Editor’s Note: This article was originally published by the Infantry Working Group. You can create an account and access their articles and products, which focus on techniques, procedures, and tactics - to include captured best practices from the operating forces.
Developing your character and competence—and the character and competence of your subordinates—is one of your most important duties. It is not a duty you can take up when you come in the hatch in the morning and drop when you go home at night. It must guide and be part of everything you do, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It must become a central part of what and who you are.
Scope
Company-level PME techniques—conducted in the field and in garrison. It applies to our ground combat element companies and subordinate units. If it develops technical skill and techniques, it is training—outside our scope. Education—how to learn how to teach how to think—is in scope.
Purpose
Build trust. Trust is the center of tactics. Trust is two-fold: trust in the superior by demonstrated competence. Trust in the subordinate through performance.
The company PME program builds trust in three ways:
By demonstrating. Leaders demonstrate tactical proficiency to subordinates. The demonstration of competence is crucial for subordinate trust in the leader. Subordinates demonstrate understanding of a commander’s intent. Everyone shares experiences and lessons.
By acknowledging. No one knows everything and when you pretend to, it is quickly unmasked—degrading trust. When leaders admit to not knowing something, they don’t fake it—they learn it. Acknowledging teaches self-reliance and professional growth positively. Asking a subject matter expert elevates them. It gives their knowledge and experience prestige.
By making mistakes. All Marines make mistakes. All Marines learn from mistakes. We learn the most from mistakes. To genuinely learn, leaders foster a command where creativity, decisiveness, and a willingness to learn is prized over the perfect solution or ‘not looking dumb in front of the CO.’
Create a shared understanding. Learn implicit communication through PME.
PME introduces tactical concepts. Leaders analyze problems together. Leaders discuss responses together. Subordinates see how their superior analyzes the battlefield. and the expectations of subordinates in solving them. The lesson teaches tactics.
PME teaches the leader’s values—their intent. For example, a group frequently fights decision games together. Each time, the leader issues intent, priorities and information requirements before the game. Over time, the leader’s directives are internalized by subordinates. Familiarity limits the need for new guidance again and again. Familiarity allows anticipation, generating speed and tempo.
Practice decision-making.
PME tests judgment—good PME practices timed decision-making with limited information. With consistency, participants acclimatize to these battlefield conditions. Leaders train what they are expected to do well: estimate an enemy, make a decision, and issue orders. Challenge subordinates with problems with no clear solutions: tactical, technical, or moral.
PME examines military history. Past commanders—with their victories, defeats, opportunities, reversals—speak to leaders through their decisions.
PME reveals how Marines react with uncertainty—making the simple, difficult. Force subordinates to acknowledge the nature of war. Expose friction, chaos, virtue, and suffering within combat studies.
What PME is not
Financial Readiness
Career Progression
FITREP Classes
B-Billet Opportunities and Assignments
Master Brief Sheet Explanations
Legal
The above are informational briefs. They provide knowledge on military administration and career progression. They are not PME - they do not directly prepare individuals for combat.
Techniques for PME
Case Study. Biographies, books (battles, campaigns, different militaries), unit after-actions and histories, military journals, films, documentaries and veteran interviews. Train leaders in estimates, decision making, the nature of war, and character development.
Tactical Exercise without Troops (TEWT). Train leaders in teamwork, SOPs, command and signal standards. TEWTs focus on demonstrating tactical or technical techniques.
Wargaming. Board games, computer games, double-blind TDGs. Train leaders in estimates, decisions, and issuing orders.
Terrain Walks and Staff Rides. Train leaders in estimates, decisions, and issuing orders. Terrain walks focus on employment, decision-making and judgment against a notional enemy.
Decision Games. Sand table exercise (STEX), tactical decision game (TDG), decision forcing case (DFC), map exercise. Train leaders on weapons and unit employment. A STEX, a TDG, DFC and a map exercise are equivalent. Participants fight against a notional enemy. The leader provides enemy dispositions, actions, and updates.
The difference is the medium. Conduct a STEX over an unscaled sand-table with terrain depicted by sand. Conduct a TDG/DFC over an unscaled map with highlighted terrain features on paper or a whiteboard. Conduct a map exercise over a scaled, topographical map.
Progress through decision games from STEX, TDG/DFC and then map exercises. Decision game progression addresses problems of terrain and weapon employment from the most visual medium (STEX) to the most conceptual (map exercise).
TDGs and DFCs differ in their solutions. TDGs have no set solution—no school solution. Linked to specific historical events, DFCs have an outcome. The outcome—the solution of the person or unit studied—provides comparison for participants’ decisions.
Note: during decision games, the commander gives their solution too! Their decisions deserve the most scrutiny. They don't simply poke holes or ask questions. In the end, all subordinates need to understand how they see the situation!
“Learn in peace as you prepare your map problems, field exercises, and war games, to give false or exaggerated reports; otherwise, your subordinates will become accustomed to accepting all information they receive at its face value.”
-Captain Adolf von Schell, Battlefield Leadership
Plan PME
When
During company-level field exercises, the company commander leads PME at least once. Plan PME in the field or garrison but NOT during continuous or service-level exercises.
Weekly in garrison, the company commander leads PME. Each week, schedule three hours for PME in garrison. Schedule one session a month to walk terrain.
Planning Techniques
Schedule PME concurrent with field events to allow small-unit leaders to train independently.
Readings from military history are assigned for performance or decision outcomes. A wide scope of military leaders and references are introduced; book reports and long projects for battle studies are avoided.
All preparatory work and knowledge of military history are the responsibility of the company commander. All research is conducted prior to commencement of a PME session.
Include the machine gun and mortar section leaders within company-level PME—tasked by company commander, educated by company commander.
Example Field PME
Scenario: The company is on a live-fire range conducting day and night squad attacks.
1200: Break in training. Commander reconnoiters local terrain for ridgelines perpendicular to a road.
1600: Day live-fire training complete. Company commander assembles officers and SNCOs to inform them of an expected mechanized attack along the road. The company commander intends to defend the reverse-slope. Assigns platoons sectors and one hour to develop engagement areas.
1700: Company commander and gunnery sergeant walk sectors with subordinates, review positions and offer critiques.
1800: Critiques complete. Company commander assigns readings on reverse-slope defense from Stormtroop Tactics. Leaders return to units.
During PME, rifle squads and weapons sections prepare for night training, rehearse and rest.
Example Garrison PME
Situation: The company returned from squad attacks; it is Friday morning.
0630-0800: Company commander and officers conduct pool PT.
1300: Battalion formations and meetings complete. Company commander, gunnery sergeant and officers assemble in CP. SNCOs meet with the commander next week—they ran platoon-level PME last Monday in garrison.
1300-1315: Review readings from Stormtroop Tactics. Discuss differences between German elastic defense and British blob defense.
1315-1400: Review Warfighting Skills Program MCI 8401: Tactical Fundamentals, Chapter 3.
1400-1530: Conduct double-blind TDG from Mastering Tactics, Lieutenants play against each other with commander and gunnery sergeant umpiring.
1530-1600: After-action conducted. Company commander assigns readings based on field performance. Two lieutenants ignored commander’s intent assigned readings from Killer Angels on Jeb Stuart. One indecisive lieutenant assigned readings about Richard Ewell from the same book. The final two lieutenants assigned readings about Governor Warren’s use of terrain at Little Round Top.
Sample Quarterly PME Plan
Capt Boyce can be reached at Garrett.boyce09@gmail.com. He would like to thank David Kerby, Zach Schwartz, and Chad Skaggs for their assistance in producing this article. Please visit https://www.infantryworkinggroup.org/ to review more of their work.
Great article, Garrett Boyce! "over time, a leader's guidance is internalized..."