Who Should Drive in the Motorised Battalion?
Abstract
This article discusses the option of crewing all Motorised Infantry Battalion Protected Mobility Vehicles with Royal Australian Corps of Transport (RACT) drivers to better realise the capability of the vehicle.
Introduction
The Protected Mobility Vehicle (PMV) has been in service for about five years. Originally conceived to provide protected battlefield mobility to an infantry section, the vehicle is now being used in a wide variety of roles across the Army and Air Force. It is an extremely versatile and capable vehicle which lends itself to a multitude of tasks outside its original design parameters. It is currently issued in six variants, with more on the drawing board. The vehicle’s nature brings with it many challenges to commanders at unit and formation level, related to its employment and its impact upon manning and training in PMV equipped units.
The current doctrinal structure of the Motorised Infantry Battalion is contained in LWD 3-3-7 Employment of Infantry, 2008. The document itself indicates that the structure does not integrate the changes proposed by Infantry 2012, but it will be used in this article as a baseline. The future structure of a Motorised Infantry Battalion may change but its general structure does not have an impact upon the thrust of this article.
The solution is clear: the Royal Australian Corps of Transport (RACT). As this article will show, the capability provided by the PMV will be enhanced by the introduction of RACT personnel into crew positions, which itself will improve the ability of the infantry to achieve their mission.
In essence the battalion has on establishment 67 PMV. The intent here is to discuss the methods by which those vehicles can be manned and crewed, how those personnel can be trained, and how sustainment of the appropriately trained personnel can be achieved. It is not the intent of this article to investigate the nature in which the vehicles are employed nor comment upon the relevance or otherwise of the current training regime.
Vehicle Crews
The primary challenge faced by commanders at all levels is crewing the vehicles. Within Australia, and in operational areas of low threat, the vehicle can be used as a simple troop carrier. That is, the crew consists of only the driver, with no requirement for a vehicle commander. Any variant can be moved by just the driver. In areas of high threat a vehicle commander is mandatory. With the addition of the Protected Weapon Station, FBCB2, CIED systems and the like to many vehicles, the requirement for a crew is obvious. The driver cannot both drive the vehicle and operate the evergrowing number of battle management systems being fitted to the vehicle.
What this means is that for every vehicle carrying an infantry section, two personnel from the section are required to crew the vehicle. The first question that springs to mind is: who from the section will crew the vehicle? This is important because it leads to so many more questions. What do we do when the section dismounts? Do we leave the crew with the vehicle, leaving the section two soldiers short? Do we leave just the driver with the vehicle with no ability to move and defend the vehicle at the same time? Do we leave a small protection party from the platoon with all the vehicles? Do we leave the vehicle unattended? What happens to the machine gun in the weapon mount? Who owns that weapon? A commander on the ground must decide who he needs least for his dismounted operations and balance that against placing one third of his platoon’s mobility, strength and firepower, while mobile, under command of a member of a section who may not be the section commander.
Units equipped with PMV who are required to conduct dismounted operations continue to struggle with these questions; however, what is highlighted is that the addition of a vehicle to an infantry section is not as easy as it may have appeared.
In numerical terms the crew requirement for the battalion’s PMV could be as high as 134 personnel, given a driver and commander for each vehicle. On a worst case basis this means the commanding officer has a company worth of soldiers remaining with the vehicles when the troops dismount.
Trade Structure
There is currently no trade structure in the Army that includes PMV qualifications. It is effectively an equipment course. To operate the equipment, personnel must be trained but the training is additional to the training and qualifications required by a member’s trade. This has an impact on a unit’s ability to crew the vehicles because everything contained within the trade structure mitigates against developing a pool of appropriately qualified and available vehicle crews.
Commanders must satisfy each member’s trade training and career progression requirements as a primary duty. PMV training does not fit into this structure.
If, for example, we have a soldier trained to drive his section’s PMV and he is promoted, does he still drive the vehicle? If not, another soldier must be trained. If a soldier is moved to another section, platoon or company he takes his qualification with him and his previous section is without a driver.
Promotions and internal postings are effected for good and necessary reasons but, over time, can have the effect of concentrating PMV qualifications in some areas while leaving others without qualified personnel.
For example, 1 Section, 1 Platoon could have five PMV drivers while 2 Section, 1 Platoon has none. Senior soldiers are routinely moved into Mortars or DFSW and again, they take their qualification with them, leaving their previous section’s PMV without a driver.
At a higher level there is no motorised infantry trade within the RAInf. Soldiers will routinely be posted from one battalion to another. If a PMV qualified soldier is posted from a motorised battalion to a light battalion, his qualification is effectively lost and another must be trained to replace him. This very issue has been the source of much angst in the mechanised battalions since the M113 was brought to charge. Many solutions have been tried and none have completely solved the problem.
Ongoing Training Requirement
The issues highlighted above have the effect of producing an ongoing need for PMV training well above what the number of PMV on issue to a unit would indicate. It is not possible to examine the raw data and proclaim there are 180 trained drivers for the unit’s sixty-seven PMVs; therefore the unit has no requirement for PMV training.
The devil, as always, is in the detail.
Internal and external postings, and competing demands for qualifications, will always inflate the PMV training requirement in a motorised infantry battalion.
This is also true for other units issued with the PMV. The movement of soldiers and their need for trade training will always take precedence over retention of PMV qualified personnel in positions where they require the PMV qualifications.
In terms of the skill sets involved, these will erode quickly if they are not practiced and reinforced. A qualified soldier will become less efficient as a driver if he is not practicing driving the vehicle. A vehicle commander will also have this erosion of skills and, combined with the driver, the net effect is a degradation of the capability of the unit.
There is also the issue of where the training will be conducted. Currently Motorised Combat Wing at the School of Artillery is the only training establishment providing PMV training. Given that over 700 vehicles will be purchased by Defence, the training capacity does not exist at MCW to train the requisite number of drivers. This means that decentralised training is a must. Who will conduct this training? Who in the motorised battalion can be spared from day-to-day duties and field and trade training to instruct on the courses? Can the battalion find the time to take twenty to thirty soldiers ‘offline’ to have them trained as PMV crews?
Maintenance
The PMV was designed to require minimal operator maintenance, but there is still a maintenance bill. Like any vehicle the PMV will have component failures if basic maintenance is not routinely and correctly carried out. The burden imposed on the soldier by the PMV is in addition to other equipment maintenance duties and is often given a lower priority—particularly when the driver of the vehicle is ‘in the seat’ for only short periods during the year, and is unlikely to be responsible for a particular vehicle next year, or even next exercise.
As a movement asset in barracks, the PMV will spend a good deal of the time parked in a compound and ignored until needed, simply because of the competing demands on the soldier’s time. Ongoing trade training will have a higher priority than either ongoing PMV training or maintenance.
For commanders, the PMV represents yet another corporate governance problem. The personnel available to conduct routine maintenance on the PMV are also required to conduct such maintenance on the rest of the unit’s equipment. A commander cannot afford to have large numbers of soldiers dedicated to PMV maintenance at the exclusion of other duties.
A balancing act is required. Maintenance will not be conducted properly if soldiers are not skilled and practiced in doing so. As the PMV represents only a portion of a soldier’s responsibilities, they are not routinely practicing maintenance skills and those skills will degrade quickly. The maintenance will not be conducted properly and the rate of equipment failure will rise. How does the unit commander balance these competing needs?
Capability
The PMV represents a significant capability boost to any unit issued with them. However, as we have seen, the capability is not the vehicle itself, but what it provides through trained and competent drivers and commanders.
The key to the capability is to maintain drivers and commanders who are themselves capable of operating and maintaining the vehicle.
How can this be achieved? Many solutions have been proposed, from establishing a PMV or motorised trade stream within the RAInf, to increasing the number of riflemen in the battalion to provide the extra numbers required, or simply handing the vehicles over to the cavalry. All are possible, all would to an extent solve the problem, but all have risk.
Motorised Infantry Trade
To introduce a new trade construct into the RAInf along these lines means much more than adding the PMV qualifications to the list already promulgated in Employment Category Standing Orders. It means, at the final analysis, removing a large number (two battalions) of soldiers from the rest of the infantry. These members would not be able to be posted outside motorised battalions or all the problems and issues outlined above would simply continue. It also means that soldiers from outside the motorised battalions would not be able to be posted in, as they are not in the right trade. This solution does nothing but increase the requirement for PMV training, in addition to current trade training, far and above what it is now, as every rifleman will have to be qualified on the PMV.
Increase the Numbers
Often seen as an easy fix to so many problems is a simple increase in manning. Increase the battalion’s posted strength of riflemen and the problem would disappear. Again, all is not as it seems. Issues with trade qualifications, internal and external postings, promotions and so on would remain and, given the large numbers involved, would actually get worse.
Further, despite the best intentions of all involved, a rifleman is always a rifleman. His primary function is to seek out and close with the enemy. Day to day operational requirements will see the vehicle crews dismounted to put more boots on the battlefield. It is axiomatic that there are never enough troops to meet the operational requirement, and again these troops will be required to add the PMV skill sets to their trade skills, and practice them constantly to maintain currency.
Cavalry Crews
Simply giving the vehicles to a cavalry unit would appear to solve the problem. The cavalry have the requisite skill sets for vehicle command, and the training burden to convert drivers from ASLAV to PMV is significantly less than training another soldier from scratch. Cavalry soldiers have the ingrained vehicle culture to give the requisite priority to vehicle maintenance and, more importantly, the maintenance of the skill sets. However, the cavalry cannot be expected to sit idle, waiting for a task order from the infantry battalion. Troop lift will form part of the cavalry’s responsibilities, but it will never be their primary task. The cavalry unit will also be conducting reconnaissance and screening and the myriad of other traditional cavalry functions. Requests for troop lift will simply be another task to be prioritised and fit into an already busy schedule.
This solution also flies in the face of the reason for having the vehicle and the motorised infantry concept itself. The capability is to provide integral protected mobility. It also does not account for the different variants of PMV Would a cavalry unit be prepared to detach a crew to man the mortar variant or the ambulance? Will the brigade headquarters command variants be crewed by the cavalry? It is doubtful.
The crews for these vehicles must be available at all times to provide that integral support, not only to the infantry battalion, but to any unit issued with PMV.
The Solution
So, where lies the solution? The need is clearly for a pool of personnel posted to PMV crew positions who are:
a. trained as PMV drivers, commanders and instructors;
b. capable of conducting ongoing competency and currency training to maintain the capability;
c. possessed of a vehicle culture;
d. unlikely to be tasked as riflemen, signallers, mortar detachments and so on; and
e. able to embed the PMV qualifications into their existing trade structure seamlessly. Where can we find these personnel? In the RACT driver trade.
If we use the figure above as the standard number of PMV in an infantry battalion, the number of RACT personnel required could be as high as 134. This represents a significant increase to the unit’s manning and many commanders would posit that an increase on that scale should be riflemen, not more support staff that cannot be used to fight the battle. But this is lazy thinking. PMV crews are in direct support of the riflemen. They are not working in an echelon or performing a support function at forward operating base. They are in the field with the sections providing the capability represented by the PMV itself.
Further, a modicum of intellectual effort expended on the actual crewing requirements would show that the battalion needs nowhere near 134 personnel dedicated primarily to manning the PMV fleet if RACT personnel are used.
Manning
The issue with manning PMV positions revolves primarily around what happens when the section dismounts. How do we answer the questions posed above? The allocation of one RACT private per PMV as the driver immediately solves many of the problems.
When the sections dismount, the drivers remain with the vehicles. They have mobility as their primary defence and can move to a harbour area, or move away from contact if required. They have radio communications with the dismounted troops and can be called forward at any time. Now we add in a RACT corporal, trained as a vehicle commander. The corporal is positioned in one of the vehicles, and the other platoon vehicles have infantry section commanders as vehicle commanders while mounted. When the troops dismount, the RACT corporal becomes the section commander of the vehicles. That one vehicle has a machine gun allocated to it so that when the troops are dismounted the vehicles have the ability to return fire as they move away from enemy contact. The other vehicles use the section’s weapons while the troops are aboard, but are unarmed once the troops dismount. In terms of the platoon, two vehicles remain with only a driver and one vehicle with a driver and commander. At platoon headquarters level the two vehicles require a driver each and a RACT sergeant to command one of the platoon’s vehicles. The rank here is important as the sergeant may need to take command, for movement, of the manoeuvre support and attachment vehicles as well. Again, one machine gun should remain with the vehicle commanded by the RACT sergeant. Manoeuvre support vehicles would require only a RACT driver and would remain with the other platoon vehicles if their troops are operating away from the vehicles. It is unlikely that manoeuvre support personnel will dismount and leave the vehicles, but the addition of the RACT driver will provide a soldier dedicated to the operation of a significant component of their capability which is distinct from the manoeuvre support they provide the platoon.
In broad numerical terms the addition to the battalion’s manning would be in the order of five RACT soldiers for every four vehicles. Over the battalion’s sixty-seven vehicles, this means an increase of about seventy-five personnel. Obviously these numbers are not exact and a good deal depends on the eventual structure of the battalion, but they are accurate enough to illustrate the point that 134 personnel are not required if the vehicles were crewed by infantry or cavalry soldiers.
The infusion of RACT personnel will have a corollary effect of providing a rank pyramid for the PMV crews. Each company would effectively have a transport platoon, and battalion headquarters could have an operations cell devoted to transport matters which encompasses not only the PMV, but all the battalion’s transport assets. The inclusion of RACT officers in key positions would ensure seamless integration of all forms of lift (particularly with the advent of LAND 121) into operational planning, at all levels.
Capability
The inclusion of RACT personnel will actually provide a capability increase to the battalion. The infantry soldiers will be freed to concentrate on their primary functions and mission, while the platoon commander retains the flexibility to employ the vehicles as fighting platforms, as infantry commanders will still command the bulk of the vehicles while mounted.
The current training regime for the PMV will equip RACT soldiers to integrate into the sections and platoons, and provide a force multiplier for the infantry.
Ongoing Training
By allocating RACT personnel as PMV crews, the posting cycle is now working in our favour in terms of ongoing training. These personnel will be posted into these positions for the entirety of a posting cycle. They will not be re-allocated to Direct Fire Support Weapons or sent away on a sniper course. Therefore the primary training bill will be at the beginning of the year when new, possibly unqualified, personnel are posted in. In any given year the maximum number to be trained would probably be no more than one third of the establishment. The requirement for continual training of crews, as personnel are internally or externally posted, is gone. Unplanned personnel movement due to promotions, compassionate postings and the like are entirely manageable.
The other advantage to the allocation of RACT personnel to these positions in terms of training is the ‘in built’ capacity of the RACT to train. The Driver Testing Officer qualification trains and qualifies personnel to conduct decentralised driver training. All RACT driver trade sergeants and warrant officers hold this qualification, as do many corporals. This immediately gives the battalion an embedded training team, more than capable of conducting the ongoing training required to crew the unit’s vehicles.
For the RACT trainee there is a direct training convergence of their trade skills to the PMV. This lessens the training requirement. Courses will be shorter, as Recognition of Current Competence (RCC) will be applicable. Currently it is difficult to apply RCC to a course because each trainee has different skill sets and different driving competencies. On a RACT course all trainees have the same start point.
Currency Maintenance
The RACT already has a ‘vehicle culture’. By posting RACT personnel to PMV crew positions, the battalion gains personnel whose sole purpose is to provide capability through the PMV. It is likely that each crew member will be assigned to a particular vehicle for the duration of the posting and therefore has a keen interest in maintenance of both the vehicle and the operating skills required.
The PMV qualification embeds perfectly into the RACT driver trade. The basic skills required are not significantly different from any other vehicle and these qualifications will fit the Employment Category Standing Orders for the driver trade. The additional skills, communications, formations and methods of movement will also have direct relevance to the training that will be required for the LAND 121 protected vehicles when they are introduced into service.
Non Infantry Units
For non infantry units issued with the PMV, the benefits to assigning RACT personnel to PMV crew positions are identical to the motorised battalion. The issues are the same and this solution will again allow non RACT personnel to concentrate on their primary duties, be that as a signaller in a brigade headquarters or a medic in the PMV ambulance.
Conclusion
The PMV training can, and should be, integrated into the Employment Category Standing Orders for RACT drivers. Permanent PMV crew positions should be allocated to the RACT. Such a move would provide the capability increase represented by the PMV without a decrease in any other capability. In effect the RACT personnel would provide a force multiplier against the current situation where the PMV is a force divider.
The Army generally, and motorised units in particular, continue to struggle with integrating the PMV into their operations. The issues involved are diverse and vary according to the corps and trade of the personnel assigned as PMV crews. Possible solutions are just as varied but none appear to provide a long-term sustainable method of crewing the vehicles except the allocation of RACT personnel to PMV crew positions.
About the Author
Warrant Officer Class Two Kent Davies enlisted in 1988 to the RAA and served initially with the 16th Air Defence Regiment. He transferred to the RACT in 1997 and has been posted to the Army School of Transport, then 1st Combat Service Support Battalion, 4th Combat Service Support Battalion, the Land Warfare Centre, and the Motorised Combat Wing at the School of Artillery. During his three-year tenure at MCW he instructed on PMV Commander, Driver and Protected Weapon System courses. Warrant Officer Class Two Davies is currently posted to the Road Transport Wing at Puckapunyal.
