Figure 1. A 5th Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, "Long Knife" Trooper qualifying on their M240 at Fort Riley, Kansas (Photo by author)

A wise mentor told me that command­ers are responsible for building and maintaining as much readiness as they can with the resources available to them at that time. Similarly, the 1st In­fantry Division and 2nd Armor Brigade Combat Team (ABCT) “Dagger Brigade” commanders charge their leaders to train and prepare their organizations to execute within a band of excel­lence.1 Some leaders might reference the fact that the Army no longer uses the Sustainable Readiness Model (SRM), but this change did not absolve commanders from having to maximize their unit’s readiness at any given time.2 There are certainly challenges to sustaining readiness – the first and foremost being the Army’s manning cy­cles – but leaders must achieve their readiness objectives regardless. This paper presents some common obser­vations, challenges, and training man­agement systems that the 5th Squad­ron, 4th Cavalry Regiment and Dagger Brigade leaders are employing to sus­tain unit readiness within a band of ex­cellence.

Observations and Challenges to Sustaining Readiness

When it comes to sustaining readiness over time, leaders face numerous chal­lenges, some of which are inadvertent­ly self-imposed. A non-exhaustive list of challenges includes the Army’s man­ning systems; the need to balance per­sonnel, supply, maintenance, and training readiness requirements; mis­understanding or misapplying priori­ties; and maintaining systems that sur­vive changes in leadership. Some of these challenges are universal and some are unique to specific circum­stances, but Army leaders will likely face all of them at some point in time.

The Army’s current manning systems cause most Soldiers to move every three years, which means that roughly a third of a unit’s Soldiers turn-over ev­ery year.3 Without stabilization levers, personnel turn-over causes a natural degradation of unit readiness over time (Figure 1, Red Arrow). For a com­pany/battery/troop (C/B/T)-sized unit, this means that every month two to four Soldiers arrive and depart. When viewed through the lens of qualifica­tions, this means that a C/B/T may lose between 5-10% of its qualifications readiness in a quarter, and sometimes more for low density qualifications. If the goal is sustaining readiness, this means that leaders must seek consis­tent ways to build unit readiness.

Figure 1. Unit Readiness Over Time and Bands of Excellence. Personnel turn over and other factors lead to a natural degradation of unit readiness over time (red arrow). A unit that conducts qualifying training events more frequently (light green arrows) will be more successful maintaining readiness within a “band of excellence” (green line), whereas those who conduct larger, less frequent training events (grey arrows) will see larger peaks and troughs in their readiness (black line). (U.S. Army Graphic)

A second challenge is that leaders have a natural tendency to focus on training first – indicative by the fact that most units call their calendars training cal­endars. However, leaders and Soldiers must spend a significant amount of time on personnel, supply, equipment readiness, and training (PSRT) activi­ties. Some C/B/T commanders fall into the trap of failing to account for all PSRT activities in their training calen­dars, which causes them to react to supply and maintenance activities and adjust their plans on short notice. To avoid this, commanders must antici­pate and add as many PSRT activities as possible (e.g. personnel on-board­ing, counselling, property inventories, lateral transfers, scheduled mainte­nance, and other activities) to their training calendars.4 It is nearly impos­sible to avoid all short notice changes, but leaders should seek to minimize the frequency of short notice changes and the associated lost time and effort, which hurt overall readiness.

A third challenge arises from the unin­tended second order effects of priori­ties. Leaders are wise to issue priorities to provide guidance and enable their subordinates’ time management deci­sions. Unfortunately, some leaders or Soldiers take these priorities a little too far, unnecessarily halting other routine activities that should be completed by trained and proficient junior leaders. At the C/B/T-level and above, com­manders usually have three or more subordinate elements and eighty or more Soldiers. Although it would be nice to have one priority for the entire­ty of a unit, commanders and leaders must train subordinate leaders so that the organization is capable and com­fortable achieving multiple priorities at once. An individual Soldier may have one priority at a given time, but as leaders account for all their Soldiers and hours throughout the day, leaders must be capable of providing guidance and direction to their units such that they can accomplish several priorities.

The final challenge for consideration here is the development and mainte­nance of organizational systems that survive leader turn-over and mission requirements over time. Leaders are aware of the benefits of standard op­erating procedures (SOP); they are a common check in staff assisted visits, organizational inspection program, combat training center (CTC) rotations, etc. However, leaders must take the time to read their SOPs, use and refer to them, update them as conditions change, and develop knowledge man­agement systems to ensure others can find them. One way to do this is to en­sure SOPs are linked to battle rhythm events so that they are constantly re­viewed and refined as conditions change. Additionally, tactical SOPs (TACSOPs) should be reviewed prior to and after training events in the form of leader professional development ses­sions and after-action reviews accord­ingly. A top-notch unit will know and use their SOPs to pass along knowl­edge, help them achieve routine things routinely, and perform within a band of excellence.

A Training Management System to Sustain Battalion Small-Arms Training Readiness

Building and sustaining readiness is not easy, so how can battalion-level lead­ers enable their C/B/Ts to accomplish this task? Using individual weapons qualifications as a specific example, how can battalions resource their com­panies to enable sustained readiness? If resources are abundant, it is easy to tell C/B/T commanders to reserve small arms ranges at least once a quarter for their Soldiers to qualify on their individual weapons. However, what happens when resources are scarce? How might leaders treat head­quarters and support C/B/Ts different­ly? How can leaders maximize efficien­cy with small-arms qualifications across a battalion?

One successful model is for battalions to plan and execute “company-run, battalion small-arms ranges.” This model is planned by having battalion-level land and ammunition managers reserve M4, M17, and machine gun ranges in the range facilities manage­ment support system (RFMSS) and an appropriate amount of ammunition in the total ammunition management in­formation system (TAMIS) monthly. This achieves three things. By making it a battalion priority, the battalion can synchronize small arms ranges with the other training events they are planning at their level. Secondly, by making it a battalion-level battle rhythm, battalion commanders can exert their influence to receive those resources. Finally, by freeing up C/B/T-level leaders from longer-range resource planning, C/B/T-level leaders can focus more on con­ducting the 8-step training model to standard. Collectively, these benefits enable leaders at echelon to achieve routine things routinely.5

Within the 5th Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment (5-4 CAV), the land and am­munition team request the resources to qualify 100 M4 firers, 50 M17 firers, and 35 machine gun crews every month.6 This requires one or two range days every month. Understandably, the training calendar fills up some months, especially around activities like crew gunnery and collective situational or live-fire training exercises, so the squadron does not request squadron small-arms ranges every month. How­ever, by making it a battle rhythm re­quest, the squadron creates a predict­able system that enables it to smooth over the readiness dips and spikes that would occur otherwise.

Reserving the ammunition is relatively easy. The squadron requests ammuni­tion in TAMIS 90 days out and then schedules to pick it up from the ammu­nition supply point (ASP), or roll the ammunition back into its account, de­pending on the time and range avail­ability at land resource conferences.7 Once the squadron reserves and syn­chronizes both the land and ammuni­tion, it brings those two resources into the squadron training resource meet­ing to identify a troop responsible for running the range. Generally speaking, the line troop that needs to qualify the most firers volunteers to run the range, and then the assistant S3 and troop ex­ecutive officers determine how many firers the other troops send to that range. The key is that all troops can qualify some firers every month.8

Figure 2: Example Crew Roster. To maximize the longevity of crew qualifications, commanders and first sergeants must maintain crew rosters that align TC and gunner PCS / ETS dates (white circles) and assign Soldiers with shorter times remaining on station to dismounted duty positions (blue circles). This maximizes crew readiness qualifications over time and minimizes the likelihood of having to re-qualify crews before required annual qualifications. (U.S. Army Graphic)

Within the “company-run, battalion small-arms range model,” headquar­ters and headquarters companies (HHC) and forward support companies (FSC) rarely have to run small-arms ranges, but they generally send firers to the range every month. This enables those companies to send small por­tions of their Soldiers over time so that most of their Soldiers can focus on their routine activities in support of the line companies. This system de­creases the number of HHC and FSC leaders required to run a range – they do not usually provide range officers-in-charge (OIC) , non-commissioned officers-in-charge (NCOIC), lane safe­ties, ammunition point details, etc. – but first line non-commissioned offi­cers (NCO) must still accompany their Soldiers in sufficient quantity to lead and coach their Soldiers towards suc­cessful qualifications.

The “company-run, battalion small-arms range model” works well when seeking to sustain baseline small-arms qualification readiness, but what other training readiness requirements might leaders achieve through routine ac­tions? The 2022 ARMOR article “Oper­ationalizing Command Maintenance to Train Organizational Systems and Build a Culture of Maintenance Readiness” describes how units can train basic ra­dio and command post proficiency dur­ing weekly command maintenance.9 Additionally, the Dagger Brigade is de­veloping a system to run monthly com­pany-sized tank and Bradley crew gun­neries.

A Proposed Training Model to Sustain Brigade Crew Gunnery Readiness

Training management at the brigade-level often focuses on large training events, but there are opportunities for brigades to contribute to routine training systems such as “battalion-run, company-sized, brigade-wide crew gunnery ranges.” Gunnery ranges are usually managed at the brigade and higher-level because those resources are often scarce, requiring prioritiza­tion based on brigade-sized unit de­ployment schedules, etc. Accordingly, the Dagger Brigade is developing a sys­tem to run monthly crew gunnery ranges akin to the model 5-4 CAV and other battalions use to enable routine small-arms qualifications.

Building and maintaining vehicle crew qualifications is a top priority in any ABCT, but many units struggle to main­tain crew qualifications over extended periods of time. Crews become unqual­ified when a vehicle commander (VC) or gunner executes orders for perma­nent changes of station (PCS) or expi­ration terms of service (ETS). Leaders do their best to mitigate this by build­ing crew rosters that align anticipated VC and gunner PCS or ETS dates. For Soldiers with shorter times remaining on station, leaders often assign them to dismounted duty positions (Figure 2). Additionally, leaders can create tur­bulent crews by pairing VCs and gun­ners together who qualified in differ­ent crews within the last 12 months.10 These activities mitigate against un­qualified crews and the requirement to start new crew qualifications from scratch. Unfortunately, leaders are not able to anticipate all orders and other emergent issues.

Figure 3: Training Resource Allocation Models. Range training days available after baseline allocations are allocated using the traditional “priorities first model.” (U.S. Army Graphic)

Running a monthly crew gunnery range should be of particular interest for any brigade interested in maintaining col­lective readiness, including brigades on a prepare to deploy order (PTDO) mis­sion. The PTDO mission necessitates maximizing and maintaining vehicle crew qualifications, but units on this mission do not have the ability to use crew stabilization levers like you would leading up to a National Training Cen­ter rotation or for some operational deployments.11 As such, leaders in the Dagger Brigade are implementing a system whereby each month a battal­ion – one of the three combined arms battalions or the cavalry squadron – runs a crew gunnery for all four of the battalions, the engineer companies, and the fire support teams to quality crews monthly. This system may not be feasible at all times, depending on the totality of the training and range requirements at an installation at the time, but the Dagger Brigade will be­gin employing this system in the spring and summer of 2025.

A Training Resource Allocation System to Enable Sustainable Battalion Small-Arms Training Readiness

Another area where brigade, higher, or installation resource managers can contribute to training readiness is their systems for allocating small-arms ranges. At the installation-level, lead­ers often allocate ranges using a strict prioritization model. However, a rec­ommended model is to allocate a baseline minimum number of ranges to all battalion-sized units and then al­locate the remaining resources to pri­ority units. Higher-level leaders must develop a system that accounts for all available resources and then deter­mine the best system to allocate those resources, balancing short-term prior­ities and the desire to maximize readi­ness for all units. Unfortunately, some resource managers may weigh priori­ties so heavily that their allocation sys­tems provide excess resources to some units, while unnecessarily withholding resources from others.

A common observation is that leaders allocate range resources to priority bri­gades or battalions first – a “priority first model” – and then offer the re­maining resources to units further down the list of priorities. A potential side effect of a “priorities first model” is that some battalions receive a lot while others might not receive any ranges some months, which can lead to larger fluctuations in readiness lev­els over time (Figure 1, Black Line). An alternative model would be to allocate a baseline minimum number of ranges to each battalion-sized element first, and then allocate the remaining rang­es to priority units – a “baseline then priorities model.” There are likely times when installations must employ a “priorities first model,” but a “base­line then priorities model” should be appealing to leaders seeking to sustain readiness and bands of excellence across a greater number of units.

The “baseline then priorities model” would look different at each installa­tion, but Figure 3 explains the concept using an installation with four M4 rang­es as an example. After accounting for training holidays and weekends, there are usually at least 17 training days on any given month. Therefore, an instal­lation with four M4 ranges has at least 68 range training days available each month. If this installation has 23 bat­talions, and leaders establish a base­line allocation of one M4 qualification range per battalion per month, that means installation leaders have 45 ad­ditional range training days available for distribution after meeting baseline requirements.

Figure 4: Comparing the Outcomes of Resource Allocation Models. (U.S. Army Graphic)

If installation resource managers apply the “baseline then priorities model” to allocate resources it will help their units sustain readiness, but it still re­quires the artful application of alloca­tion rules to account for range avail­ability, subordinate unit requirements, and other variables. For instance, in some months, the number of ranges may be less, because of maintenance or conflicting range surface danger zones. In other months, some units will elect not to reserve any small-arms ranges because they are busy with oth­er PSRT or deployment activities. How­ever, by starting with a “baseline then priorities model,” leaders can allocate resources in a manner that enables more units to sustain their readiness within a band of excellence with mini­mal cost to priority units (Figure 4). Like most activities, synchronization requires the skilled mixing of science and art, but brigade, division, and in­stallation resource managers should use the “baseline then priorities mod­el” as a starting point to allocate re­sources to sustain readiness better than the “priorities first model.”

Conclusion

There is nothing revolutionary about “company-run, battalion small-arms ranges” or “baseline then priorities” training management systems, but they both represent ways in which higher headquarters can enable units to sustain readiness within bands of excellence. There are natural tenden­cies for higher-level headquarters to focus on larger and higher-echelon training events, but staffs have a criti­cal role in routine resource allocation all the way down to small-arms weap­ons qualifications. Some training man­agement systems default to priorities or “first come, first serve” allocation rules, but if sustaining readiness is the goal, those methods may hinder that goal by creating more significant ebbs and flows in readiness. Ultimately, the first principle to maintain readiness within bands of excellence is to com­mit to doing routine things routinely, which requires systems and processes that empower all leaders and allocate and synchronize resources – including time – across personnel, supply, main­tenance, and training activities.

LTC Gary Klein is currently serving as the Commander, 5th Squadron, 4th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Armor Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division. His previous assignments include Assis­tant Executive Officer (XO), Deputy Chief of Staff G-3/5/7, HQDA, Brigade XO, 2nd ABCT, 1AD, Fort Bliss, TX, Squadron XO and Operations Officer, 1st Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, Com­mander, B Troop and Headquarters, Headquarters Troop, 1st Squadron, 33rd Cavalry Regiment, and Tank Pla­toon Leader and Tank Company XO, D company, 1st Squadron, 5th Cavalry Squadron. LTC Klein’s military school­ing includes the Advanced Military Studies Program and Command and General Staff Officer Course, the Ma­neuver Captains Career Course, the Ar­mor Officer Leadership Course, the Ranger Course, Airborne, and Air As­sault. He has a master’s of art in mili­tary operations from the School of Ad­vanced Military Studies, a master’s of science in medicinal chemistry from the University of Illinois-Chicago, and a bachelor’s of science in biochemistry from the University of Michigan.

Notes

1 Sustaining unit proficiency within a band of excellence is described in Headquarters Department of the Army, Army Doctrine Publication (ADP) 7-0, Training (April 2024), pg.10-11 and Headquarters De­partment of the Army, Field Manual (FM) 7-0, Training (June 2021), pg.1-3.

2 The Army likely changed its unit life-cy­cle management model from Sustainable Readiness to the Regionally Aligned Read­iness and Modernization Model (ReARM) in 2020 to increase emphasis on modern­ization and regional alignment. This change appears to have been at least par­tially in response to the 2018 National Defense Strategy. See Government Ac­countability Office, “Army Modernization: Actions Needed to Support Fielding New Equipment,” (July 2024): pg.1 and Devon Suits, “ReARMM to help stabilize training, modernization, mission requirements,” Army Times, (October 20, 2020): accessed November 8, 2024, https://www.army.mil/article/240100/rearmm_to_help_sta­bilize_training_modernization_mission_requirements

3 Karen Jowers, “Army secretary: Is it time to cut back on military moves?” Defense News (October 17, 2024): accessed No­vember 10, 2024, https://www.defensenews.com/land/2024/10/17/ar­my-secretary-is-it-time-to-cut-back-on-military-moves/.

4 See Headquarters Department of the Army, FM 7-0, Training (June 2021), Figure 3-2 for an example training schedule.

5 Some might argue that centralizing the planning of small-arms ranges removes an opportunity for C/B/T-level leaders to learn training management, but there are other opportunities to learn training man­agement and the trade-off may be worth it depending on the supply and demand for small-arms ranges.

6 The author has first-hand knowledge that the 1st Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regi­ment successfully executing “company-run, battalion small-arms ranges” from 2019-2021 and knows other battalions doing the same thing.

7 TAMIS standardizes ammunition re­quests across the Army, but installations lock unit land reservations into RFMSS us­ing different time horizons. At Fort Riley, land is penciled into a draft reservation schedule approximately 75 days out and it is locked into RFMSS approximately 45 days out, which means units must reserve ammunition prior to knowing what land and ranges they will receive.

8 Installations can enable small-arms train­ing readiness by running installation-level open small-arms ranges with civilian em­ployees or borrowed military manpower as well. The author used such a range at Fort Cavazos back in 2008-2011 and other installations do this too.

9 Gary M. Klein, “Operationalizing Com­mand Maintenance to Train Organization­al Systems and Build a Culture of Mainte­nance Readiness,” ARMOR (Summer 2022): pg.19-24.

10 Headquarters Department of the Army, Army Techniques Publication (ATP) 3-20.0 Integrated Weapons Training Strategy (IWTS) (June 2019): pg.7-13.

11 The most common stabilization levers that commanders can request to use through the Human Resources Command are crew stabilization, career develop­mental, master gunner, and ranger gradu­ate.