FORT CAVAZOS, Texas - The 1st Cavalry Division command team held a Standard Armor Base of Training (SABOT) Forum with the First Team’s armor leaders at Palmer Theatre, Fort Cavazos, Texas, June 4, 2025.
Under the Army’s Transforming-in-Contact initiative, the division is implementing an armor training standardization concept to revolutionize how the Army trains armored Troopers and leaders. Maj. Gen. Thomas Feltey, the commanding general of the 1st Cavalry Division, and Command Sgt. Maj. LeVares J. Jackson, command sergeant major of the 1st Cavalry Division, provided a leader discussion forum Wednesday for future armor training procedures and execution.
SABOT aims to deliver the Army with armored brigade combat teams a program that makes gunnery training an everyday event rather than a 6-week sprint.
“How do you think you’ll perform on the ACFT if you don’t train for it until 6-weeks from the test?” Maj. Gen. Feltey asked the audience. “You’ll do poorly, and it’s the same with gunnery. We cannot excel at firing line if we do not train for it every single day.”
As a part of SABOT, the First Team will build, rigorous, standardized training methodology which includes oral exams, tests, and added evaluations. The structure is designed to encourage Soldiers to conduct self-study, on top of the training they execute, so vehicle commanders can become the masters of their platform, and free Master Gunners to run the commander’s gunnery program.
“If you train something to standard the first time you will never forget it, ” said Maj. Gen. Feltey. “If you are held to that standard, you will never forget and will be perpetuated into teaching other people.”
The standards-based approach is an effort to increase 19 series expertise across the armored combat teams through application of the Readiness Level (RL) Progression training method used by Combat Aviation Brigades. During the forum, the 1st Air Cavalry Brigade described how they can maintain pilot certification and interchange crews across the Army through RL Progression and provided a demonstration of how they think standardization would look and sound in the armored brigade combat teams. SABOT also aims to allow units to maintain readiness through transferable readiness, as crews are no longer tied together through a gunnery progression. Instead, crew members at the same level of qualification from anywhere in the Army, after a brief “check ride,” can join a crew at the same readiness level progression.
The division’s comprehensive Transforming in Contact initiative is called “Pegasus Charge”, built across organizing, equipping and training the division. This forum was the first step towards the beginning standardization concept and revolutionizing the armored brigade combat team training methodology with a new and in-depth training concept to better prepare for future gunnery operations.
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