FORT BENNING, Ga., (June 1, 2016) -- Armor and Infantry lieutenants trained for their future careers and developed realistic tactical skills during a combined competitive maneuver exercise at Fort Benning's Good Hope Training Area May 23-26.
The combined competitive maneuver exercise brings together Infantry and Armor Basic Officer Leaders course, Maneuver Captains Career Course and NCO Academy students to provide future Army leaders with a force-on-force exercise similar to a combat training center over the course of three days.
The CCME provides students with the chance to receive a mission, conduct troop leading procedures for both offense and defense, and then integrate all of their different combat multipliers and combined arms units into their plans, said Capt. Steven Klecha, operations officer for 2nd Squadron, 16th Cavalry Regiment.
"It's forcing the lieutenants to realistically execute a field problem that they might expect to see in a realistic environment. Instead of planning in a vacuum, it's planning in more of the complex world," Klecha said.
"This training is definitely creating more lethal and adaptive leaders," Klecha added.
"When you have to make plans and coordinate with a sister unit that has different limitations and capabilities, your backward planning then impacts how you're thinking about the mission differently," Klecha said. "So you have to take into consideration 'how does my plan then impact the Infantry, and what is it that they have to do or ... how is their plan impacting me and what considerations do I have to take into account in order to achieve the mission end state?'"
"I definitely have more respect for the process and how difficult it is to coordinate between the different units, how everyone has to come together to focus on one objective," said 2nd Lt. Howard Bantle, an Armor Basic Officer Leader Course student.
The CCME supports the multi-echelon leader development program by placing students in leadership roles where they can gain experience for the roles they will assume upon graduating a course, according to the 2015 Maneuver Leader Development Strategy.
"The way we (ABOLC) conduct multi-echelon leader development is through five combined arms touch points with IBOLC," Klecha said. "CCME is the culminating exercise, so combined arms touch point five, where they're bringing everything that they've been working on throughout the course together, and working in a live environment for executing their missions."
"This is definitely the culminating event," said Bantle. "I think it's very interesting how we can play our strengths into the strengths of the Infantry, and also them utilizing Bradleys, as well as our aerial assets. It definitely brings a realism to this that we hadn't seen before."
Social Sharing