Commandos get 'decisive' during Mountain Peak exercise

FORT DRUM, N.Y. -- For as long as many service members might recall, the Army's training focus has been on counterinsurgency operations.

As advise and assist missions draw down, so does the Army's focus on this program.

Gaining momentum on the training field is decisive action, which allows units to work collectively -- in austere conditions -- to strike enemy forces, seize hostile objectives and hold key terrain.

Breaching into this realm of expeditionary fighting requires leaders from the top down to revisit tactical doctrine, refine standard operating procedures and retrain their Soldiers to quickly gain fire superiority and destroy enemy targets.

"Mountain Peak allowed the Commando Brigade to focus on offense and defense operations against a conventional threat," said Col. Scott Himes, 2nd Brigade Combat Team commander. "This Mountain Peak has built high levels of proficiency in combined-arms maneuver and forced the 2nd BCT to plan and synchronize the employment of lethal and nonlethal assets against a known near-peer threat."

Himes continued to explain how decisive operations vary from the brigade's recent experiences.

"In a counterinsurgency (COIN) fight, the threat is much more ambiguous, and lethal assets are used much more judiciously to preserve or gain support from the local national population," Himes explained. "A COIN fight is more associated with stability operations and (is) focused on wide area security versus combined-arms maneuver."

But mastering these skills, which have atrophied after years of pre-established, sustainment-provid-ed combat operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, requires consecutive training to rebuild proficiency. Units throughout the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (LI), re-energized and sharpened their decisive action skills Oct. 15-25 during Mountain Peak, held at Fort Drum.

During the exercise, members of 4th Battalion, 31st Infantry Regiment, alongside 1st Squadron, 89th Cavalry Regiment, air-assaulted and convoyed into hostile enemy territory.

"An air-assault operation is a method of Joint Forcible Entry (JFE) that enables vertical envelopment from an unexpected direction of attack that forces the enemy to have to fight on two fronts simultaneously or forces the enemy to turn their formation and expose a flank to another maneuver force," Himes explained.

"If an enemy knows their foes have air-assault capability, it thins their combat power because they have to defend in multiple directions, or if the air-assault achieves complete surprise, the defending force is attacked from a vulnerable flank that is not defended at all," he continued.

Working with the air-assault elements to build ground blocking positions and slow the advancing enemy were Soldiers of 2nd Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment, who completed a combined-arms live-fire exercise only days before the start of Mountain Peak.

"That gave us a good fundamental basis of skills in the offense," said 1st Lt. Tripp Killinger, platoon leader with C Company, 2-14 Infantry. "Now coming out here to Mountain Peak we (have been) challenged with some more dynamic scenarios for a more diverse set of missions."

Tripp continued to say that while offensive and defensive training techniques are vastly different, the basic skills learned through the combined live-fire exercise provided a strong foundation for his maneuver element.

Throughout Mountain Peak, units worked at the team through brigade level to master maneuver tactics and build trust among their Soldiers.

"As a team leader, control is very important especially in real world situations," said Spc. Erick Burton, team leader with C Company, 2-14 Infantry. "But most importantly is knowing all of my guys are confident in me and that I know my job, and following behind me, they are going to be good."

While this training event has come to an end, the lessons learned here are sure to translate to the brigade's future training objectives.

"This Mountain Peak closely replicated the conditions 2nd BCT will face during their upcoming decisive action rotation at the Joint Readiness Training Center, Fort Polk, La.," Himes explained. "The austere and rugged conditions faced during offense and defense operations have prepared the Commando Brigade for the tough and realistic combat conditions they will face at the JRTC against a world-class opposing force."