SHARE EPISODE

30.01.2024. SEASON 2 / EPISODE 9.

CWC – The Directing Staff

The Captain’s Warfare Course in Warminster delivers the key skills to the people expected to execute ‘the fight’ in the British Army. During my visits to the team at Warminster, I was struck by the quality of the staff that had been selected for the Directing Staff positions. This group of people really understood the demands of what was needed from staff officers under the extreme stress of combat. Many of them had been there, done that, and got the t-shirt. Often, they had done it more than once and in more than one sort of headquarters. And more than one sort of war.  That diversity of experience is important. The validation of the CWC students cannot, in many ways, be judged for many years. The student coming off the course doesn’t know what they need to know. Their employers – in Brigade headquarters or elsewhere – will also not be able to judge the students post course for at least 6 months to a year after their arrival. And those views will vary hugely depending on the context of each fight: COIN, CT, Conventional arms, hot, arctic, jungle, urban, rural, airborne, armour heavy, coalition, or sovereign – each brings a different set of challenges and requirements. Understanding this diversity requires a set of skills, a set of people that want to adapt and evolve training as fast as realities on the battlefields change, but retaining the foundations and core skills that are needed across the differing demands in different HQs on different operations. All of that requires a dynamism and fluidity in training that too much structure can stymie. Rhys Pogson-Hughes-Emanuel exemplified that approach – something as rare as unicorns back in the day. He had obviously thought a lot about what he wanted the students to leave with: about behaviours and confidence as much as foundational knowledge.

LISTEN HERE

OTHER EPISODES IN SERIES

VIEW ALL
SEASON 1 / EP.Trailer
Trailer episode: Why now and why is this an important conversation?
Military training budgets are getting hot in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. Holding big live exercises is expensive....

LISTEN HERE

SEASON 1 / EP.1
Training for lethality, readiness and deterrence
Former UK Chief of Defence Staff General David Richards talks to Peter Roberts about how important training is in...

LISTEN HERE

SEASON 1 / EP.2
Simulation has changed military training. A lot.
When militaries started using simulators back in the 1930s, live training remained the priority. Things have reversed...

LISTEN HERE

SEASON 1 / EP.3
First learn, then train, then fight
You can train a military as much as you want, but if you are not training the right skills for the coming fight, it is...

LISTEN HERE

SEASON 1 / EP.4
Whither the intellectual renaissance in education and training?
After their experience in Vietnam, the US military actively pursued thinking about warfare in different ways – and...

LISTEN HERE

SEASON 1 / EP.5
What could the military learn from civil teaching and training?
Teacher training includes education processes, systems, human behaviours and methods of engagement with students. That...

LISTEN HERE

SEASON 1 / EP.6
Money, exercises and simulation
Peter talks to Professor Jim Storr about the use of simulators in the British military since the 1980s. Why and how...

LISTEN HERE

SEASON 1 / EP.7
Military training, Primes and SMEs
As simulators have taken an increasingly prominent role in military training since the 1980s, their complexity – and...

LISTEN HERE

SEASON 1 / EP.8
Credibility is about training people not buying equipment
The capability of a military force is often measured by the equipment it operates. If a cursory examination of combat...

LISTEN HERE

SEASON 1 / EP.9
Combat, Training and Culture
Different cultures conduct military training and education in very different ways. The Israeli Defence Force might be...

LISTEN HERE

SEASON 1 / EP.10
Harder than your worst day in combat
The best training many of us experienced has always taken us outside of our comfort zone. For military forces this is...

LISTEN HERE

SEASON 1 / EP.13
Fighting and Debating
Good wartime commanders are very different to those who excel in peace. How do we educate and train people for both...

LISTEN HERE

SEASON 1 / EP.14
Best Tank on the Battlefield?
The best tank on the battlefield is determined by the best crew inside it, not the best...

LISTEN HERE

SEASON 1 / EP.15
So What Did We Learn?
This first series of this podcast on military training has taken us from World War One to modern day combat operations,...

LISTEN HERE

SEASON 2 / EP.1
Naval Training: Putting People First
For decades, navies have crewed the ship ‘cos the ship fights (the people – apparently – didn’t). According to...

LISTEN HERE

SEASON 2 / EP.2
Can Partnering Work in Military Training?
Commercial arrangements with providers of military training are usually transactional: most will have experienced how...

LISTEN HERE

SEASON 2 / EP.3
Combat Engineers – trained to fix stuff under fire
On any modern battlefield, the people you want most in a fight – be it in urban terrain or facing a determined...

LISTEN HERE

SEASON 2 / EP.4
The Captain’s Warfare Course
The CWC provides junior officers with the skills they need to plan and execute operations at the Battlegroup to Brigade...

LISTEN HERE

SEASON 2 / EP.5
The Engine
Everyone seems to be talking about technology as the engine of future training but sometimes that drives a conversation...

LISTEN HERE

SEASON 2 / EP.6
CWC: Learning and Development
In this episode we go back down to Warminster – for the second of a series of interviews with the staff of the...

LISTEN HERE

SEASON 2 / EP.7
Military Training: What Needs to Change?
In 2023, a report by the Royal United Services Institute on military training didn't make headlines. And that's a shame...

LISTEN HERE

SEASON 2 / EP.11
The Grizz
Two Junior NCOs from the British Army talk about their experiences of the Armoured Close Recce course in Warminster...

LISTEN HERE

SEASON 2 / EP.12
CWC – The Graduates
Peter sits down with two officers from the British Army who had just completed the culminating exercise of the...

LISTEN HERE

SEASON 2 / EP.13
The British Army Land Training System
Over the past 12 months the British Army has designed a model to train its entire force to a set standard. It will also...

LISTEN HERE

SEASON 2 / EP.14
How will this feel different?
The competition for a commercial strategic partner for the British Army as part of the Land Training System continues....

LISTEN HERE