Field Training Exercise Ideas

cpl_clarke

Active member
Does anyone have any neat ideas for FTX's? My corps likes to plan a night navigation each time we go out in to the bush but they all turn out to be just a walk around the area. What im looking for is like a pretend mission. Something that will test each sections ability but wont be too complicating as there are many new cadets in my corps.

Any help is much appreciated.

:rambo:
 
What we do a lot are sear and rescue training missions. The senario is usually a downed pilot who is injured in a region that is hard to access. It's up to you and your team to figure out the appropriate search pattern for the situation. Once you have found the pilot, have someone who knows first aid to perform first aid, and take measures to have him remain concious. Have the rest of the team make a makeshift strecture from logs and parachord. Once that's done, CAREFULLY load the pilot onto the stretcher and carry him back to CP.
 
When I was still with the Squadron, we used to do some Cam & Concealment. It's not that hard to teach, and it can be used in some sort of night mission, or a Tactical CTF game.

Another thing that you could do, would be what's known as a Psych Hike. What you do is:

Around the time it starts to get REALLY dark, gather all the Cadets around the main fire at the CP, and then tell them to give the staff their watches and flashlights. After that's done, line them up in a single rank, facing a flank, and have them put their right hand on the person's left shoulder (or vice versa), and start walking down a trail, or along the side of a road, and after a while, tap the person in the rear of the column and have him/her stop and proceed anywhere between 10 and 20 feet into the treeline, stop and then stay in that general area (They're free to move around the area they're in, but not allowed to go to another area) Keep doing this to each person until there's none left in the column. (If you've got a large Corps, you could use two ranks and both sides of the road). After a certain time (usually around half an hour or so), start taking them out of the wood. This is best done by just hollering "Out of the woods!", and then lead them back to camp, the same way that they were brought in. When you get back to base camp, have them gather around the fire again, and then ask them a) How long they thought they were in there; and b) What did they do while they were in the woods.

Of course, while doing this exercise, it is critical that NONE OF THE CADETS TALK. It's also best if you don't let them know what's going on until after the hike is done. What this is supposed to do is simulate if you're lost in the woods after some sort of incident (For us, it was always a plane crash, since we were Air Cadets). It's also kind of interesting to hear some of the times that the Cadets say regarding how long they were in there. During one of mine, they were in there for about 45 mins, and the answers ranged from 5 mins to well over an hour.

Obviously, there are some of Cadets that will freak out while in the woods. To prevent incident, let them know that they are allowed to come out of the woods and stand on the side of the road if they really need to. This is really all of the information that you should give them and only tell the person this info when actually putting them in the woods.

This may seem like a rather...dumb idea, but it's actually a very good method for developing situational awareness, and how to react to if you're lost in the woods. My Squadron had many fun times doing these hikes.
 
Could be used for a Patrol-Ex, or something like a Tactical Capture the Flag game, as I said.

One thing we did do with the Cam & Concealment is have a few of our Senior Cadets cam up, and then hide. The rest of the Squadron had the task of finding them. Sometimes, this was brought together with a SAR-Ex, where the Cadets had to not only find a casualty in the woods, but avoid 'enemy snipers and patrols'.
 
Have you ever thought of doing weekend Ex's where you split your contingent into platoon and sections and then go out on the fri night and basha then do fieldcraft on the sat basha out on the sat night do a platoon attack on the sunday then go home. To make it more realistic you have a mobile enemy so ur not just shooting at nothing. On the night you can have night nav ex's or do some patrolling in the dark.
 
pte_clarke said:
Does anyone have any neat ideas for FTX's? My corps likes to plan a night navigation each time we go out in to the bush but they all turn out to be just a walk around the area. What im looking for is like a pretend mission. Something that will test each sections ability but wont be too complicating as there are many new cadets in my corps.

Any help is much appreciated.

:rambo:

Night problems, hell yes, but actually have two patrols of about a squad(13 soldiers) run into each other, and whatever weapon you use, say paintball guns, you fire at each other, and expended ammunition, hand-to-hand combat. You might say this american is war crazy but no I'm not. I have Field Ops School at Camp Roberts on 6/19/05-7/3/05.
 
I tried out that Psych Hike thing you were telling me about, Steliga on an exerise last weekend. It was pretty cool actually. Answers ranged from 10 minutes to well over an hour. They were out there for 45 minutes.
 
It is an interesting thing to do while on exercise. How many have you got in your Sqn?
 
That's a good number to have out in the field. How far spread out were the Cadets on the hike?
 
My corps has an FTX coming up this friday so ill be sure to suggest these ideas to my training officer. But keep 'em comin. The more ideas the better.

Thanks.
 
NCdt Steliga said:
That's a good number to have out in the field. How far spread out were the Cadets on the hike?

It was a huge training area so we could afford to spread them out a lot. They were spread out about 200 metres about 30-30 feet in from the road.
 
That's a pretty good distance. When I did the one for my last FTX, they were spread out across roughly a kilometer.
 
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