Case Study Obstacle Briefing

Candidate Brown correctly and completely addressed his five-paragraph order brief. SNC also briefed a good plan to get a candidate through the obstacle, and this was accomplished very quickly and without error. After this, however, Candidate Brown's plan was flawed; he attempted to pass the 55-gallon drum over the log utilizing rope, which contravened instruction provided that the log could not bear the weight of the drum. This detail ended up being irrelevant, as the fire team failed in several attempts to pass the drum over the log, losing it every time. Despite failing several times, Candidate Brown didn't alter his plan or adapt to the limitations of the mission. Additionally, Candidate Brown primarily utilized only himself and one

Candidate Satterwhite ensured he addressed all paragraphs in the 5-paragraph order, however he took no time prior to the delivery of his brief to develop an initial plan. He was unable to provide his subordinates with an executable plan and was forced to develop a plan as he went along. This left his fire team questioning SNC and resulting in both lost time and lost momentum as he attempted to figure out how to accomplish the mission. SNC did not identify potential points of friction in which to place himself, instead sending two fire team members through the tunnel while he remained on the platform. This diminished his ability to control the fire team as he relied on the fire team members to communicate the situation to him and slowing

Candidate Suarez gave a detailed brief until he missed paragraph four and five in his order. SNC’s tasking statements were clear, detailed, and assigned to specific candidates, however they did not encompass the mission to completion. When faced with failure at his first attempt to complete the obstacle, SNC immediately developed and implemented a new plan, maintaining his team’s momentum and displaying a decisive bias for action. SNC’s ability to immediately develop new plans allowed him to keep his team moving toward mission accomplishment. While SNC had good command and communication with his team, he could have better positioned himself at the point of friction when his team started to become more spread out. Additionally, once the first

Candidate Hall was unable to effectively manage his time during the conduct of the evaluation. After receiving his brief, he took the opportunity to conduct an initial leader’s reconnaissance. Once the tower directed that his ten minutes to complete the mission had begun he spent an additional two and a half minutes looking at the obstacle and preparing his order. Once he finally called his fire team over, it took an additional two minutes to complete his brief. He maintained good eye contact with his fire team but was not very confident in his delivery as evident by repeatedly clearing his throat and struggling with stating a mission both times he briefed it. During execution he also had a nonchalant approach. When he was given a penalty,

Candidate Raies delivered a complete order but attempted to use large complex words to add emphasis to the order. These larger words caused him to slip up and miss some critical details of the statements he was trying to convey. This also led to him not briefing an initial plan and wasting time once he climbed onto the obstacle to develop one. While he developed his plan on the obstacle, his team sat idle and failed to maintain progress toward the objective. During execution, he utilized mission type orders to accomplish his goal, but froze when one of his subordinates was given a penalty. After this failure, it took Candidate Raies almost two minutes to develop a new plan. This affected his overall confidence for the rest of the exercise

Candidate Branom’s five paragraph order was extremely detailed, contained information from higher’s warning order, and was one of the few orders that attempted to brief TCMs. However, SNC’s frequent pauses, stumbling of words, and repeating of information caused him to mismanage his time and detracted from an otherwise highly detailed and concise five paragraph order. SNC’s sense of urgency and strong verbal and non-verbal communication with his team directly translated to positive control while traversing a danger area and making contact with the enemy; this strong communication came from a calm and confident demeanor at decision points, causing his team to push through to mission accomplishment. Finally, SNC failed to adequately manage and

Candidate Perras’ brief was choppy, and structurally unclear. During situation and mission there was limited confidence displayed in the information provided by the evaluator, which translated into long pauses and stumbling over his words during the delivery. This directly translated into visible confusion by the team during receipt of his order. Once they stepped off on the execution, their pace was consistent with the tactical situation, and use of non-verbal communication and control was successful at the outset of the movement. Upon contact, an ADDRAC was issued, however it was unclear and fragmented. The team repeated what they thought they heard but there was no clear indication that they understood where the enemy was located. This

Candidate Kocic’s stumbled through his brief and began to lose awareness of what he had written down. SNC began to slow and jumble information provided from the evaluator, specifically replacing fire team with squad and retracting statements to correct them but still not briefing the corrections with confidence. SNC did not mention Command and Signal directly in his brief, only making mention of hand and arm signals once throughout the delivery of the brief to the team. Upon stepping off his speed was consistent with the situation, however, he did not shoot his initial azimuth from the provided location and therefore was left of the intended route. SNC rushed the team into the execution, and the terrain dictated their movements, causing

Candidate Hutchison posted security prior to briefing. His brief delivery was at a normal volume, a calm demeanor, a conversational tone, and had occasional pauses. His mission statement was briefed twice and included a main effort. He did not specify if there were any higher, adjacent or supporting units, or attachments or detachments in his Situation paragraph. During execution, he maintained tactical awareness, keeping a security presence during his movement and staying within the tree line. However, he did not move with a sense of urgency and had to be prompted to do so by the evaluator. Upon enemy contact, SNC delivered a solid ADDRAC and got his squad on line. He remained back behind his squad 5-10 meters where he could best oversee

SNC had a good command presence, clear and concise tone of voice, and maintained eye contact with his FT while briefing. The SOM given contained no executable information and was actually nothing more than the Coordinating Instructions. Once the execution began, SNC started giving clear and concise orders. When SNC remained quiet as the FT was negotiating the obstacle, one of the FT members began giving commands and SNC did not make any attempts to belay him. SNC had a hard time making adjustments to his plans. After sending a FT member to the other side of the obstacle and realizing this provided no advantage he had the FT member return. Instead of adjusting, SNC sent another FT member across with the exact same result. Once again another

Candidate Lucchesi failed to address higher or supporting in friendly situation. He briefed coordinating instructions information as his scheme of maneuver, addressed coordinating instructions as 'none', and also failed to issue tasks to his team members. SNC did not use the order effectively to communicate his plan. He lacked command presence during his brief, showing that he was not comfortable with the orders process or how the information was to be organized. The lack of clear initial guidance to his team members in the order required the creation of a plan at the start of the execution, delaying initial progress. After friction was first encountered, the team leader lost momentum due to the delay in adjusting the plan and re-engaging the

Candidate Couch took a long time to get started briefing. He spoke softly, had a slow pace and a calm demeanor, with occasional pauses during his brief. He briefed a detailed friendly situation, covering missions and roles of higher and adjacent units. He provided a well-thought out mission statement and indicated that his squad was the main effort. He walked his team through his scheme of maneuver and provided a solid initial plan. In his Administration paragraph, he briefed generic Med-Evac and EPW information and did not actually mention which fire teams were to handle these issues. Throughout the movement, SNC stayed within the tree line and made good use of hand and arm signals. He stopped, set up security, and requested permission

Candidate Steinbach briefed a detailed orientation with all tactical control measures included. His five paragraph order was complete, with the exception of briefing danger areas to his fire team. Though his order was complete, he took a long time to brief, thus wasting time to actually complete the problem. Candidate Steinbach’s Fire Team had an extra member and SNC ensured to engage all candidates to work toward mission accomplishment. Candidate Steinbach set in security and frequently checked on him. SNC’s initial plan was not feasible and failed. Candidate Steinbach did not allow this to distract him from continuing the problem. He quickly developed a new plan with input from his Fire Team. Candidate Steinbach acted with a sense

Candidate Moir's five-paragraph order was detailed, thorough and without omission. Once on the objective, Candidate Moir improvised a counterweight by tying his canteen to one end of the rope, an innovation no other candidate thought of. With tighter knots, this strategy would have proven effective; however, Candidate Moir was undone by another candidate's poor knot tying. After attempting this strategy without a candidate on the log, Candidate Moir adjusted to have a candidate on the log while attempting this strategy again. Candidate Moir successfully passed the rope, but there his progress stopped. Candidate Moir was unable to progress because he got hung up on knot tying and securing the rope to the top bar. Because of this, no candidate

Candidate Mathieson began the SULE I evaluation with an above standard five paragraph order. However, when briefing situation she only briefed enemy situation and then moved on to the mission. She had an outstanding executable plan due to a complete SOM and tasks. When SNC transitioned to the execution, it was apparent that she was distracted and had a loss of situational awareness, as she was the navigator. This forced SNC to continually check compass and take eyes off of surroundings. Upon contact she immediately called for her team to "hit the deck" and began an ADDRAC though it was an incorrect direction. After seeing the actual location of the enemy she eventually gave a correction as "face this way candidate" vs contact left or face