Why Are We Playing Checkers Instead of Chess?

Integrating Tabletop Exercises (TTX) into the Maneuver Captains Career Course (MCCC)

The modern operational environment is characterized by increased complexity that requires agile and adaptive leaders. MCCC is the common core for all maneuver officers, select maneuver support officers, and international exchange officers. In preparation for company command and staff officer roles, the course provides a foundation in combined arms tactics, doctrine, and methodology. However, what it currently lacks is practical application of the previously stated topics in an environment that enable trial and error—creating a gap in development of captains moving into leadership roles from the company to brigade levels. Integration of robust and realistic TTXs into the MCCC curriculum will significantly enhance the course’s effectiveness by providing a cost and time effective solution with minimal changes to course structure. This would allow new maneuver captains to apply doctrinal knowledge, refine critical thinking, and develop “soft skills” necessary for effective leadership in complex operational environments.

The current MCCC curriculum is a 22-week resident program at Fort Benning, Georgia for Infantry and Armor Captains. Training outcomes are as follows:

· Mastering Troop Leading Procedures

· Effectively integrating standard enabling assets for respective units, proficiency in MDMP for battalion operations

· Proficiency in Company-level management, capable of developing and implementing holistic fitness programs

· Able to apply critical thinking to understand and realize mission command to build teams, establish shared understanding, issue clear commander’s intent, demonstrate disciplined initiative, use mission orders, and accept prudent risk

· Prepared to contribute immediately with an understanding of the variables that make their future BCT

· Morally and ethically grounded with Army Values and the Warrior Ethos (U.S. Army, n.d.).

The course does an excellent job in providing students with a strong doctrinal foundation and at meeting the stated outcomes of the course. While this course is effective, it can be further enhanced by incorporating opportunities for practical application of decision-making in dynamic scenarios, a spot where TTXs excel. Why not play chess instead of checkers?

Photo courtesy of the author.

TTXs are discussion-based sessions where participants talk through their roles and responses during a simulated scenario, usually over a map with “chess pieces” (University of Wisconsin-Madison Police Department, 2014). They are distinct from field exercises as they focus on dialogue rather than physical action. The key benefits provided by TTXs are their lack of resource intensity in terms of time, money, and manpower. They also provide low stress environments that enable trial and error learning, they quickly develop critical thinking and problem solving, enhance soft skills by mirroring real world environments, and identify gaps and best practices that could later be brought from the schoolhouse to the force.

The proposed change should be light in adjustments to the dimensions of course curriculum. Company phase where students master TLPs should not be altered and emphasis on learning the orders process and combined arms tactics should remain. However, in the Battalion phase, during each MDMP iteration, students should use the Battalion order they create in class to then create a company plan which they in-turn “fight” the instructors. The overall iteration per TTX should not be more than an hour and if class size is an issue, pairing captains together into teams should be permitted. The exercise nor the company order should be graded but should be treated as a combination of self and institutional development where students learn from their mistakes.

My proposal is not a new one in the way of schools; on Fort Benning, Cavalry Leaders Course (CLC) applies these teaching techniques and being a graduate of both programs, I feel that my understanding of tactical knowledge was increased following CLC. Overall, I feel the changes proposed in this essay should provide more capable staff officers that understand the planning needed for their peers in command, and commanders understand which questions they need to ask of the staff officers. It also provides maneuver captains to “get their feet wet” without consequence to the force or risk poor marks on evaluations for mistakes that could be caught much earlier in the schoolhouse.

CPT Brett Larkin is an Armor Officer and the current HHC Commander, 41^st Engineer Battalion, 10^th Mountain Division. He has a B.A. in Ancient Civilizations and Sociology from University of Iowa.