Khaos Company: a commander's account and lessons learned from the 2019 MAGTF warfighting exercise PDF
Preview Khaos Company: a commander's account and lessons learned from the 2019 MAGTF warfighting exercise
KHAOS COMPANY K H A O S C O M PA N Y A Commander’s Account and Lessons Learned from the 2019 MAGTF Warfighting Exercise Captain Matthew S. Hanks, USMC with Williamson Murray, PhD Quantico, Virginia 2021 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA Names: Hanks, Matthew S., 1989– author. | Murray, Williamson. | Marine Corps Uni- versity (U.S.). Press, issuing body. Title: Khaos Company : a commander’s account and lessons learned from the 2019 MAGTF warfighting exercise / Matthew S. Hanks ; with Williamson Murray. Other titles: Commander’s account and lessons learned from the 2019 MAGTF war- fighting exercise Description: Quantico, Virginia : Marine Corps University Press, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Summary: “Khaos Company offers a short story written with the intent to provide Marines with the perspective of what it is like to operate and fight at the company- and small-unit levels in operations of such large scale and scope. This is a story about how a small yet cohesive company of Marines experienced chaos, friction, uncertainty, surprise, failure, success, rela- tionships, and executed the maneuver warfare principles outlined in our doctrinal warfighting philosophy”— Provided by publisher. Identifiers: LCCN 2021005089 | ISBN 9781732003170 (paperback) Subjects: LCSH: War games—California—Twentynine Palms. | United States. Marine Corps—Infantry—Drill and tactics. | United States. Marine Corps. Marine Regiment, 8th. Battalion, 3rd. Kilo Company. | Hanks, Matthew S., 1989—Military leadership. Classification: LCC U310 .H225 2021 | DDC 359.9/64809794—dc23 | SUDOC D 214.502:K 52 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021005089 DISCLAIMER The views expressed in this publication are solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Marine Corps University, the U.S. Marine Corps, the Department of the Navy, or the U.S. government. The information contained in this book was accurate at the time of printing. Every effort has been made to secure copy- right permission on excerpts and artworks reproduced in this volume. Please contact the editors to rectify inadvertent errors or omissions. In general, works of authorship from Marine Corps University Press (MCUP) are created by U.S. government employees as part of their official duties and are not eligible for copyright protection in the United States; however, some of MCUP’s works available on a publicly accessible website may be subject to copyright or other intellectual property rights owned by non-Department of Defense (DOD) parties. Regardless of whether the works are marked with a copy- right notice or other indication of non-DOD ownership or interests, any use of MCUP works may subject the user to legal liability, including liability to such non-DOD own- ers of intellectual property or other protectable legal interests. The production of this book and other MCUP products is graciously supported by the Marine Corps University Foundation. Published by Marine Corps University Press 2044 Broadway Street Quantico, VA 22134 1st Printing, 2021 ISBN: 978-1-7320031-7-0 THIS VOLUME IS FREELY AVAILABLE AT WWW.USMCU.EDU/MCUPRESS CONTENTS Foreword vii Preface xv Acknowledgments xix Introduction xxi by Williamson Murray, PhD Chapter 1. The Calm before the Storm 3 Chapter 2. The Defense of Prospect 47 Chapter 3. The Long Night Movement 90 Chapter 4. Hidalgo City, Part I 110 Chapter 5. Hidalgo City, Part II 145 Epilogue 193 Conclusion 197 by Williamson Murray, PhD Appendices Appendix A. Lessons Learned 199 Appendix B. MAGTF Warfighting Exercise 212 (MWX) 1-20 Discussion Guide Appendix C. The Origins of Khaos Company 239 Glossary of Selected Terms and Abbreviations 243 Selected Further Reading 249 Index 259 ——— v FOREWORD For many years, we have been conducting integrated combined arms exercises at Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center (MCAGCC), Twentynine Palms, Cali- fornia. The emphasis has always been on live fire, com- bined-arms integration with maneuver to practice the most difficult and dangerous operation in the Marine Corps’ repertoire. The ability to combine every means of providing fire support for maneuver forces that are either defending or closing with and destroying en- emy forces is the hallmark of a professional military force and the only place we can put it all together is at MCAGCC. While remaining tremendously valuable, these ex- ercises have also engendered a mindset that could have proven detrimental to the Corps in a conventional fight. That mindset was that all operations are conducted like lane training and according to a set script. It may seem like I am overstating the description of this mentality, but I am here to tell you that I have seen it in action in our training venues and it cannot continue to exist. I ——— vii commanded MCAGCC from 2016 to 2018, after re- turning from a yearlong deployment to Iraq, where I was the target engagement authority supporting Iraqi forces as they tried to retake portions of their country from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Based on my experiences in Iraq, what I saw happening on the desert floor there at Twentynine Palms bothered me. As I studied the fighting in the Ukraine, I became even more troubled by what I was seeing. Lastly, after I read a monograph from the U.S. Army’s Combined Arms Center, Combat Studies Institute titled We Were Caught Unprepared: The 2006 Hezbollah-Israeli War, I came to the conclusion that we were setting ourselves up for failure with the approach we were taking to Ma- rine Corps training.1 While combined arms proficiency remains necessary, it was nowhere near sufficient for our training and readiness needs. During the summer of 2017, I began discussions with the Tactical Training Exercise Control Group (TTECG) regarding our ability to modify the Integrated Training Exercise (ITX) to include a nonlive fire force- on-force exercise. I also visited the U.S. Army’s National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California, their Joint Readiness Training Center at Fort Polk, Louisiana, and their Joint Multinational Readiness Center at Hoenfels, Germany. I watched the conduct of their force-on-force 1 Matt M. Matthews, We Were Caught Unprepared: The 2006 Hezbollah-Israeli War, Long War Series Occasional Paper 26 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute, U.S. Army Combined Arms Center, 2008). FOREWORD ——— viii exercises, as well as the instrumentation that they use to record every aspect of an exercise in order to play it back to the exercise force in the way of in-stride and post exercise after action reports. These visits left me with the impression that we, as a Marine Corps, were way behind the curve with regard to how professionally we approach training. I then made a visit to the Ukraine and spoke with their armed forces about what was hap- pening in the eastern portion of their country. While much of what they identified as problematic related to their relatively low level of readiness and professional abilities, which they are working hard to overcome, we would have problems with some of the tactics used out there also. For example, when they described the sit- uation of having an armored infantry battalion com- mander keying a handset to communicate and, within two minutes, having rockets land on their position and wipe out the majority of the battalion, I pictured in my mind all the times I have seen our own commanders holding long discussions over the radio nets.2 All of this convinced me that the Marine Corps had to change, and it had to happen fast. The change started with the detailed planning re- quired to find room in the ITX schedule without add- ing more time to the overall exercise due to concerns regarding increased operational tempo demands on the Fleet. The planning also entailed identifying how we 2 Patrick Tucker, “Hacker Shows How to Break into Military Com- munications,” Defense One, 7 August 2014. FOREWORD ——— ix
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