Engineers pioneer course for captains

A NEWLY developed course for Engineer officers has been completed at the School of Military Engineering (SME) in Sydney.

The two-week Engineer Battle Captains Course (EBCC) is run by the school’s Engineer Operations Wing, and course manager Capt Matt Prior said it was developed and introduced for the benefit of Engineer Corps captains.

“Subjects include employment of engineers across a spectrum of different operations – obstacle integration, mobility planning, complex war fighting, engineer reconnaissance, civil and military cooperation (CIMIC), obstacle crossings, IED detection, urban operations and squadron command post exercises,” he said.

“We also had media lecturers speak on how the media interacts with the ADF and we had humanitarian-organisation representatives visit to talk about what they expect of the ADF and how they see their interaction will be on operations.

“So, after this course, the future engineer commanders have already met some of the civilian organisations that they may be working with in the future within an operational area.”

Capt Prior said the course culminated with a one-and-a-half-day command-post exercise (CPX), where students put into practise what they had learnt on the course.

“It was a squadron CPX where the students were supporting simulated battlegroups and the staff stage-managed the interaction between supported units through either a regimental headquarters or a battlegroup headquarters, so students were tying into a battlegroup scenario,” he said.

“During the exercise, they had to implement a river crossing which they had developed earlier in the course and then the CPX transitioned into defensive operations and future planning for CIMIC tasks in south west Sydney.

“Staff also threw in a number of quick-decision exercises (QDEs) to test the students flexibility and planning and, in the cases when the plans had been well thought through, some of the students actually defeated the QDEs and did quite well.”

Capt Prior said the course and its content was well received by students and staff, but there was some improvement needed before the next course was run.

“A few holes were picked up in the course but, overall, there was a positive reaction.

“We are planning to run the next course in November and, after the assessment of this course, we intend to build a few improvements into the next one. I think we have a good course as it stands, but a bit of polishing could be done.”

The course was designed to train junior engineer captains in the staff appointments they are likely to encounter during their tenure as squadron 2ICs, squadron reconnaissance officers and staff officers.