Mark Sumner has been awesome over the past week, covering Ukraine all weekend long, on his days off, giving me space to spend some precious time with my son Ari in Fort Benning, Georgia, between his Advanced Infantry Training diploma and entering the Ranger School pipeline…one of the toughest schools in the entire US Army, the Black and Gold Ranger Tab one of his the most prestigious honours.
Seeing Ari already spending months training was something to see what Russia does to his compatriots during his partiel general mobilization last week:
In the US Army, each soldier receives 10 weeks of basic combat training and then moves on to advanced individual training. For the infantry, my son was in school for 22 weeks, almost six months, to allow him to acquire a minimum of skills as an infantryman. To hear him say it, even that is rudimentary knowledge at best. As his platoon worked on basic infantry skills like ambushes, reacting to ambushes, assaults and other squad and platoon level tasks, he joked about how messed up they still were. , despite several weeks of work on it.
For the military, this is fine, as soldiers are expected to continue this training in their assigned unit under experienced NCOs (NCOs, otherwise known as Sergeants). While it is a 12 additional weeks for advanced infantry training (post-basic training), or a 24 additional weeks for an Abrams tank mechanic, or a 53 additional weeks as a Patriot Air Defense Systems Repairer, this is just basic knowledge. Think college lays the foundation, but learn your real career at your job.
Let’s take a look at the most basic infantry unit, rifle squadTo get an idea of the level of support a brand new infantryman has:
- Squad Leader (E-6, Staff Sergeant)
- Alpha Team Leader (E-5, Sergeant)
- Grenadier (M4 rifle with attached grenade launcher)
- Automatic rifleman (machine gun)
- rifleman
- Brave Squad Leader (E-5, Sergeant)
- Grenadier (M4 rifle with attached grenade launcher)
- Automatic rifleman (machine gun)
- rifleman
This rifle squad has nine soldiers. Three of them are non-commissioned officers. An E-5 Sergeant has about 4-5 years of experience. In some cases, a very fast soldier can come in 3. But that requires things like, well, Ranger School. Either way, we are looking for 3-5 years of experience to lead just Three soldiers. This E-6 commanding eight soldiers? Seven is the minimum time in service, but it will usually take a year or two longer.
So in this squad of nine soldiers, you look at the non-commissioned officers with at least 13 years of experience combined, and more likely 15-20 (since they will stay in those slots and ranks for years). A brand new infantryman enters a system that will take the basic knowledge acquired during initial training and refine it over years of repetitive drilling and practice.
Surprisingly, Russia never had non-commissioned officers. Well, they have something they call “non-commissioned officers”, but they’re just a shell of the system seen in NATO armies. Russian officers died at astronomical prices. This is why we see 60-year-old retired officers mobilizing. They are sorely lacking in soldiers with leadership abilities. And even those, like those already dying in Ukraine, lack the standard NATO capability to adjust and adapt orders to complete a given mission. The non-commissioned officers of this rifle squad have wide latitude to carry out the orders of their officers. It’s called the “battlefield initiative,” and Ukraine has been training it for eight years.
Today, Russia is sending thousands of new conscripts straight to the front lines with nothing but the most rudimentary training. They initially claimed that these mobilized souls would receive a two-week training, but even that was overly optimistic. Why waste time “training” these new soldiers if they are simply designed as human speed bumps to keep Ukrainian forces moving forward?
This is a good thread from retired General Mark Hertling that says much the same as me above, but with a little extra color:
This thread is also great:
The carnage will be massive. It will be like the Battle of Stalingrad scene in the movie Enemy at the Gates.
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Ari is in the Ranger School pipeline. If you are curious to know what it is, It’s a great article. This is a quick introduction:
And if you want a full school documentary, this one seems dated, but the Ranger School hasn’t changed much since then. Ranger students must still survive 2-5 months in school due to severe sleep and food deprivation (most students “recycle” one or more of the three phases of school, remaking parts until that they meet the strict requirements). Pushed to their physical limits, they learn to perform necessary squad and platoon level tasks through muscle memory, through instinct.
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It’s a step forward arson that we saw in the conscription offices throughout the war. It probably won’t be the last.
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