i was a tank platoon leader and mortar platoon leader in BRD in 1975-78. we would do dry fire exercises in the motor pool, use board wargames and miniature terrain tables and field phones to practice fo and fdc procedures, etc. if the majority of the bde combat troops are grunts they can do almost everything walking w/o using fuel, vehicles, MILES gear or even ammo or blanks.
wonder what the combat ready criteria is? my csc cdr got annoyed when i left a gun track in the motor pool during a rollout. “why is it there?” “it’s esc red” “why?” “missing rubber on over half of 2 road wheels” “can it drive? can it shoot?” “yes” “you made your point. GO GET IT!”
I remember trying to encapsulize what was wrong with one of our jeeps. It had so many things wrong with it, in frustration I entered an acronym that got me in a lot of hot water at Battalion, especially after they figured it out: MFB.
Mother F---er's Broke.
Oh, how I remember the good old days! lol
We were able to do a lot of drills without leaving the tac park, such as missile reloading drills on the Chaparrals, aircraft recognition, to name just two. I had a Vulcan platoon with 3 acting jack squad leaders, so constant training was a must.
I was a mech. infantry platoon leader from 77 to 80, in 3rd Armored Division. Much the same story from here. Our 81mm platoon got tapped to shoot illum for the tankers night gunnery course, but got no illum to support night fire for the Infantry.
Signing for M16 firing pins to go to the range to qualify.
Training/qualifying with sub cal ammo (.22) for the 81mm mortars and 90mm recoiless.
"Controlled Cannibalization" for vehicle parts was the norm.
Counting expendable items, sheets and pillow cases for change of command inventories.
Etc....
Somehow, we always managed to be combat ready by USR standards.