Steel Sharpens Steel

Joint Training at Shared Accord 13 Strengthens Two Infantries

Before daybreak, a convoy of vehicles bumped down a dirt track pocked with deep ruts and termite mounds in the South African veld. The convoy included U.S. Humvees and South African armored personnel vehicles called Casspirs and Mambas. With a temperature of 6 degrees Celsius and a whipping wind, the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) infantrymen pulled on their gloves and wore knit caps under their Kevlar helmets.

The morning training lane –– one of the first in a two-week bilateral exercise known as Shared Accord –– was called “movement to contact.” That meant the convoy would drive along a predetermined route and respond to attacks. “We’re expecting mortars, mortars and more mortars,” said U.S. Army Spc. Christopher Cronin. “The key is going to be how fast we can dismount, engage the enemy and then remount to push to our objective.”

The first iteration showed that there was much work to be done. The trouble began when some of the rear vehicles in the convoy lost radio contact and, in the dark, were unable to rejoin the group. Soon after, mortar fire erupted. An ambush. Eyes darted around inside the tightly packed Casspir, and the Soldiers snapped ammunition into their weapons. “Dismount!” called out Cpl. Ashraf Plaatjies of the South African Infantry 9th Battalion as he pulled down the lever to open the rear door.

The men piled out and fanned across the hill, bounding down the steep incline and falling to their bellies. Once in range, the mortar team launched four canisters that sent green smoke curling upward to simulate 60 mm mortar fire. As the South Africans pushed toward the gully where the enemy was hiding, their U.S. partner forces advanced from the side at a 90-degree angle. However, in a communications breakdown, neither side shifted fire. For a brief time it was unclear which unit was the support element and which was the assault element. The attack began to break down in the resulting confusion.

The enemy soldiers, known as OPFOR in the exercise, took advantage of the chaos. They popped out from the ravine and started shooting. With all the Soldiers wearing sensory detectors known as the Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System (MILES) that ring when shot by blank bullets, the attacking coalition of U.S. and SANDF Soldiers would have suffered significant casualties. The hollow electronic sound reverberated across the hills as the Soldiers wrapped tourniquets and performed other simulated combat medicine on the wounded.

“The command and control wasn’t good; the spacing wasn’t good,” Plaatjies said. “I don’t know how, but we killed our own men.”

After a bumpy and silent ride back to the base, the infantrymen gathered outside their tent encampment to hear a detailed after-action review by U.S. Army Lt. Col. Robert E. Lee Magee, commander of the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment based out of Fort Riley, Kansas. Communication, said Magee, needed to improve. There needed be better radio contact and clearer signals to mark where one unit ends and another begins. Do whatever is necessary to make sure that when one element moves forward to attack a position, the other shifts fire, he said.

“We’ve got to figure out a way to move together,” Magee said. “Cross talk between your guys is absolutely vital, so you don’t shoot each other.”

After a laundry list of suggestions for the next iteration, Magee finished with words of encouragement. “The bottom line is you’re doing well,” he said. “A lot of things are going to be frustrating, but we’ve got to keep working together as a team.”

The infantry training exercises from late July to early August near Grahamstown, South Africa, were just one part of Shared Accord 13, a biennial exercise that stretched across the Eastern Cape province from Port Elizabeth to East London. About 3,000 U.S. and South African personnel participated, and events included a nighttime jump by paratroopers, an amphibious landing and a mass humanitarian aid event.

After lunch at the Grahamstown site, the Soldiers hatched a strategy to improve their performance. U.S. Army Capt. John P. Young, commander of the U.S. 1-18th B Company, decided to ride with a SANDF section and maintain radio communication with the U.S. teams. Cronin, who had been embedded with the SANDF for several days, offered to strap the South African radio equipment on his back and relay messages. He had been tinkering with the equipment and believed he could overcome some of the interoperability problems between the U.S. and Russian-made radios.

Reporting on the battlefield would need to be constant. “Whenever we do something, we must report it up,” Plaatjies said. “That way, they can follow our every move. And if you have to send in some mortar fire or air support, you will know exactly where to put it. … Communications is the essence of any combat mission.”

Early on, Shared Accord revealed differences in fighting styles between the two armies. The South African infantry forces tended to attack a target in a battle line formation, moving forward rapidly in an evenly spaced line and then enveloping the target from all sides. By contrast, the U.S. tended to fight more on a squad level with five or six men maneuvering and receiving support by a base of fire element, Young said. Neither strategy is inherently better.

“This is a professional force that’s fought many battles,” Young said of his SANDF counterparts. “There’s a reason why they perform the way they do. Now, having operated in their environment, I can see where their maneuvering style works very well, given the conditions that they work in.”

The SANDF men, many of whom have been deployed on peacekeeping missions to hot spots such as Sudan, Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, had some suggestions for the U.S. forces about training in Africa. The advice started with the uniforms: The gray-and-tan U.S. fatigues stand out against the green hills of of South Africa. “We see them very easily,” chuckled Capt. Benjamin Robinson of the 9th South African Infantry Battalion.

Furthermore, the steep hillsides studded with sandstone necessitated a special type of movement to which the U.S. Soldiers were not accustomed. “We’ve given them a lot of tips, especially on how to move,” Robinson said. “This type of terrain can make you very exhausted. You must use the terrain to benefit yourself. If you’re going to be slow moving in this terrain, you’re going to get tired. If you’re going to be fast and get to your point and do it as quickly as possible, it’s going to be easier.

“For us this terrain is more friendly, because we’ve been trained here; this is our country, we can fight anywhere in this country,” Robinson said.

Robinson described unique ways the SANDF positions its men inside Light Medium Tactical Vehicles to make for maximum speed and efficiency once they hit the ground. SANDF Soldiers impressed their American colleagues by demonstrating an “integration drill” in which, during battle, a rear element comes forward to relieve a unit on the frontlines by taking its ammunition and pushing forward for maximum speed. In turn, during the weeks of training, U.S. Marines demonstrated nonlethal riot-control tactics and other skills. The lively exchanges of tactics between the two fighting forces were described by one participant as “steel sharpening steel” for the way it improved both armies.

“The South Africans are learning our tactics, techniques and procedures, and we’re learning theirs,” said U.S. Army Maj. Paul Lawrence. “Between the two of us, we’ll come up with a better way to do it.”

With an improved understanding of each other’s movement techniques and more consistent communications, the second iteration of the day proved more successful. In the afternoon, the convoy crunched up an incline before halting in front of a cluster of plywood houses and tents. SANDF Soldiers dismounted to investigate and, although the encampment was empty, they decided to continue on foot, traversing a mountain to take the high ground above a spot where two suspicious vehicles sat idling. The spacing between Soldiers was noticeably more even, and squad leaders actively directed their men with hand gestures or whistles. The communication between U.S. and SANDF forces was consistent. SANDF team members reported that they would hold the line on the ridge above the vehicles as their partners swept through to take out the OPFOR.

A brief firefight led to 14 OPFOR killed or captured. As the U.S. forces prepared to push forward and inspect the two vehicles, the SANDF mortar team radioed and told them to stop. The team had mortar rounds left, they said, and recommended firing them at the vehicles before their U.S. counterparts got too close. The team hurled two smoke canisters at the target. “They decided to take out the two vehicles,” Plaatjies said. “The vehicles were already disabled, but they were worried they could have been wired with explosives.”

The decision proved to be prescient. The two enemy SUVs were rigged with improvised explosive devices. After the completion of the training lane, Young gathered the team around and awarded “challenge coins” to the SANDF mortar team as a symbol of appreciation for their quick thinking. “This saved some Soldier’s life who would have gone out to that vehicle and investigated it,” Young said.

As the week progressed, the partnership appeared to strengthen. The Soldiers spent long days together, ate side by side and slept on rows of cots inside communal tents. Some of the U.S. Soldiers brought out maps to show where their home base of Fort Riley, Kansas, is in the United States. South African forces were only too happy to teach a few words in Xhosa and Zulu.

“This is a positive experience because we’ve got now the relationship between the two different armies and the [melding] of culture and the way of doing things and understanding each other’s personality,” Robinson said. “How do they do things? What do they like, not like? Those are the types of things you’ve got to respect in one another.”

On the final day, the partnership was on full display during a live-fire exercise. Observers included Gen. David Rodriguez, commander of U.S. Africa Command; Lt. Gen. Derick Mgwebi, SANDF chief of Joint Operations; and Maj. Gen. Patrick Donahue, commander of U.S. Army Africa; who watched as infantry forces simulated an attack on an enemy encampment. Mortar teams on the hill lobbed rounds at the target while an infantry platoon dismounted and bounded up to it on foot to hit it with small arms fire. As the dismounted men approached, they released a green smoke canister that alerted the mortar teams to shift fire away from them. Assaulting through the objective, the dismounted troops began attacking a second target 100 meters ahead, before ultimately calling in mortar fire and then releasing a red smoke canister signifying that all forces should lift fire. The communication and tactical coordination between the two armies was seamless. It had come a long way since the first days.

“It was pretty flawless, pretty close to perfect,” Magee said after the live-fire exercise. “The progression [during the week] is not just from them; it’s from us as well. You have to work together. It’s a true team effort. It’s them learning us and us learning them and understanding what each other’s capabilities are. And I can say I’d be happy anywhere, any time and twice on Sunday to work with the South African National Defence Force again.”