FORT BENNING, Ga., (June 17, 2015) -- 1st Battalion, 29th Infantry Regiment, the Lethality Battalion, is set up to provide Soldiers with a broader spectrum of knowledge to create masters of combined arms throughout their Army career under one battalion.
This is in keeping with the mission and priorities of the Maneuver Center of Excellence to include understanding and describing future maneuver to identifying and mastering the fundamentals.
"Lethality has got to be flexible, it has got to be innovative and it has got to be fast," said D Co., 1st Bn., 29th Inf. Regt. 1st Sgt. Nathan Stone. "By simplifying the organizational structure of all the different (points of instruction) under one battalion, you've created an organization that supports that."
As a result of this reorganization, the Stryker Crewmen Course and the Stryker Leader Course now fall within the Lethality Battalion infrastructure.
The Stryker's performance has proven it to be a legacy vehicle, Stone said, but the platform lacks a culture and a network because, unlike the Abrams tank and the Bradleys, the Stryker is a new concept.
"One of the mission statements as a company was to design functional courses based on that idea - to create one place that all nine Stryker Brigade Combat Team units can integrate with and pass information back and forth," Stone said.
For the 2025 Army concept, the Stryker vehicle is becoming key, Stone said. And, under the Lethality Battalion, Soldiers will understand the Stryker and become more capable to use the vehicle to their advantage.
STRYKER CREWMEN COURSE
The Mobile Gun System and Stryker Reconnaissance Crewman courses have been aligned to make the Stryker Crewman Course.
The course caters to Infantrymen, Cavalry Scouts and Armor Crewmen who are either right out of Basic Training or going to a Stryker Brigade Combat Team, said Sgt. 1st Class Brandon Roberts, D Co., 1st Bn., 29th Inf. Regt.
The crewman course was designed to provide a level of skill to anyone going to an SBCT unit, not just one station unit training students.
Students who complete the crewman course will come out with a general knowledge and understanding of the Stryker vehicle for when they get boots on the ground at their duty station, Roberts said.
The course is broken down into three sections: maintenance, weapons and turret - the understanding of gunnery.
There are 10 variants of the Stryker platform, Stone said, and the Crewmen Course trains on five of them - Stryker Mobile Gun System, Reconnaissance Vehicle, Infantry Carrier Vehicle, Mortar Carrier Vehicle and the Anti-Tank Guided Missile Vehicle.
"When (Soldiers) are learning the Stryker, they're going to be on Strykers, they're not going to be on tanks," Roberts said.
Rather than creating one culture, - Infantry culture, Cavalry culture or Armor culture - it's an SBCT culture, said Sgt. 1st Class Mohammed Kahn, Stryker Leader Course team chief, D Co., 1st Bn., 29th Inf. Regt.
"It is designed to fill the gaps in functional training in the Stryker community," Stone said. "There are a lot of bad misconceptions about the vehicle platform out there in the Armor right now from past experiences, we're trying to clarify and clean that up."
The programs of instruction change rapidly, depending on the needs of Army Forces Command and to adjust for updated doctrine, said Stone.
STRYKER LEADER COURSE
The Stryker Leader Course molds the future SBCT leaders.
The course covers maintenance, sustainment and tactics for Infantry and Armor officers.
"When they combine together, the Armor guys are very strong at maneuvering a vehicle, whereas the Infantry guys are very good at the dismounted operation portion, so when they merge together, it is something pretty impressive - they learn from each other," Kahn said.
By the time Soldiers leave the Stryker Leader Course, they have a basic foundation of how to be an SBCT leader when they go to their units, Kahn said.
The course has integrated media into the learning process, which can follow them after they have graduated. Through a milSuite site, students join an online Stryker community where they can hold discussions or see past forums on different topics related to Strykers.
The course integrates discussion, participation, professionalism, tactical leadership, and the technical knowledge that comes with being a Stryker leader.
"Here at the Lethality Battalion, we're trying to create our own culture and own network," Kahn said.
Within the Leader Course, students perform remote weapons station, weapons disassembly and assembly, weapons dismounting and mounting, change a tire, secure the hub on a Stryker, put rucks on the Stryker and put basic issue items on the Stryker.
The main two things they learn about are decisive operations and shaping operations, Kahn said.
"Even though we get experienced SBCT leaders, they don't know the doctrinal knowledge that backs it," Kahn said.
Through the course, a student learns how long it takes to change a tire, how many people it takes and determining if they have the proper equipment.
"We teach them the right way, so by the time they get here and go back, they can say 'hey, this is the right way to do it,'" Kahn said.
Graduates of the leader course could become section leaders, squad leaders, platoon leaders, platoon sergeants, company commanders, or battalion S3s or executive officers, Kahn said.
Kahn said he has seen sergeants major come through the course just to get a basic understanding of how to properly employ the Stryker.
As a platoon leader with one day left before graduation from the Stryker Leader Course, Capt. J.D. Moore said he was signing for a lot of property he wasn't really familiar with, but the course gave him a baseline of understanding about the Stryker.
"I feel a lot more prepared going into a Stryker unit, understanding what equipment, what capabilities I have within that unit versus what I did going into my other unit," Moore said. "I think now that I have had this course and I understand the different variants of the Stryker and they've taken the time to get us exposure to each of the variants as much as they can, I feel a lot more comfortable with what those vehicles are and what I can expect from them."
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