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HEIDELBERG, Germany — Soldiers from across U.S. Army Europe and individuals from the engineer branch came together to participate in a Maneuver Support Conference in March sponsored by the 18th Engineer Brigade at Patrick Henry Village here.
During the three-day conference, multiple units throughout USAREUR shared lessons learned on route clearance operations from their recent deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.
“It is only when you apply what you learn that it becomes useful,” said Col. Paul M. Paolozzi, the commander of the 18th Engineer Brigade, who began the conference, stating he hopes the information shared would go back to the units and be put to use.
The 9th, 4th and 54th Engineer battalions each spoke about the lessons learned during their recent deployments and held two route clearance panels where members of the engineer regiment were allowed to ask questions to help them understand route clearance and how to operate at the battalion, company and platoon level.
Maj. Carrington Stoffels, the operations officer for the 9th Eng. Bn., whose unit operated in five provinces south of Baghdad, Iraq, shared the top five lessons learned, including centralized route clearance, effect-based operations, the importance of a robust engineer equipment fleet, training platoons to be multi-functional engineers and the importance of crew rest management.
“We found centralized route clearance was essential for us to be successful,” Major Stoffels said, “because this allowed the battalion to plan all route clearance operations within the five provinces, allowing the unit to prioritize the routes based upon the threat in the area.”
On average, the unit cleared about 4,000 kilometers a month, and at times when the threat of improvised explosive devices increased, the amount of kilometers cleared doubled to ensure the roads were safe for the local populous.
Major Stoffels also said the 9th Eng. Bn. learned the importance of planning operations with a certain outcome in mind and gave an example of training the Iraqi Army and Iraqi Police on the importance of crime scene investigation. By showing the Iraqi Security Forces that crime scene investigation would at times result in finding an IED emplacement or network, it convinced them to start their own lab.
The third lesson learned by the 9th Eng. Bn. consisted of having a robust engineer equipment fleet, allowing them to complete any engineering mission assigned, including route clearance and general engineering. Having a larger fleet enabled the unit to be less affected by the ordering of parts on low density items or on equipment that wasn’t in the military ordering system.
Major Stoffels also said every engineer in his unit was cross trained on other military occupational specialties while downrange.
“Sappers on dozers — it is a new thing and they enjoyed it,” he said.
This broke up the monotony of the long hours and the miles logged on the road for the route clearance teams and allowed the general engineering Soldiers to get time off the construction site, he said. Each Soldier benefitted from the change of pace during the deployment, which aided in keeping them alert during their route clearance missions.
The last lesson shared by Major Stoffels was the importance of crew rest cycles. His command found that many of the Soldiers during their rest time had to pull maintenance. Because of this, they needed more time to wind down before being able to sleep, causing an overall lack of sleep and mission ineffectiveness. To solve the problem, Major Stoffels said leaders ensured “Soldiers were sleeping by checking their rooms during lights out, which allowed us to manage crew rest.”
