Southern Brigade PSO

[hptmurphy]

I came home very angry from Operation New Dawn 04 and took a few days of thinking of what was to be posted on the subject ......

The first point to be made is this operation should be renamed operation cluster****!

For those who don't know what a PSO operation is, it is designed to exercise troops in a peace keeping/enforcement operation before deploying overseas. This time it was the 4th battallions turn before they deploy in Liberia.

I hope they have a long hard think about the 80 hour exercise of last week or boy are we going to have massive casualties.

All the primary ingredients for a military operation were missing.

Command and Control

Service Support

Communications ( who is paying my mobile phone bill)

Soldiers !

The junior officer cadre in the operation haven't a clue of what their role in the DF is.

The majority of the young private soldiers are equally as clue less........and the whole shambles was only propped up by a few canny senior NCOs ...well done to all of you...you are the army !

The FCA trainng element was coherent and reasonable given time constrictions. The FCA force commander was quite credible...up to the point where lost the plot and started bollocking people for his own mistakes.

One particular officer from the 13th would really want to asses his own performance ...and how to polish his boots......absoloutley clueless.


Without going into endless detail....the RDF taskings were credible but negligible...the whole peace support op went out the window and it degenerated into a green war!

People and man power were wasted and secondary taskings were ignored. Information was non existant and integral skills were ignored. It was commented on from some well thought of FCA personnel that if the officer corps of this battalion were working in civvy street.... They would be sacked long a go.

This was the most wasteful operation I have ever seen and the organisational elements were disgraceful. Even the PDF battalion commander hadn't a clue what was going on!

Either very little time was given to the planning ...or the planners are just clowns.....The whole thing from start to finish was just a series of disjointed unprepared , unsupported and ill thought out disasters.


If the role of the FCA is to be upgraded to be included in futre peace operations abroad you can count me out....I wouldn't follow the current officer corps of the army a cross the road!

[hptmurphy]

Even the usual guy couldn't have repaired or set up a whole battalions comms network! but at least he would have had some insight in to it....come back all is forgiven!

[Goldie fish]

I think part of the problem stems from the "too many chiefs" problem. When more thasn one officer of similar rank gather in one location,everyone wants to be in charge. When things go wrong,nobody is willing to make a decision that though unpopular,would prevent the episode from becoming a further shambles.

Nothing against them as individuals,but as a group their usefulness divides proportionally to the amount involved. I think many are trying to prove themselves before the reorg too,and some may be trying too hard.

[hptmurphy]

In fairness to the RDF officers all the shambles occurred when any plan came into contact with a PDF officer!

[Thorpe]

Ive heard some juicy ones about the operationa as weel and to tell you the truth im not surprised.

[trellheim]

Was it a training ex or a qualification ex ?

If the former, what about AARs and debriefs. Surely there must be some element .

What about umpiring .

[Groundhog]

4th Bn. :D

The junior officer cadre in the operation haven't a clue of what their role in the DF is.

Its to get a (free) degree in business studies surely.

The majority of the young private soldiers are equally as clue less........

Presumably most of them have no overseas experience.

and the whole shambles was only propped up by a few canny senior NCOs ...well done to all of you...you are the army !

No surprise there either.

the whole peace support op went out the window and it degenerated into a green war!

Well that's a possibility too in real life.

This was the most wasteful operation I have ever seen and the organisational elements were disgraceful. Even the PDF battalion commander hadn't a clue what was going on!

Did some one mention Mirror Image? :D Another memorable 4th Bn **** up.

[DeV]

The NCO cadre is the backbone of any army. Especially SNCOs

[Groundhog]

In fairness to the RDF officers all the shambles occurred when any plan came into contact with a PDF officer!

One of my favourite memories is participating in a company attack on an exercise in Kilworth. The company commander lined the whole company up and ordered "charge".:D All we were short was a bugler and red coats. Later I identified that annoying thumping noise as that commandant reaching his ceiling.

[Groundhog]

Then there was the time that a screwdriver disappeared in the guardroom in Limerick prison. The orderly officer ordered us all to be searched thoroughly on the way out of the prison in case we had passed the screwdriver on to a prisoner. Think about it.:D

[warlord]

[i]

One of my favourite memories is participating in a company attack on an exercise in Kilworth. The company commander lined the whole company up and ordered "charge".:D All we were short was a bugler and red coats. Later I identified that annoying thumping noise as that commandant reaching his ceiling. [/B]

Groundhog what appointment were you in? I was a DS on that litlle shambles. Most officers over the rank of commandant dont have a clue about how to conduct tactical operations and the young officers that do wont say a thing because of the politics in the officer corp.

At least you only had the one attack to get through, I was stuck DS'ing all 3.

[hptmurphy]

There was a debrief which was attended by the troop officer...who came away more annoyed from than he had been when he went in....The gobshites were congratulating each other!

He had asked the section comanders to attend but in the interests of publicy safety we declined as we were still carrying BAPs and live at the time and the temptation to use it would have been too great.
I rcekon Liberia could turn into another Vietnam if somebody deploys the 4th batt on overseas service....Just as well Smith is making contingencey plans for the RDF to go and bail them out ....WHEN....they make a balls of it!

[Groundhog]

Groundhog what appointment were you in?

Thankfully, I was a mere section commander.

[barry sheehan]

yes the minister is really making plans to send the crack troops of the rdf overseas to bale out a pdf unit.
this is because the rdf is so good that.
a/they dont need any build up training.
b/they deport themselves better than any soldier who has had years of experience.
c/they dont require the neccesary legislation to deploy,as opposed to there inept pdf cousins who allways do.

yeah right!dream on.

[warlord]

Originally posted by Groundhog
[i]Thankfully, I was a mere section commander.

What section ? and what Platoon?

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