‘Corps must speak same language to win next war’
Officers drill focuses on interoperability, collaboration
Dozens of cadets from the IDF’s officers course are taking part in a week-long advanced field training exercise in central Israel, aimed to challenge them and familiarize themselves with the land they are sworn to protect.
“It’s the last chance for the cadets to really challenge themselves before being thrown in the deep end,” said Lt.-Col. Idan Krepel, a Hadas Battalion commander in the Officer’s Training Academy as we sat in a field next to troops who were preparing for the night’s exercise.
The drill saw troops – both female and male cadets – work on tactics, navigation, and understanding the territory they found themselves in, mainly open fields and forests.
Familiarizing the cadets with the land was one of the main focuses of the drill, Kepler explained.
“Situational awareness is paramount. When you know what’s happening around you, that there are obstacles and surprises but you are still able to bring your troops from point A to point B safely while under pressure, that’s what we are training them for,” he said.
According to him, “the soldier sees territory differently than a civilian and an officer sees it differently from a soldier. The soldier might know how to get from one point to another quietly, but the officer thinks about the obstacles and where the enemy might have an advantage over troops and vice versa.”
Pointing to a road between two hills, he explained that troops could easily use that road to conquer the territory and arrive at their end point, but they would be fully exposed to enemy forces .
“Officers who don’t understand the land can by mistake lead their troops into enemy territory, and we can’t have that. What’s happening here is priceless,” Kepler said.
Kepler told The Jerusalem Post that unlike in previous field training drills which took place in southern Israel’s deserts, the one in central Israel is more difficult for cadets. Nevertheless, cadets need to be able to turn any sort of topography to their advantage.
“We want them to feel like they own the land,” Captain Uriel Wajner, company commander in the Hadas Battalion
told the Post.
The drill also focused on the interoperability and the collaboration of cadets belonging to the different branches and corps such as from the infantry, engineering, air defense, armored, artillery corps as well as special forces like Sayeret Matkal working together.
“Everyone is in this together, the guy in the tank might see something in one way and can share his knowledge with someone in artillery who might look at the same situation differently,” Wajner said. “We’d be missing out if we didn’t take advantage of bringing the cadets from all the different corps together.”
According to Kepler, “officers in the artillery corps have to understand everything the officer in the infantry knows. They have to speak the same language because when we have to go to war, we will win only if we speak in this shared language.”
With the military’s new multi-year Momentum plan focusing on turning the IDF into a deadly, hi-tech force, a significant proportion of the military’s plans have focused on innovation and advanced technology.
But according to Wajner, “we still want our troops to be able to navigate by the stars, not only by satellite images. The enemy might have more primitive technology in comparison with the IDF, but they know the land. So we have to as well, with or without military technology, our officers need to know how to get to the next point for the mission.”