The Fighting Company Beat-Up: Pre-Deployment Training with the Royal Marine Commandos
by Captain Orion Vedral
I am currently serving as the Company 2IC for Alpha Company, 40 Commando, United Kingdom Royal Marines. As part of the USMC’s military personnel exchange program there has been USMC exchanges serving in the UKRM as far back as the ‘60s; however, in my current role at 40 Commando there has been a USMC Captain serving as a Company 2IC since 2006. Over this period, USMC officers have deployed on Operation HERRICK (Afghanistan) and HADR missions as well as other international exercises as a member of a Royal Marine Company. Whether on deployment or in training, the Company 2IC directly parallels a Company XO in an infantry battalion responsible for maintaining the readiness of people and equipment as well as advising the Company Commander on how to employ the Commandos within their capabilities and limitations. If you’re interested in the Personnel Exchange Program the openings and applications are released in April every year via MARADMIN.
As part of our pre-deployment training (also referred to as a “beat up”), Alpha Company deployed to Oman in preparation for our inaugural rotation with Littoral Response Group - South1. We spent 31 days in the desert going from the individual to the company level while integrating a series of new equipment into our TTPs. Over this period, we force generated as a Commando Company with the end state to be capable to war fight and conduct crisis response. This article serves as an exercise AAR breaking down the training that occurred. It is organized around three major themes:
Brilliance in the basics reigns supreme. We tested and integrated a suite of new communications equipment, optics, and vehicles as a part of the Royal Marines version of USCM Force Design. None of it replaced solid individual skills and drills.
Mobility training is more than just getting Marines licensed; instead, it needs its own training progression and central ownership.
The UK's building block approach to live fire training takes the crawl, walk, run approach literally. It is extremely rigid and time consuming but creates unique opportunities.
Background
Prior to our deployment, Alpha Company was allotted two months to conduct force generation prior to Oman. This tight window proved to be difficult as the Marines spent the previous eight months participating in multi-week ceremonial duties in support of the King’s Coronation, military assistance to National Health Services during ambulance driver strikes, military assistance to police, evacuation of UK entitled persons from Sudan, and training of Ukrainian soldiers in the UK. In addition to these standing tasks, we also had the Marines attending career courses, specialist skills training, and vehicle licensing. As a result of these factors, Alpha Company stabilized as a unit only two months out from Oman. Consequently, we had to sprint through live fire, surveillance, and reconnaissance skills, as well as annual specialist qualifications (i.e. handling demolitions, heavy weapons shoots). This helped us set conditions to execute as robust a training package as possible in Oman.
Doing this exercise in Oman provided three perks: protection of Company manpower to prevent getting pulled into the list of tasks mentioned in the last paragraph, an opportunity for environmental training at the Company level, and greater real estate to test and refine. Because the entire UK can be compared to the size of Oregon, but has nearly 17 times the population, training estate is limited.
Our deployment was broken down into four phases, phase one was nine days of mandatory acclimatization and RSO&I, phase two was mobility training, phase three was live fire tactical training (LFTT), and phase four was a force-on-force exercise. Over this period Alpha Company was operating as a Commando Company Group of 170 Royal Marine, Navy, and Army Commandos2. To accomplish the phases above, integration training was paramount as we had only met the additional Commandos from the Fire Support Team, the 12-man Royal Engineer Team, the Combat Service Support (CSS) Troop, and the Armoured Support Group (with nine VIKING armoured vehicles) upon arriving in Oman. I would like to note this training was all internally planned and executed by the dedicated Training Wing of 40 Commando, as there were no external training agencies like TTECG, or RTAMs to support us.
Upon completion of the exercise, Alpha Company returned to the UK for six weeks completing pre-deployment admin in preparation for the LRG(S) deployment and ongoing crisis response.
Beginning with the End in Mind
Alpha Company deployed to Oman with the mission to generate an integrated Commando Company Group optimizing mobility options to enable disaggregation and the generation of tempo on open terrain. Understanding endurance and concealment from threats was the key to success while enhancing our warfighting edge and crisis response options.
With this mission, the Training Wing and Alpha Company planned our live fire and force on force training to achieve the following objectives:
Integrate all Strike Coy Group force element specialist skills as a collective unit.
Sustain and endure for extended periods, disaggregated, exploiting mobility capabilities.
Enhance communications capabilities to share data and enhance tempo.
Develop multi-domain concealment TTPs for vehicle operations, to ensure protection from contemporary threats.
Develop the marksmanship of all ranks, across direct fire weapon systems.
Develop sub-unit capability and knowledge to identify and exploit adversary critical vulnerabilities.
Oman was a blank canvas for the team; all our training was done in a barren desert which provided opportunity to execute mobility and live fire training by our own design. The TA was desolate with no civilian infrastructure (a small CONNEX MOUT town was available), massive wadi systems, and undulating dunes. The only hindrance to training was a caravan of desert nomads and their camels passing on the outskirts of our CALFEX SDZs.
In line with the training objectives our Royal Engineer team spent the first 10 days in country constructing our live fire ranges. They built two main range areas that facilitated our team and multi-team attacks with simulated anti-aircraft positions, OPs, and makeshift CPs. The ranges helped achieve objectives 1, 5, and 6 creating opportunities for teams to capitalize on their specialist skills, terrain for a sniper pair to provide overwatch, or an objective built to allow assault engineers the ability to deny (destroy) enemy equipment.
The Training Progression
The RSO&I phase entailed the procedures to understand what it takes to operate in Oman administratively and to make effective use of the training. As a Company HQ we were cognizant of the factor heat would play into our training as well as the impact of a temporary range control and medical teams available (there are no permanent range control staff present but deployed as needed from the UK). The RSO&I included ROCs with the medical teams in country and a mandated gradual physical training program meant to acclimatize the Commandos. This phase ended with a 48-hour driver stand down, as UK personnel must adhere to driver’s hours policies like pilot’s crew rest procedures in the USMC that restrict operating periods during any exercise.
The mobility phase was five days of progressive training that looked to baseline TTPs on our new ULMVs vehicles (aka MRZR) then allowing the teams 72 hours to work through their drills in their designated AOs. As a Coy HQ we used this opportunity to test our new comms suite and learn the capabilities and limitations with our teams dispersed. We had the opportunity to test new kit aligned to the future commando force programme, most notably a new communication suite built around the MPU-5 radio and the Enhanced Virtual Environment (EVE) network. EVE is a MANET (Mesh Ad-hoc Network) designed to create a hub and spoke directly tied into the ATAK system from on-the-man MPU-5 radios. The MPU-5 radio is a multiband UHF radio that autonomously routes voice and data from radio to radio enabling communications beyond line of sight. The readiness of information through this system is bounds above the previous “green radios.”
The live fire phase (the highlight of the training deployment) began at the individual level, progressing to Commando Teams (12-man element) and ended with a night Company (rein.) Combined Arms Live Fire Exercise (CALFEX). The UKCF’s live fire training is based out of two publications, PAM-21 and the Operational Shooting Policy. These documents provide stringent rules for live fire progression that cannot be deviated from and speak to the progression that “must” be completed to get a Marine Commando from his annual service rifle qualification to Company CALFEX. Throughout that progression, the Marines complete up to 28 different courses of fires beginning with the individual and ending at the Company level – in both day and night conditions. Even though it was time consuming, it provided a unique opportunity that I had never experienced while in the USMC; no dry runs are required prior to conducting live fire tactical training3.
Prior to Oman, Alpha Company had completed much of the progression of live fire training allowing us to minimize our time on the mandated shoots and exploit the terrain and vast desert that was available to us. As we progressed, the manoeuvre space available made it possible to do a full mission profile at the Troop Level, sending in our Sniper pairs before-hand, followed by the mobile fire support group, and finally a team mounted in MRZRs. All this training drove towards the live fire company (reinforced) CALFEX; a live fire clear of four objectives over a 12km span in vehicles with no dry-runs. Our timelines were condensed due the contract timelines with air ambulance support, but our intent was to get as close as possible to simulating a full mission profile.
The Full Mission Profile
The following day Alpha Company began their actions at roughly 2200 with sequential assaults on the radar (Aphrodite E) and missile system (Aphrodite W), utilizing our engineer team to deny the equipment. From there, the Company retrograded back to their vehicle caches and continued South towards Objective Baccus. Again, we deconflicted our main body’s movement with the Recce Team pushing forward and providing the “traffic cop” function to tactically park our vehicles before we conducted the next assault. The attack on Baccus was initiated with an occupation by force with both fire support group (FSG) teams. One FSG was mounted in Jackals and the other established a dismounted support by fire with the M240 equivalent. Upon effective suppression, the assaulting team cleared through a series of enemy defensive positions under 81mm Mortar illumination allowing the Company to reach the final enemy strongpoint to the South. Objective Charybdis began with the Company’s vehicle movement through the wadi system to the final rendezvous where the mortars dispersed to their MFP, the FSG occupied their cold positions, and the assault position occupied roughly 600m out (in line with the 81mm MSDs we were training with). It was blocking and tackling from here, with each element setting conditions for the next and the objective cleared just after dawn.4
The force on force phase was broken down into two parts: individual teams and a company action. The first part pushed out the 81mm Mortar Section for 24 hours to go and establish an MFP with the understanding that our recce and sniper teams would be sent out the next period of darkness to hunt them down. Despite the Omani dunes and low visibility, the mortar observers spotted the teams nearly 4km out in their vehicles. Transitioning to the second phase, while the teams were operating in their own AOs the Company HQ received a FRAG-O with the mission to conduct a strike in the CONNEX MOUT town which required the Company to aggregate (testing our vehicle linkup procedures), conduct a “bonnet brief,” (FRAGO over the hood) and task organize to complete the task.
What We Learned
Brilliance in the Basics
Common, but critical, skills span across all warfighting functions. As mentioned earlier, we had the opportunity to run out new C2 and comms equipment. However, the information provided to the Team Leaders became a crutch and a distraction from the task at hand. For the Company HQ, the live POSREPs and quick chat features were invaluable but as we stretched the system to its limits beyond line of sight the desire for information went up as we lost radio contact with our teams. This was a good reminder for HQ to allow our subordinates to operate through intent and for us to direct schedule windows for the information downloads.
It became evident that in addition to our personal concealment we needed to become experts in the rapid concealment of vehicles; cam nets tied to the top of MRZR’s provided a good starting point, however the lack of thermal masking with the cam nets meant MRZRs were vulnerable to thermal detection. Despite the undulating dunes out in the Omani desert, the JIM-Compact (similar in capability to the CLRF-IC) identified the thermal dust clouds coming off the MRZRs nearly 4km away at night during our force on force. From this picture, the mortar observer was able to determine the recce team’s axis of advance and correlate their fire missions off that information. The proliferation of advanced optics (to include drone mounted) demands signature minimization, which may require parking the trucks in favour of long-range dismounted movements. The Company learned this the hard way during strike when the ADFOR stated they could still hear our MRZRs nearly 2km out from objective.
Mobility
As the Marine Corps considers equipping rifle companies with MRZRs, our time in Oman offers several lessons learned. Alpha Company was equipped with 24 MRZRs to move our Company HQ and three of our Commando Teams, with the fire support group teams mounted on Jackals with HMGs. Given the smaller engine variant of the MRZR, compared to USMC, we were at most carrying three Marines, all their kit with main packs, spare water, and rations. One of the objectives of this exercise was to trial and test this new kit and we found that:
There isn’t room to bring much extra ammunition or other items to sustain yourself on the MRZR. This is not a vehicle that supports sustained operations. It can do one or the other.
Train as many Marines as you can to drive the MRZR. Towards the end of our exercise, we found ourselves executing version 10 of the bump plan and playing driver license Tetris™ to achieve our training objectives.
Just because a Marine was licensed did not mean they were competent on the vehicle. The vehicle teams required consistent repetitions of IA drills to ensure success.
A noticeable difference emerged between drivers who were competent and those who were merely qualified. The instruction our Marines received in the UK was how to drive and operate the vehicles, but we lacked the ability to translate that to tactical employment and did a lot of in-stride learning while in Oman. As the UKRM continues its transformation to a new operating concept, the Op HERRICK (Afghanistan) era ‘Mobility Operations Group’ knowledge is rapidly being lost from the Corps as ranks leave, platforms change, and the dearth of knowledge (apart from older SNCOs who had served in MOGs or special operations units) was exposed in Oman.
Saved Round
Finally, the opportunity provided through the rigid live fire training progression provided Team Commanders down to the Marine to conduct an attack without seeing the ground before. This progression provided an honest assessment of proficiency at the team and individual level.
Conclusion
Alpha Company’s time in Oman was a broadening experience. In one sense to understand how a Company can operate on its own and a renewed appreciation for how much capability the United States Marine Corps can bring to the (training) fight. Most importantly, as a friend once wrote5 we can’t lose sight of our junior Marines in the excitement of all this new kit and equipment and the next way to operate. It’s takes discipline to ensure that tools given to us enhance our innate capabilities, not turn into an over reliance to compensate from good hard soldiering skills.
Lastly, I’d recommend the USMC capture the lessons learned from the OIF/OEF generation before they exit the Corps. Whether it be SOPs or personal vignettes from their experiences, we gain a lot from their service to the Corps and it’s important to capitalize on it the tactical level. Our deployment to Oman taught me the importance of retaining what those who marched, or yomped, before us experienced.
Captain Vedral is currently serving as the 2IC for Alpha Coy, 40 Commando, Royal Marines, as part of the Personnel Exchange Program. He can be reached at Orion.vedral@gmail.com.
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Littoral Response Group – South better known as LRG(S), is a smaller version of a MEU with an AOR focused East of Suez. The GCE is centered around a Commando Company Group, an aviation element made up of 3 – 4 Mk4 Merlin helicopters, and an assault boat group from 47 Cdo. A more in depth breakdown of the LRG here: https://www.navylookout.com/the-uk-littoral-strike-group-south-arrives-in-the-indo-pacific/
In total we had 170 individuals supporting Ex Omani Wolfe. 2 Forward Observers, 70 Alpha Coy (including our IW Troop and Mortar Section), 25 Armoured Support Group, 9 Commando Forces Surgical Group, 40 CSS Troop, 12 Royal Engineer Commandos, and 12 Training Wing (TWing) Safety Staff.
The PSO to shooter ratio ranged anywhere from 4:1 to 2:1 depending on terrain, complexity, and time of day. The minimum rank for a PSO was a Corporal and the MSDs & MSLs were more restrictive compared to USMC standards.
The Company HQ did conduct a range recce with the safety staff from start to finish prior to executing the CALFEX, which was necessitated more so by the fact that the Alpha Company Commander, as a Major, was the highest ranking UKRM in country.
1stLt Matthew Shirey, “Don’t Lose Sight of the Lance Corporal”, Marine Corps Gazette, December 2022, Pgs 60 - 61