Army Maj. Gen. Stephen Layfield, USJFCOM’s director of joint training and the Joint Warfighting Center, just participated in a panel focusing on small units titled “Small Unit Excellence: What Will it Take?” moderated by retired Army Brig. Gen. David L. Grange.  They were joined by Navy Special Operations Master Chief Petty Officer Dan Marshall and retired Marine Corps Col. Thomas X. Hammes, writer of “The Sling and the Stone: On War in the 21^st Century.”

The panel focused largely on units at the company level and below, and each of the panel members emphasized the importance of junior officers and NCOs in small unit excellence.  Hammes pointed out that as we move toward a peacetime footing, training dollars will be pinched and that challenge would pose a problem for small units trying to get the same training they get today.  Layfield emphasized that challenge, pointing out that tasks that were once the domain of larger elements, such as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance – have been pushed to the battalion, company and platoon levels.

These operations that are complex and that we are trying to do with shrinking dollars are happening at smaller and smaller units every day.  The capability that our country is bringing to bear is being driven lower and lower every single day and is being placed into the hands of smaller and smaller units.

One audience member asked each of the panels what the best and worst actions each had taken early in their times leading small units.  Each tied their best and worst together, Marshall said to focus on the basic tasks as complexity in training made it more difficult to stay proficient in the basics.  Hammes spoke to the difference between listening and learning as a young platoon leader as opposed to simply transmitting things the way a leader wants them.  Layfield credited his NCOs.

The worst thing I did as a small unit leader early on was not listen to my NCOs. The best thing I ever did was listen to my NCOs.

Layfield said a crucial component of training small units to handle the tasks they need to on the ground was getting them and their leaders access to the same types of simulators available to pilots, among others.  He pointed out that an escalation force that leads to increased civilian casualties – in his example caused by an IED detonation – can have just a big a strategic impact as a bomb dropped on the wrong target with similar results.

We don’t have civilian casualties very often from a bomb that’s dropped poorly or in the wrong spot.  One of the reasons for that is we have a lot of trainers for that. We have lots of immersive trainers for cockpits and ships, and [few] for ground ops, for the squad.  With reduced dollars, we’d get more bang for the buck to go over and over, through iteration after iteration, at the squad level so [squad leaders aren't] doing it the first time under fire.