RELEASE NUMBER: 141217-02
DATE POSTED: DECEMBER 17, 2014
Highlanders conduct training with SOF Soldiers
by Sgt. Aaron Braddy
4th Brigade Combat Team 1st Armored Division
MCGREGOR RANGE, N.M. (USASOC News Service, Dec. 17, 2014) - Leaders from across the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, “Highlanders” trained with members of U.S. Army Special Operations Forces, Dec. 3-9. at McGregor Range Complex, N.M.
The members of U.S. Army SOF provided instruction to the noncommissioned officers of the 4th BCT on a variety of subjects to include an introduction to each of the weapons common to our regionally aligned host nation partner security forces in Africa, a live fire of most of the weapons, tactical movement and SOP development.
“The weapon systems that we had shot were the AK-47, Browning High Power, Berretta M-9, PKM, RPD, G3, FN FAL and MP-5.” 1st Lt. Bryson Andersen explained, “The training that was given by the ODA was excellent and it seemed to have been received really well.”
“First it started off with shooting different weapons, familiarizing ourselves for the first couple days,” said 1st Lt. Andersen an Infantry platoon leader and range officer in charge assigned to Bravo Company, 4th Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, “Then we moved into moving as small teams, then squads and then integrating as an entire plus size platoon element of 52 people for a raid at the end.”
After the six days of training with SOF all the 4th BCT Soldiers applied their newly learned skills in a culminating exercise with an air assault night raid on a simulated hostile enemy objective, two high value targets were captured and no friendly casualties were sustained.
The SOF Soldiers had recently returned from locations around Africa and made it a point to share lessons learned with the 4th BCT leaders.
“I would mark it up as a monumental success for both ourselves in the 4th Armored Brigade, 1st Armored Division, and it was also a success having spoken with the gentlemen from SOF, ” said Sgt. 1st Class Matt Craig, platoon sergeant and training noncommissioned officer assigned to 4th Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment, 4th BCT, 1AD.
“The reason I feel it was successful is 90 percent of us out here from 4th Brigade have never shot any of those weapon systems before. Next we met people from across the brigade and shook hands and by the end of the training we all had streamlined our SOPs,” said Craig.
It was great getting a chance to improve and standardize our SOPs across the battalions and throughout the brigade, down to the platoon level utilizing the SOF instructors' training.