During a recent training exercise, members of the 75th Ranger Regiment launched a complex raid that saw them breaching a mined wire obstacle with explosives, knocking out a bunker, breaching through a chain link fence, and then entering and clearing multiple buildings. It wasn't just riflemen and machine gunners hitting this target; the exercise integrated sniper and recce teams, surveillance aircraft, AC-130 fire support, drones, and even an artillery unit.
This type of complex training scenario is intended to prepare Rangers to face threats to American national security on modern battlefields, with lessons learned taken from the unfolding conflict in Ukraine, writes Cpt. Patrick Kneram, who serves as the company commander of Headquarters and Headquarters Company (HHC) at 3rd Ranger Battalion stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia.
"As combat experience diminishes across our formations, we have deliberately shifted toward a greater reliance on doctrine," Kneram writes, pointing out that due to the average young age of Rangers (and soldiers in general), most of the combat veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan are retired or on their way to retirement. That doesn't mean the 75th's mission ends, of course.
The training scenario is made increasingly challenging for the Rangers by camouflaging targets to make identification more difficult, introducing electronic warfare elements that jam communications, and putting drones in the hands of the opposing force. Rangers also deviate from Army norms by firing right next to one another, within 15 degrees of separation, as they would in combat.
After Action Reviews (AARs) have also become more professionalized, with Rangers being evaluated based on metrics rather than subjective opinions. The current guidance for the Regiment is that the normal day/night iteration of each course of fire is simply not enough. Rangers must drill multiple times during the day and the night, demonstrating proficiency with blank ammunition before moving to live.
The realistic training is important because even in a world where technology is often at the forefront of people's minds, at the end of the day someone still needs to take the hill from the enemy and occupy it.
"As history shows, the nature of the next conflict is unpredictable," Kneram writes. "While the environment, enemy capabilities, or even the ways of war may evolve, small units applying the fundamentals of combat will remain the decisive element."