NOVO SELO TRAINING AREA, Bulgaria — Breach and Clear: U.S. Soldiers with 4th Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, conducted an urban assault course at Novo Selo Training Area, Feb. 10-13, 2025.
“Today we are out here conducting team urban operations, learning how to clear a room and destroy the enemy,” said Sgt. Timothy Bannon, an infantryman assigned to 4th Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division.
The purpose of the training is to prepare squads to react to contact with an enemy while preventing noncombatant casualties and collateral damage when conducting military operations on urban terrain.
One thing practiced with repetition during the training was entering and clearing a room, known to Soldiers as Battle Drill Six.
Battle Drill Six has the following standards: The platoon kills, captures or forces the withdrawal of all enemy in the building; the platoon prevents noncombatant casualties and collateral damage; and the platoon maintains a sufficient fighting force to defeat the enemy’s counterattack.
Through battle drills like this, 1st Armored Division, a rotational force of V Corps, enhances its capability in the European theater to adapt and respond accordingly to any situation that may arise in the current warfighting environment.
“This training helps to build familiarization amongst the team and build more lethality,” says Sgt. Jose Vega, an infantryman assigned to 3rd ABCT.
With the purpose of creating realistic scenarios, Soldiers acted as both enemy combatants and noncombatants. Contact is expected, and with nonlethal simulation rounds, troops must navigate through a purposely chaotic situation without noncombatant casualties.
Heavily emphasized throughout the training is communication, whether that be silent or verbal.
One form of silent communication utilized in the training was the use of chem-lights while entering into a suspected weapons factory. As the initial team breaches, clearing rooms at a swift yet methodical pace, the team leader lights a chem-light and leaves it on the floor, signaling to the proceeding team that the room is clear.
“It helps us build better communication and teamwork,” says Cpl. Caleb Hilsman, an infantryman assigned to 3rd ABCT. “You have to know your team pretty intimately to be effective in a situation like that.”
Executing the training successfully requires squads to be familiar with one another and familiar with the Standard Operating Procedures (SOP), which is why repetition is so emphasized. Soldiers should be able to perform it precisely when integrated into any squad on the battlefield.
“Sometimes we’ll get our partner forces here and train with them as well,” Hilsman mentions. “It helps with that cohesion.”
V Corps presence across the European theater is built on the ability to provide and maintain deployable forces by building readiness, lethality and interoperability through unit-level training, international exercises, and relationships with Allies along NATO’s Eastern flank.
“This training builds teams, which enables battalions, which has us ready to deter the enemy,” says Vega.
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