Imagine you’re a second lieutenant (2LT) in an armored brigade combat team (ABCT) and you’ve just been placed in charge of your first platoon. You’re now responsible for not only a few dozen Soldiers, but also a platoon’s vehicles and ancillary equipment. How does a leader ensure these vehicles and supporting equipment function as designed? The broad answer is an ef­fective maintenance program. At a minimum, maintenance must be man­aged at the platoon level. All platoon leaders should prioritize maintenance, as platoons train most effectively when their equipment is fully operational. Platoon leaders should become ex­perts on their equipment status report (ESR), maintain effective platoon main­tenance standard operating procedures (SOPs), and know how to conduct maintenance in all environ­ments.

When I reported as a new mechanized infantry platoon leader in the 1st Bat­talion, 8th Cavalry Regiment (1-8 CAV), I encountered challenges related to maintenance operations and equip­ment readiness. After two years with 1-8 CAV, including my current role as the battalion maintenance officer (BMO), I have learned more about maintenance than I ever thought pos­sible. Much of the knowledge I now possess would have helped me im­mensely as a platoon leader, for I would’ve been more effective at build­ing combat power and maintaining readiness.

I once thought maintenance was an impossible task for a platoon leader to master, but it is now clear that the op­posite is true. While it may seem over­whelming at first, all it takes is a bit of self-study and dedication. A platoon leader who cares about maintenance is demonstrating care for their Soldiers and for the success and lethality of their platoon.

A common misconception is that main­tenance pertains only to Armor or Stryker formations, but it matters to all platoon leaders. Every platoon owns some form of equipment, which must function properly for the platoon to operate effectively. Properly function­ing equipment keeps soldiers alive and helps them accomplish their mission. Another common misconception is that the company executive officer (XO) handles the entire company’s maintenance in conjunction with the company’s field maintenance team (FMT). This could not be further from the truth. While the company XO may be the steward of the company’s main­tenance program, platoon leaders play a critical role. A platoon leader is re­sponsible for the success or failure of the platoon, and that includes mainte­nance. A platoon cannot train or fight effectively if its equipment isn’t work­ing properly. There is no point in plan­ning training if the entire event is spent recovering and repairing equipment. A unit’s operational readiness must peak at the line of departure.1

How to Read an ESR

The first thing a platoon leader must understand is their ESR. The ESR, ac­cessible through the Global Combat Support System – Army (GCSS-Army), provides detailed insights into equip­ment and unit readiness. While the company commander and XO typically have access, a platoon leader can ob­tain viewing access by coordinating with their battalion’s maintenance team and following the necessary pro­cedures.2

The first time looking at an ESR can be daunting—it may feel like a foreign lan­guage that platoon leaders are expect­ed to understand immediately. Howev­er, once the headings on the ESR are understood and their corresponding information is recognized, reading it becomes much easier. The purpose of the ESR is to provide a clear picture of the status of a unit’s equipment. If there is an issue with a piece of equip­ment, it must be reflected on the ESR. Additionally, a fault must be listed on the ESR to order a part for it. The ESR serves as an essential system of record, enabling a platoon leader to hold themselves and their battalion’s main­tenance enterprise accountable.

Each ESR page features four headlining rows at the top, distinguished by pro­gressively smaller font sizes in de­scending order, as seen in Figure 1.

Of all the details on an ESR, there are a few that matter to platoon leaders the most. Their definitions, and how they can improve a maintenance pro­gram, are described in Figures 2 through Figure 5. The first four pieces of information are found in the second headlining row.

Platoon Maintenance SOPs and Best Practices

With the maintenance knowledge I’ve gained as a BMO, I often reflect on how I could have run a more effective pla­toon maintenance program. One of the key improvements I would have made is establishing structured maintenance SOPs, including weekly maintenance battle rhythm events, such as com­mand maintenance days and platoon maintenance meetings.

Most platoons already participate in command maintenance days, often re­ferred to as “Motor Pool Monday”, but these events could be more efficient and impactful. As a mechanized infan­try platoon leader, I frequently had my mounted sections conducting preven­tative maintenance checks and servic­es (PMCS) on our M2A3 Bradley Fight­ing Vehicles (BFVs), while my dis­mounts often had little to do. I now un­derstand the critical importance of conducting weekly ancillary equipment maintenance by properly allocating priorities and manpower.

At a minimum, companies should pri­oritize ancillary equipment mainte­nance on a rotational basis. This can be achieved by platoon leaders working with the Company XO to create a four-week maintenance schedule, ded­icating each week to a specific catego­ry of ancillary equipment:4

  • Communications Equipment (e.g., radios and Joint Battle Command-Platforms [JBC-Ps])
  • Weapons Systems
  • Night Vision Devices (NVDs)
  • All Other Platoon Equipment

During periods of increased manning, this schedule can be condensed, allow­ing more equipment to undergo PMCS each week. By proactively maintaining ancillary equipment, potential issues can be identified and resolved before field operations. Conducting after-op­erations PMCS for the first time post-field exercise is too late—preventative maintenance must be consistent and systematic to ensure operational read­iness.

Communications equipment should be tested weekly through communica­tions exercises (COMMEX) using radios and JBC-Ps. Even if higher headquar­ters does not mandate a weekly COM­MEX, platoons should conduct them internally. The company communica­tions representative can fill these sys­tems, enabling platoons to conduct in­ternal checks. Many units, including the 1st Cavalry Division, may already require a weekly COMMEX, making it essential to meet the commander’s in­tent.

Platoon maintenance meetings should be a weekly battle rhythm event. In 1-8 CAV, maintenance meetings are held at both the battalion and company levels, but they rely on information reported up from the platoons. Conducting pla­toon-level maintenance meetings fos­ters a shared understanding among the leadership and ensures platoon lead­ers are well-prepared to provide accu­rate briefings.

Platoon maintenance meetings should cover several key agenda items, with a primary focus on reviewing the ESR line by line. The platoon leader should facilitate the discussion, while section and squad leaders brief the faults for their assigned equipment. It is essen­tial that platoon, section, and squad leaders understand the statuses of their equipment. Additionally, the ra­dio-telephone operator (RTO) and ar­morer should assist in briefing the sta­tus of communications equipment and weapons. Ideally, all soldiers would be proficient in reading the ESR, but at a minimum, the platoon’s leadership, RTO, and armorer must be well-versed in it. When time allows, platoons should review the “wide open” ESR, which includes both deadline and non-deadline faults. Overemphasis on the NMC ESR often leads to neglecting slash faults, which can escalate into more severe equipment issues. The “wide open” ESR also provides visibil­ity on open work orders, such as pend­ing welding jobs, allowing soldiers to track ongoing repairs for their equip­ment.

Services

Vehicle and equipment services should be another key agenda item in platoon maintenance meetings. Platoon lead­ership must understand the service schedule for each piece of equipment to prevent overdue services, as over­due equipment cannot be used until serviced.

Service plans consist of three key dates:

  • Early Date – The earliest allowable completion date.
  • Planned Date – The scheduled service date in GCSS-Army.
  • Late Date – The latest allowable completion date before the equipment becomes delinquent.

The early and late dates represent a 10% variance window before and after the planned date in which the service must be completed. Completing a ser­vice before the early date can disrupt future service schedules by shifting them forward. Missing the late date re­sults in delinquency without shifting the future service windows. Platoon leadership must also understand the steps involved in a service to track progress effectively. Battalion and company commanders may inquire about equipment status, and platoon leaders should be prepared to provide accurate updates.

Dispatches

Before a vehicle leaves the motor pool, it must be properly dispatched. Track­ing open and overdue dispatches in platoon maintenance meetings en­sures compliance and prevents unau­thorized vehicle use. Dispatches serve as a commander’s tool to verify vehi­cles are FMC and maintain accountabil­ity for equipment assigned to different missions. Platoon leaders must ensure their crews process dispatches through the FMT clerk before vehicle use and properly close them upon mission completion. If a mission extends be­yond the original dispatch window, the current dispatch must be closed, and a new dispatch packet must be complet­ed in accordance with the unit’s dis­patch SOP. To maintain accurate mile­age records and prevent premature service triggers, soldiers should only approach the clerk to close a dispatch after recording the correct mileage in the dispatch book. This step ensures accurate mileage tracking under opti­mized service plans.

Army units often require 10-mile road marches for each vehicle quarterly. This road march can be done in con­junction with training events as long as at least 10 miles are driven during the duration of the event. Some battalions prefer to make these road marches battle rhythm events on the calendar, whereas others leave it up to the com­panies and platoons. 1-8 CAV does not make it a battle rhythm event, but we track company adherence to this poli­cy by including usage reports in our battalion maintenance meetings. As a trickle-down effect, our companies have included these reports in their company maintenance meetings. Us­age reports can be pulled from GCSS-Army, and they are systems of record that display the distances travelled by vehicles during a selected period. This mileage is tracked by the change in odometer readings between dispatches, therefore making accurate mileage reporting extremely important when opening and closing dispatches.

Two other important metrics that should be tracked in platoon mainte­nance meetings are the Army Oil Anal­ysis Program (AOAP) and test, mea­sure, and diagnostic equipment (TMDE). AOAP monitors petroleum, oil, and lubricant (POL) samples to ensure vehicle health and identify engine, transmission, gearbox, or hydraulic failures before they occur8. Samples must be drawn and submitted at inter­vals prescribed by the AOAP lab and submitted for testing. The company XO can pull AOAP due dates from a pro­gram called the Army Enterprise Sys­tems Integration Program (AESIP) for the platoon leader to include in their platoon maintenance meetings. TMDE is a list of parts, tools, and equipment that need to be calibrated at specific intervals to ensure they are accurate and effective9. Most of these items are owned at the company level, but some platoon equipment may need calibra­tion. A platoon leader should confirm if any of their sub-hand receipt (SHR) is enrolled in TMDE and include their service dates in their platoon’s slides.

Another SOP that units should estab­lish is Class IX (CL IX) management. CL IX is the Army’s class of supply for re­pair parts. CL IX management is often done at the battalion and company lev­els, but it should be done at the pla­toon level as well. For example, Com­bat Company, 1-8 CAV, dictated that only platoon leaders and platoon ser­geants could sign for CL IX from the FMT non-commissioned officer in charge (NCOIC). This was to maintain better accountability of parts and en­sure they were issued to the right ve­hicle. If a part was installed on the wrong vehicle, then the vehicle need­ing the part wasted a lot of time on the ESR. If the company does not have an SOP, then the platoon should establish one. Will only the platoon leader or platoon sergeant be able to sign for CL IX? Will section leaders be allowed to do it? My recommendation is that only the platoon leader and platoon ser­geant sign for parts. This allows for better awareness and accountability within the platoon’s maintenance pro­gram.

Allowing the platoon’s soldiers to sign for parts makes CL IX management more difficult for the entire company. Crews may not know if the part they need was ordered for another vehicle. Additionally, when CL IX is issued for a vehicle, it needs to be installed imme­diately to fix the fault. If it is operator-level maintenance (maintenance that can be conducted per the 10-level technical manual [TM]), then members of the crew can apply the part. If it is mechanic-level maintenance (mainte­nance conducted per the 20-level TM), then a mechanic needs to hang the part. If a parts manual is available for that piece of equipment, then the source, maintenance, and recoverabil­ity (SMR) code can be checked in the maintenance allocation chart (MAC) to see who installs it. The SMR code has five characters. The third character, which is the maintenance code, identi­fies the maintenance level for replace­ment. A maintenance code of ‘C’ means a crew or operator can replace the part, and a maintenance code of ‘F’ means unit-level maintainers can replace the part. Sometimes ‘O’ is list­ed in place of ‘F’ in older MACs.7

Whenever a part is hung by a mechan­ic, whether in shop or on the motor pool line, a member of that vehicle’s crew needs to be present.

An important maintenance SOP affect­ing unit lethality is 24-hour mainte­nance when pacing equipment parts are received for deadline faults. If a part arrives that would make a pacing vehicle (commonly called a pacer) FMC, then continuous work needs to occur to make it happen. Maintenance will occur until the part is hung and the fault is fixed. The purpose is to remove the amount of time a pacer is on the ESR, and it helps improve the battal­ion’s operational readiness.

Unusable, recoverable parts removed from equipment join the overage re­pairable items list (ORIL). These parts need to be returned to the Army so they can be repaired and issued back out to the force. Units receive mone­tary credit back for parts turned in. ORILs are monitored at the battalion and brigade level, and poor manage­ment of these parts can cause a unit’s ORIL to be extremely long. Operators need to clean the parts and give them to their FMT clerks for turn-in. Platoon leaders should work with their Compa­ny XO to get a list of platoon ORILs to be tracked internally.

Field Maintenance

Field maintenance is probably one of the most overlooked aspects in main­tenance. Soldiers tend to forget or avoid it until their equipment breaks. Field maintenance is often equated to cleaning weapons in the field, but it is so much more than that. Soldiers need to PMCS their equipment in the field daily. According to Army Regulation (AR) 25-30 Army Publishing Program, each piece of equipment is supposed to be accompanied by a TM.8 When a Soldier draws a piece of equipment, they should draw the TM as well. TMs should remain in vehicles too. While the Army is beginning to modernize with all-in-one tablets that include both the TM and Department of the Army (DA) Form 5988-E, it is a good practice to maintain a paper copy of the TM in the vehicle. As long as those copies aren’t lost or destroyed, paper TMs are a great contingency for when tablets break or run out of battery.

There are three types of PMCS: before, during and after operations.9 At a min­imum, the during operations PMCS should be completed in the field daily. This will help crews identify problems before they become significant, and it gives the FMT a chance to fix them be­fore more intensive maintenance is re­quired.

Printing capabilities are usually ex­tremely limited in the field. Therefore, platoon leaders should ask their XOs to bring several DA Form 5988-Es for each vehicle prior to starting a field prob­lem. If printing is an option, XOs can ask for the forms in their daily logistics package (LOGPAC) requests. Soldiers should complete PMCS of their vehi­cles and equipment on these 5988s daily. Leaders throughout the platoon should spot check the accuracy of the PMCS, then they should be submitted to the XO. Conducting continuous field PMCS will allow both the FMT and the battalion’s maintenance enterprise to stay up to date on all maintenance is­sues within the unit.

Final Notes

A platoon leader should make it their priority to establish good relationships with their Company’s mechanics. They are the ones that keep the vehicles in the fight and their job is challenging. There are long hours, lots of physical work, and rarely any downtime. A pla­toon leader also needs to allow the FMT time to PMCS and maintain their own assigned vehicles. An FMT’s effi­cacy relies heavily upon its vehicles’ ca­pabilities. If their M88 is NMC, they are unable to recover tracked vehicles. If their palletized load system (PLS) is down, they will be unable to bring their forward repair system (FRS) and field pack-up (FPU) container (also known as a BOH, after the company that makes them), into the fight. While it is important for a platoon to have faults verified and fixed promptly, time needs to be given to the FMT to do the same thing.

Maintenance can be an intimidating aspect of the Army to all leaders, but it is especially nerve-racking for new platoon leaders. If the proper focus and dedication is given to mainte­nance, it isn’t that scary. As a BMO, I believe that while maintenance perfec­tion is impossible, an effective mainte­nance program is extremely achiev­able. To build an effective program at the platoon level, a platoon leader must study the ESR, ask maintenance questions to anyone who will listen, and be present in the motor pool. Units with effective maintenance pro­grams, regardless of the echelon, are the most lethal. Lethality is like a house – training is the structure that builds lethality, but maintenance is the foun­dation on which it stands on. The house cannot last if there is no founda­tion.

Christian Arnett is a First Lieutenant currently serving as Executive Officer of a Military Intelligence Company within the Regimental Military Intelli­gence Battalion, 75th Ranger Regi­ment. Previous assignments include Battalion Maintenance Officer for 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, and Infantry Platoon Leader for C Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Di­vision. His military education includes Ranger School, Basic Airborne Course, Bradley Leader’s Course, and Infantry Basic Officer Leader Course, all com­pleted at Fort Benning, Georgia. Arnett holds a Bachelor of Science in environ­mental engineering from the Universi­ty of Iowa.

Notes

1 LTC Jay Ireland, “Peaking at LD: A Way to Achieve Maintenance Excellence,” Armor 135/4 (Fall 2023): 25-28, https://www.moore.army.mil/Armor/eARMOR/con­tent/issues/2023/Fall/ARMOR Fall 2023.pdf

2 MG Jeffery Broadwater, COL Patrick Dis­ney, and MAJ Allen Trujillo, “The Leader’s Guide to Creating a Daily Maintenance Battle Rhythm,” From the Green Note­book, 25 August 2020, https://fromthegreennotebook.com/2020/08/25/the-leaders-guide-to-creating-a-daily-maintenance-battle-rhythm/

3 “GCSS-Army Job Aid: Equipment Status Report (Z_EQUST)”, United States Govern­ment, 08 December 2018, https://gcss.army.mil/Training/WebBasedTraining

4 MAJ Gary M. Klein, “Operationalizing Command Maintenance to Train Organiza­tional Systems and Build a Culture of Maintenance Readiness,” Armor 134/3 (Summer 2022): 19-24, https://www.moore.army.mil/Armor/eARMOR/con­tent/issues/2022/Summer/ARMOR Sum­mer 2022-optimized.pdf

5 “Army Oil Analysis Program (AOAP),” Army Sustainment Command, n.d., https://www.aschq.army.mil/Offices/Red­stone-Detachment/

6 “About USATA,” U.S. Army TMDE Activity (USATA), 04 April 2024, https://tmde­home.redstone.army.mil/

7 Army Techniques Publications 4-33, Maintenance Operations, 09 January 2024, appendix C

8 Army Regulation 25-30, Army Publishing Program, 14 June 2021, paragraph 1-28

9 Army Regulation 750-1, Army Materiel Maintenance Policy, 02 February 2023