Ranger School - Training - Desert Phase

Desert Phase

The Desert Phase was designed to instruct its students in Desert Warfare operations and basic survival in the deserts of the Middle East. John Lock describes the Desert Phase as follows.

The phase commenced with an in-flight rigging and airborne assault—or an air assault landing by non airborne personnel, onto an objective. Following the mission, the students moved into a cantonment area. Remaining in garrison for five days, they then received classes on desert-survival techniques to include water procurement and water preservation. Leadership responsibilities, standing operating procedures (SOPs), reconnaissance, and ambush techniques were also reviewed. Additional emphasis was placed on battle drills to include react to enemy contact, react to indirect fire, and react to near and far ambushes. Drills on how to breach barbed and concertina wire with wire cutters and assault ladders were taught as were techniques on how to clear a trench line and how to assault a fortified bunker.

The remainder of the phase comprised patrolling during field training exercises—"reconnaissance, raid, or ambush missions". "The phase culminated with an airborne assault—with non-Airborne trucked—by the entire class on a joint objective."

Ranger School's initial evaluation of a Desert Phase was a cadre-lead patrol at White Sands Missile Range, New Mexico in early 1971 called Arid Fox I. In June 1971, the Ranger Training Brigade conducted Arid Fox II, the first student-led patrol. This was part of the brigade's continuing evaluation of the possibility of integrating a Desert Phase into the Ranger course. The first students to undergo the Desert Phase were selected from Ranger Class 13-71 (class 13 in 1971). When the bulk of the class went on to begin the Florida phase, the airborne qualified members of Ranger Class 13-71 (Desert) donned MC1-1 parachutes, boarded a C-130 aircraft and parachuted into the White Sands Missile Range.

Upon formal integration into the Ranger Course, the Desert Phase was initially run by the Ranger School's 4th (Desert Ranger) Training Company stationed at Fort Bliss, Texas from 1983 to 1987. When the Desert Phase was officially introduced, the length of Ranger School was lengthened to 65 days. At the outset, the Desert Phase was the last phase of the Ranger Course—following the Benning, Mountain and Florida Phases, respectively.

In 1987, the unit was expanded into the 7th Ranger Training Battalion and moved to Dugway Proving Grounds, Utah.

In October 1991, the course was increased to sixty-eight days and the sequence was changed to Fort Benning, Desert (Fort Bliss, Texas), Mountain, and Florida. In May 1995, the school underwent its most recent change when the Desert phase was discontinued." The last Ranger School class to go through the Desert Phase was class 7-95.