Posted on Jan 20, 2016
How Classroom Training Is Hindering Army Mission Readiness
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Does the value we gain from these classes outweigh the opportunities lost by sticking every soldier in a seat for two weeks?
RP Members in the Reserves and Natioinal Guard you can relate to this - What's your opinion?
For the Reserve component, all of the “mandatory training” equates to at least 25% of the total annual training time allocation (based on the standard 39-day annual calendar, which the commanding general of First Army deemed inadequate). After allocating time for 39 “Warrior Tasks” (individual combat skills that soldiers train on annually) and 12 “Battle Drills” (Warrior Tasks for units), that leaves only about 160 hours for training each year — less than half of the training calendar — to actually train on individual jobs and the unit’s mission.
RP Members in the Reserves and Natioinal Guard you can relate to this - What's your opinion?
For the Reserve component, all of the “mandatory training” equates to at least 25% of the total annual training time allocation (based on the standard 39-day annual calendar, which the commanding general of First Army deemed inadequate). After allocating time for 39 “Warrior Tasks” (individual combat skills that soldiers train on annually) and 12 “Battle Drills” (Warrior Tasks for units), that leaves only about 160 hours for training each year — less than half of the training calendar — to actually train on individual jobs and the unit’s mission.
How Classroom Training Is Hindering Army Mission Readiness
Posted from taskandpurpose.com
Training
Army National Guard
Air National Guard
Reserves
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 6
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This is always going to be a thorn in the side of a commander. With all the online stuff, internet access and such, I don't see why much of this stuff can't be view online. For Reserve forces, these can be treated just like coorespondence courses - give soldiers retirement points for completing them online. The unit Tng NCO should be able to through the system track this and know how in the unit has completed the actions. This way the time is freed up for real training.
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MAJ (Join to see)
Realistic training requires money (fuel, meals, ammo) a .ppt is a cheap way to hollow out the force. Sequestration has done a number on the Reserves.
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SSG Audwin Scott
MAJ (Join to see) - I certainly understand, but can soldiers be truly combat ready without realistic training?
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MAJ (Join to see)
SSG Audwin Scott They can be hollow Soldiers, look good on paper and in the reports, which is all that "command" really cares about right now. Since there isn't any money to actually do any training I can't blame anyone in Uniform. The real problem is retention, good Soldiers don't stay in the reserves for the money they do it for the training and experience, which is focused around realistic training, a hollow force seems to attract paperpushers and non-initiative personnel. The good Soldiers leave.
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While there is some good information in some of the briefs it is usually lost when you put a 150 Soldiers in a gym and run a powerpoint over laptop speakers. The worst one I ever had to sit through was a video teleconference legal brief where the instructor was off-site and sounded like the teacher from Charlie Brown for an hour. No one understood a single word.
Every unit I have been with saves mandatory briefs for December and January drills and pounds through all of them back to back. It is incredibly mind numbing but the idea is that it frees up the warmer months for METL based training. On the flip side there is probably very little retention of any of the content from the briefs. The other problem with most of the classes is that they are just read by a random person and there is no subject matter expert to start a conversation or keep Soldiers' interest. MRT is the one exception because it is conducted by a schoolhouse trained instructor and assistants.
My biggest mandatory training annoyance is all of the online based courses. Almost every drill we get asked to do online work at home: SSD, accident avoidance, isoprep, security awareness, IPERMS reviews, online PHA, surveys, etc. A couple of Soldier will get them done and the rest drag through it on the dial up speed internet at the armory. The Soldiers who can't get it done then miss out on training with their element and have to be caught up on whatever they missed. Some units I've been at have a computer lab and fast internet which allows platoons to rotate through fairly easily. Other units, like the one I'm in now, have to try to book a computer lab and provide transportation for everyone to get there. The process is very time consuming for the little bits of good information provided.
Every unit I have been with saves mandatory briefs for December and January drills and pounds through all of them back to back. It is incredibly mind numbing but the idea is that it frees up the warmer months for METL based training. On the flip side there is probably very little retention of any of the content from the briefs. The other problem with most of the classes is that they are just read by a random person and there is no subject matter expert to start a conversation or keep Soldiers' interest. MRT is the one exception because it is conducted by a schoolhouse trained instructor and assistants.
My biggest mandatory training annoyance is all of the online based courses. Almost every drill we get asked to do online work at home: SSD, accident avoidance, isoprep, security awareness, IPERMS reviews, online PHA, surveys, etc. A couple of Soldier will get them done and the rest drag through it on the dial up speed internet at the armory. The Soldiers who can't get it done then miss out on training with their element and have to be caught up on whatever they missed. Some units I've been at have a computer lab and fast internet which allows platoons to rotate through fairly easily. Other units, like the one I'm in now, have to try to book a computer lab and provide transportation for everyone to get there. The process is very time consuming for the little bits of good information provided.
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