By BOB SCALES
US Army soldiers participate inwards an international infantry contest inwards Lithuania
Retired Maj. Gen. Bob Scales is the onetime commandant of the Army War College, a Vietnam veteran (and recipient of the Silver Star for valor) turned military historian as well as futurist. He’s also ane of the fathers of Defense Secretary Jim Mattis’s Close Combat Lethality Task Force to reform the infantry. In this op-ed, Scales goes into the chore force’s achievements, its rationale, as well as the decades of unnecessary bloodshed it seeks to end. — the editors Eight months ago, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis created the Close Combat Lethality Task Force to correct a generational wrong. H5N1 retired Marine Corps infantryman himself, Mattis understood that America’s closed combat forces, consisting of less than iv per centum of those inwards uniform, had suffered to a greater extent than than 90 per centum of American combat deaths since the destination of World War II. His intent: to brand our infantry formations dominant on tomorrow’s battlefields.
Then-Lt. Gen. James Mattis inwards Iraq.
Most efforts at reforming the Pentagon are premised on the evolution as well as acquisition of things — guns, planes, ships, missiles, satellites, all at every-increasing expense. But closed combat demands far to a greater extent than than superior weaponry. At its essence, the closed struggle is a uniquely human sense that matches ane small-scale unit of measurement against some other inwards a duel to the death. Victory comes to the side that has superior will, cunning, intelligence, tenacity, as well as science at arms.
Thus applied scientific discipline is only ane of the Task Force’s 5 lines of effort. Three others concealment the intangibles of the human dimension: personnel policy, training, as well as human performance inwards combat. The 5th is a future-gazing essay to leverage emerging, as-yet unproven scientific discipline — from novel lightweight materials to cognitive performance — to plough over limit ahead advantages on tomorrow’s battlefields.
The Task Force’s primary job of essay is devoted to recruiting, selecting, preparation as well as acculturating superior infantrymen. We can’t operate dorsum to the days of “Willie as well as Joe,” the iconic World War II caricatures of poorly-treated as well as poorly trained doughboys. From instantly on, infantry volition hold out treated every bit an “excepted” category, a forcefulness laid apart from other arms as well as the usual personnel bureaucracy. Initiatives the Task Force has launched or is considering include a novel organisation for evaluating recruits for the particular attributes of closed combat soldiers; increasing the fourth dimension leaders pass inwards a specific small-scale unit of measurement earlier beingness reassigned; adding additional professional person schooling for small-scale unit of measurement noncommissioned officers; extending the preparation fourth dimension for novel recruits; selective bonuses as well as incentives to serve inwards the closed combat branches as well as policies that exempt closed combat units from the distractions of non infantry duties.
Army marksmanship simulator. Such systems tin privy educate specific tasks but non the whole, highly physical skillset required for infantry combat, which is why the Pentagon is developing to a greater extent than immersive “augmented reality” techniques.
Training is critical: Secretary Mattis has said infantrymen must struggle “25 bloodless battles” earlier they foremost see combat. Traditional preparation methods volition never adequately laid a closed combat soldier for the horrific stupor of his foremost fourth dimension nether fire. Thus a foremost priority of the Task Force is to develop small-scale unit of measurement simulations that replicate the shock, uncertainty, chaos as well as fright of the closed fight. The squad is good along inwards creating house virtual environments enhanced past times augmented reality technologies, immersing infantrymen within simulations that offering the repetition amongst variation, scenario afterward stressful scenario amongst novel surprises each time, a genuinely transformational preparation experience. The Task Force is dedicated to the premise that closed combat soldiers are the ultimate athletes who if, unprepared or unfit, mightiness pay the ultimate cost inwards defeat. Thus the Task Force is dedicated to replicating an NFL sports scientific discipline authorities wherein professional person fitness professionals as well as therapists volition operate integral to a closed combat unit’s training.
Human performance query for professional person athletes, pilots as well as astronauts has come upwards a long agency over the past times few decades. Not then much for closed combat soldiers as well as Marines. H5N1 fundamental objective of the Task Force is to exploit recent advances inwards performance scientific discipline inwards fellowship to heighten the powerfulness of infantrymen to excel inwards the deadly skills of closed combat. Human performance initiatives include an expansion of the Army’s essay to fully musical instrument infantrymen’s bodies amongst sensors as well as feedback devices to rails a soldier’s physical as well as psychological status inwards combat. The Team is preparing an enhanced serial of programs similar to the Army’s “H2F” heath as well as fitness first that volition optimize the powerfulness of soldiers to perform nether the extreme stress of closed combat.
While human scientific discipline as well as personnel policies cast the decisive elements of small-scale unit of measurement reform, the tools of the infantryman’s merchandise are even then important. Two technologies look to offering the greatest potential for achieving authorization inwards the closed fight:
First, for nearly one-half a century, America’s pose down forces accept been equipped amongst inferior small-scale arms, the 5.56 caliber, gas-impingement assail weapons of the M16/M4 family. H5N1 exceed priority of the Task Force has been a technological limit ahead inwards individual weapons technology. The pose down services are good along inwards the evolution of a next generation household unit of measurement of rifles as well as machine guns that volition hold out capable of penetrating peer competitors’ advanced trunk armor at extreme ranges amongst extraordinary accuracy.
But technological authorization inwards the closed struggle is non only a component subdivision of superior small-scale arms: victory inwards the closed struggle goes to the side that tin privy see, sense, as well as shoot the enemy first. So the Task Force has dedicated most of its essay to novel technologies to give an Army or Marine infantryman a laid of digital glasses, a “Heads Up Display” amongst built-in night vision, tactical data, as well as targeting cross-hairs linked to his weapon’s sight. This HUD technologywill allow the infantryman non only to engage the enemy amongst peachy precision as well as lethality, but also to see a virtual display of essential combat information such every bit suspected enemy positions as well as the place of nearby friendly units.
The acquisition community tin privy larn a peachy deal from the success of the Close Combat Lethality Task Force. From its inception, the Task Force was built only about a cadre of combat-experienced active as well as retired closed combat officers as well as noncommissioned officers. Thus only those amongst “skin inwards the game” — non acquisition executives– were made the fundamental decision-makers inwards this enterprise.
Then, to avoid unnecessary bureaucratic distractions, the Task Force meets the Secretary’s intent narrowly past times focusing only on closed combat small-scale units. The Task Force charter was express to those programs as well as initiatives that could hold out achieved within a prescribed menses past times exploiting existing human as well as materiel sciences. Most importantly, from the kickoff the Task Force leadership was dedicated to catalyzing a mutual essay amidst the pose down services: Army, Marines, as well as Special Operations.
The lesson learned then far is clear. H5N1 small-scale squad similar the Task Force tin privy accomplish miracles, fifty-fifty inwards today’s constrictive as well as bureaucratically stultifying environs — if the leaders of the essay accept pare inwards the game as well as if they are empowered to limit over the impediments of restrictive regulations as well as polices inwards their bespeak to operate along hold out those most probable to die. Success comes from a holistic approach to reform that wraps together into a unmarried transformational essay all the elements that guarantee overmatch inwards combat: technology, training, policies, regulations, and, most crucially, the human spirit.
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