquarters level? So that, that conversation between a BSB or a CSSB like Command Team, their S3 shop when they're talking to. Because I'm, I'm not familiar if they're always going to be co located with the Vision Main or the Brigade talk because that also kind of helps soft units to understand like hey, the BSB is not always going to be right there with the division. So if you only have, you know, an LNO at division, your comms are like we were talking about. Your comms may be limited to getting support from a BSB or a cssb. So can we talk a little bit about friction you guys see at the headquarters level?
- [08:09]
B
So a lot of it Comes down to the comms. And yeah, to your point, we're usually not going to be co located purely for survivability reasons, whether that's the, you know, C or DSSB with division main or division rear or a bsb, you know, with the, with the brigade main or tac. Because usually the brigade commander wants, wants to move, they generally don't want to stay in the rear area where the BSB is typically at. So comms becomes critical to your point. Like yeah, if you got the one LNO at division or the one LNO at Brigade. But my guess is it's the same for every other unit out there. Probably hard to harvest another LNO out of your own personnel. That's not, you know, nobody's probably assigned that like nope, that's what they're here. That's the billet that they fill. It's someone's additional duty or you've pulled them off whatever team to go do that. So it's probably maximizing the use of that lno giving them maybe some specific things that they're looking for when they do have the opportunity to interact with those support units. Yeah, comms, you know, and going out of comms with, with your higher headquarters. So me as a battalion commander trying to stay in comms to my brigade commander, that's usually where the friction comes into play. And then when I'm requesting lateral support from a CSSB or DSSB again, if I can't get on the communications platform with them, then it's hard for me to request that support. And I'm reliant on, you know, whenever their logistics package shows up, sending a message back essentially by runner, you know, and by the time that gets to them and maybe comms are back up and if not, then it's the runner on the way back. Now we're two, three days later and the situation has changed. So that's generally what I've seen executing
- [09:48]
A
that, that comms pace. I love it. I was just getting ready to ask that was my kind of my next question as we we talk in burrow team. Kind of the trends and areas of change that we need to institute when we look at facing near peer threats, enemies that are going to have the same or better equipment, tactics, TTPs that are designed to combat our TTPs coming out of a gwat focused fight. So we're talking enemies with long range sensing capabilities, the ability to strike way out of their own deep area. What are you guys seeing as OCs, especially the opportunity at the brigade or the battalion Command team level. What are you guys really focusing on as you're seeing the trends to kind of shift the mindset of RTUs, say, hey, looking at near peer threat, these are the things you guys really need to focus on as a BSB or as a, as a unit of action out there. What are you guys seeing that are trying to push as kind of the changes in mentality?
- [10:56]
B
So I think for me it's. I had a boss who taught me, you know, there's a number of questions that he had that he asked. The first one was, are you making use of all available resources? So if you go back to using, you know, a soft element that's moving through your AO the same way we would in, in the G, what you know, when an aircraft was, was going by, usually, you know, rotary wing, they're passing back over near our fob, we can ask them, hey, can you look over in this area? Because for a support unit we usually didn't get dedicated ISR or anything like that. So it's just making use of those same things. But to your point earlier, it's those basic soldier level skills trying to grow from, you know, when I came through here as an RTU during my major time, the BSA layout that we diagrammed during LTP was just the circle where the machine guns were and et cetera and like no analysis of the terrain farther out. And luckily my brigade commander at the time helped us walk through how to do engagement area development and really how far out you gotta look. So when I came back through as the RTU and then what I've seen in other instances is getting units to do that, to look at, you know, the ground from a tactical perspective. You know, the soldiers that get out, throw up camo nets, you know, think tactically first, you know, get their sector sketches, et cetera, they're going to do a lot better. Those of us that get focused on my sustainment job or things like that, we're going to struggle a bit. I imagine it's the same the way it looked when I came through the rotation when talking with my predecessor. I assume it's the same in the interim.
- [12:25]
C
One thing also that we're pushing is to go into, not be a consolidated bsp, to get away from that and to go into two to three clusters if you got the comms to do it. Because the comms is always the piece that units struggle with.
- [12:47]
A
Right. What's the distance we're talking between these clusters?
- [12:51]
C
Usually about a terrain feature.
- [12:53]
A
Oh, wow.
- [12:54]
C
Apart. And how do you set Up. If you go into two or into three, what is on each of those clusters? Since I've been here, we've only had one unit do three cluster concept, and they were actually pretty successful at it. Two is normally what we see the BSBs do, and some still want to stick with that consolidated concept. But again, the survivability piece is understanding dispersion.
- [13:34]
A
Right? That's applicable across the force, I think. And I could see that there's a lot of probably reliance on being in a BSA together because that's what has worked and is probably what they've trained at home station. So when you come out here and you're getting know, kind of pushed and nudged to, hey, we do the same thing for the AOB and for, you know, for CATS or opsens, you've got to disperse and really just rely on mission command essentially. Like, you may not have comms across that terrain feature, but you've got to understand, okay, as long as I understand what the BSP commander's intent is and what my mission is here, what are my left and right limits, I can go and, you know, execute. And I may not have comms for today. I may have to work on that. And that's awesome that you said that, sir. Runner, I think that's becoming a slow joke. That's always put as your E and your pace. And we don't think through, like, what does that actually mean on the ground? Like, that's physically somebody taking information, getting into a vehicle, or potentially just getting on foot and moving a terrain feature over to relay that. And that may be where we find ourselves in the next conflict. If comms aren't working and we don't have the spectrum to support communications the way we want to, that might be all we have. So that's great that you guys are seeing that actually utilized out here. Sergeant Major, I want to ask you a little bit about what you were just talking about with this kind of disaggregated approach. How, how successful are you guys seeing BSPs when they do stuff and when they separate, how successful are you seeing? Is that limiting? I'm sure it has an impact on their survivability. Is that limiting their ability to actually execute their sustainment missions, though? If you're separating kind of resources where it's like, well, we don't have maybe X resource here, it's actually over there. Is that usually a limiting factor or is it just a go out and execute?
- [15:41]
C
Regardless, it just depends on how they decide to set up each cluster. The unit that did the three cluster concept. They kind of had a mini battalion on each cluster and you know, one cluster will receive the division log pack and then the FSCs may be split up. If it's a two cluster concept, there might be three FSCs at one cluster and three at the other cluster. And the division log pack comes to one cluster and then everybody comes and gets their supplies and then goes back to wherever their cluster's at. And it just, like I said, it just all depends on how they set up those clusters. There's no one right way to do it. It's just what is going to work best for, for your unit. And hey, if it doesn't work at the first place, they move to and then they jump to the second place. Maybe they might change some stuff around or keep it the same or build on it to get better.
- [16:54]
B
Sir, just some of it's mentality wise and it's not doctrine, just experience. Whether living it myself or observing it. Some of it is when we used to do the consolidated BSAs, you know, putting up triple standard concertina wire and those kind of things for the people within the base, it's like security was somebody else's job. I do my MOS function and so getting people out of that mindset like no, no, no, we're all soldiers, we all got to do these things. But to Chris point, it's just difficult with some of the again, uniqueness within a support battalion even with a BSB that you know, generally standard between battalions. But it's not like I can take the role two medical facility, split it amongst two or more clusters because then it's. Well then it's not doing roll two stuff. And so that's not providing the support to the brigade that I need to. But going back to, you know, like you said, that interdependence, that's one of those areas where soft can come in and maybe provide some of that teaching. Hey, if you tie into this terrain feature, then you don't really need to worry about. You can put an observation post up there and nothing else because they can see for, you know, three kilometers from where they're at. Whereas here you got a potential high speed enemy avenue of approach. I recommend X, Y and Z for where they put the limited security that they pull out of hide. That's somewhere where those soft teams can really, you know, provide some assistance to the conventional foresight.
- [18:17]
A
Yes sir, I did. That was kind of where I wanted to segue. And we've talked a lot about assets that The BSB or CSSB's can kind of provide to soft forces. And I want to talk a little bit about how can soft forces help and support the BSB or the cssb. From my background in civil affairs, we like to focus a lot about network development. So we're looking at non standard logistics. How are the civilian populace able to move things to and from, in and out of certain areas, whether it's denied or semi permissive. When we look at that we're looking at an ODA having an overlay of these are the areas we know and confirm. We can have caches of logistics, ammo, fuel, class one, class five, class eight. Is that information that you guys see would be valuable to the RTU that maybe. I know we talked a little bit Sergeant Major. There's not a lot of crosstalk once the scenario kicks off or things like that. That may not be doctrinally what the BSB is focused on, but knowing hey, there's a whole company of semi truck drivers that are all helping to support movement of goods and things like that equipment that we could use. Maybe not tap in as a bsb, but just knowing that information is that stuff that you guys feel would be helpful to an rtu?
- [19:46]
B
I don't know if an RTU would see it just because of the way the scenario is set up and the time horizon that you're on. Maybe if you talk network in sense of just those interpersonal relationships that a team might have that conventional force unit is not going to have. But definitely real world examples. And that's probably where I'd say there's a little bit of the soft support can seem very last minute on the conventional side. Some of that's due to classification reasons. Some of it's just like they're getting the things lined up and just the nature of the work they're doing. Do these long time horizons for planning. So from the conventional foresight it can be very frustrating. But one of the things that the soft side can do is use that network like hey, if you can provide you conventional force, this and this, I can talk to my accountant, you know, my contact that's in the embassy or whatever it's going to be to help smooth, you know, a transportation request. Depending on multiple parts of the world, you got to work with the host nation and they've got their own timelines and obviously you don't want to rub them the wrong way. So you know, on the soft side they can use that network to make those things a little bit easier for the conventional force. You know, to get them whether it's the support that they need or potentially it's, hey, we've worked together several times and now I need a favor from you, you know, me conventional force from the, from the soft side and they can kind of repay some of that last minute support piece with using their network.
- [21:06]
A
That's good to know. I think a lot of the soft units and this is me speaking with, you know, not as much experience as a lot of the OCS on BRO team have come out here and really, you know, the information I gather or the intel that I've collected is going into that AOB or is going into that OPS in and they're going to push it up to that SODIF and that is on the sodf then to relay that information to the division or brigade and that's where that kind of cross pollination of intel information networks that we have. I would challenge that, you know, if a psydet knows of a individual or knows of a network that they, that could be beneficial for, you know, say hey, I know that the BSA would be really, this would be valuable to them to you know, if they have opportunities facetime or if they have that. Lno we spoke of that, that that communication continues throughout scenario and like you said, that only helps them get that ingrained into their planning and operation operational process when they go forward. Like you said so that it's kind of inherent that we're always talking not just within our soft realm but out to the conventional forces because that's where those relationships develop. And then like you said, that's where success can kind of start and continue. Sir.
- [22:27]
B
Well, just even with that, like for, for the soft side, if they just think long term, you know, so you know, one of your 18 series, you know, on the medical side, obviously they're super well trained for them just to stop in and talk to the folks in the role two or one of the role ones in the infantry battalions just you know, essentially on a fact finding mission. Hey, what do you have available, et cetera. You, this is me just introductions but there's usually some crosstalk there, you know, training of one or the other that that person may come in and see like, hey, this particular brigade has gotten fielded this new piece of equipment or they, they don't have this particular capability. Like for a while I did not have X ray capability because my machine was down. You know, if it's, you know, someone that deals with the weapons going in and talking to the, the armament team in the support battalion for those soldiers, it's, you know, they're always happy to see somebody from the soft side, to see a different element of the army. But like, hey, these are the weapons we have. What parts do you have? What things can you work on? Especially when they've got a warrant officer that can say, yeah, I've worked on those things before. That gives that person a chance to talk to their team. It gives the team a little bit of experience and then that may or may not come in handy down the road. Oh, yeah, three years ago, we were at NTC together. I remember you. Or they're dealing with a different soft person in the future and they go, yep, I've done a little work with soft before. And they kind of start building that understanding of, you know, how soft works versus how can the conventional force works.
- [23:49]
A
All right, that's great. Thank you, sir. I appreciate that. Well, sir, Sergeant Major, I really appreciate the insights you've provided today. It's good to see, you know, an aspect and kind of an outlook of what logisticians, you know, kind of do out here out at NTC and in the future, if we're, you know, trying to push that CFI3, that kind of concept to understand like, hey, as a, as an ODA or an AOB when you come out here, here's some planning factors that you can really incorporate prior to even coming to ntc. When it starts at LTP or if it's just sending emails before you show up that says, hey, you know, this is kind of what we're looking at doing. How can we help each other out? So I really appreciate it. Thank you, sir. Sergeant Major.
- [24:41]
B
Hey, Connor. I really appreciate you letting us come down and talk about this. I mean, you and I have taken away a few things just again, whole career being a conventional person, so learning some things about how you all operate. I would say for the teams that are going to come out here or deploy forward into a real world situation, it's find out what the conventional force unit has available. And again, sometimes it's just helping them understand how they can use that to help out the soft side. So, you know, capabilities brief for lack of a better description, but you know, really going in depth, the more face to face you can get with the user. Like the capabilities brief you'll get from me, as you know, when I was in my battalion commander role is not going to be the level of detail that you probably need unless they've already got the knowledge. Okay, yeah, I know that a BSV maintenance company and a striker Brigade has these things. So going down and really just getting to user level. Um, and I would certainly plug, you know, any, any team of whatever type of soft that can come out here to the National Training center. Like, like you said, you're gonna get all those forms of contact while you're out here. You're gonna interact with a wide range of different units. So anytime you see, you know, that rotation on the horizon, I would certainly try to make the most of it. Both in the real world, relationship building, like I said, for long term, both in and out of the rotation. And then just coming out here, it's a, it's a very demanding environment. It's one thing to sit in climate controlled, you know, team room. Yeah, it's hot out there, Fort Irwin versus sitting out here. I think it was 108 today. Just feeling that heat baking off the ground. It's just a much different environment. So coming out here and, you know, testing yourself here, I'd say is 100% worth it. But again, thanks for having us on the podcast.
- [26:17]
C
Yeah, thanks for having us. And one thing that I don't know may or may not be of interest is to when we're out in rotation, to find out when the unit does the sustainment rehearsals and come out and watch the sustainment rehearsals. There's about, what is it, three or four that take place during a rotation and I think that would be something of interest.
- [26:44]
A
That's awesome. Thank you, Sergeant Major. I appreciate that, sir. Sergeant Major, appreciate the time. Thank you for being on the podcast and look forward to working with you guys out there. If you are interested in being a guest on the off the Radar podcast or have a topic you'd like us to cover, please contact the off the radar team@offtheradarpodcastteammail.com. thank you for listening to off the Radar, where RSoft prepares for conflict like subscribe and share on your listening platform.