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thedrifter
12-13-03, 07:35 AM
December 11, 2003

Marines to use Eglin live-fire range for the first time

By Bill Kaczor
Associated Press


PENSACOLA, Fla. — Marines will have much more room to roam when their boots hit the sand Friday for their first exercise at Eglin Air Force Base, Fla., a replacement for Vieques Island in Puerto Rico.
The Marines for decades had trained on a Navy bombing range of about 23 square miles on the eastern end of Vieques. In May, it was turned over to the Department of Interior for a wildlife refuge after a series of protests triggered when errant bombs killed a civilian security guard in 1999.

Eglin will give the Marines a better opportunity to do both parts of “fire and maneuver” training, said Capt. Eric Dent, a spokesman for the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit from Camp Lejeune, N.C.

“It will afford maneuver,” Dent said. “We did the fire piece at Vieques.”

About 1,600 troops, tanks, Humvees and other vehicles will take part.

Some Marines will fly in on helicopters from amphibious assault ships in the Gulf of Mexico. Most, however, will be ferried to Eglin’s beaches on Santa Rosa Island by landing craft, amphibious assault vehicles and hovercraft, known as Landing Craft Air Cushioned, or LCACs.

Wheeled vehicles then will convoy over a bridge and roads to the mainland part of the base.

The LCACs will continue across the island and Santa Rosa Sound to the Wynnhaven Beach community where they will disgorge tanks and other heavy equipment. Traffic on U.S. 98 will be stopped for up to 30 minutes at a time to let the vehicles cross the busy highway into Eglin’s interior.

LCACs also will land artillery in smaller numbers on Choctawhatchee Bay. The process will be reversed when the exercise ends Wednesday.

Live fire from rifles to tanks and aircraft will be a key component, but it will not be permitted on the beach to prevent damage to dunes, plants and wildlife.

“Our amphibious landing is more of an amphibious off-load,” Dent said.

That may not square with the Marines’ World War II image of hitting the beaches, but it is more realistic in terms of modern combat.

“The defended beach line is a thing of the past, but you never know,” Dent said. “We may have to kick in the door.”

The Marines, however, still get such training at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

The assault ships Wasp, Shreveport and Whidbey Island are being accompanied by two cruisers, the Leyte Gulf and Yorktown, the destroyer McFaul and the submarine Connecticut. The vessels are based at Norfolk, Va., Pacagoula, Miss.; Little Creek, Va., and Groton, Conn.

The cruisers and destroyer will provide artillery support as they did at Vieques, but their shells will never hit land. A newly developed virtual targeting system will let them fire at simulated land targets in the gulf.

Navy, Marine and Air Force planes also are participating. They include MC-130 transports from Eglin, AC-130 gunships from adjacent Hurlburt Field, Navy F/A-18 Hornet and F-14 Tomcat fighters from Norfolk, Hornets from Beaufort Marine Corps Air Station, S.C. and AV-8B Harrier jump jets and helicopters from the Wasp.

Aircraft carrier battle groups that once used Vieques already have trained at Eglin five times since 1999. The carrier John F. Kennedy, based at Mayport Naval Station in Jacksonville, is to lead the next battle group exercise in early 2004.

http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-2472255.php

Sempers,

Roger
:marine:

thedrifter
12-13-03, 07:38 AM
December 12, 2003

Corps sails through first Eglin amphibious assault exercise

By Christian Lowe
Times staff writer

EGLIN AIR FORCE BASE, Fla. — They sliced through the emerald green Gulf of Mexico waters like a hot Ka-Bar through butter. Thundering onto the beach, the assault amphibian vehicles regrouped and Marines of the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit waited for the go-ahead to move into the pine forest that would be their home for the next five days.
For the first time since the Pentagon shut down training operations on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques in May, the Marine Corps is conducting a major pre-deployment exercise for a soon-to-deploy Marine Expeditionary Unit — the 22nd — at this base in western Florida.

With 750 square miles of maneuver area on land and more than 130,000 square miles at sea, a base that usually plays host to high-tech missile and bomb tests has been transformed into a leatherneck playground.

Company-sized combat maneuvers, live-fire artillery, close air support and wide-ranging raids and urban assaults will make training here more real and require fewer work-arounds than the same operations conducted at Camp Lejeune or, for that matter, even Vieques, Marines here said.

But the biggest benefit is the lack of familiarity with the range.

“We can do these ops at Lejeune blindfolded and at night,” said Gunnery Sgt. Donald Vick, platoon sergeant for 2nd Platoon, Bravo Company, 2nd Assault Amphibian Battalion. “We know that place backwards and forwards.”

Cranking up the amtracks’ diesel engines, the drivers donned their helmets and the infantrymen of Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 6th Marines shuffled into the bellies of the groaning beasts. It was time to move out.

What came next — the movement inland — was the biggest concern for local residents, but it went off without a hitch.

Residents have been worried for months that the Corps’ war games, which would include shutting down periodically highway 98, a major four-lane highway that runs between the Wynn Haven landing beach and the maneuver ranges, would have a negative impact on their daily lives.

Red carpet treatment

Fortunately on this crisp, clear, winter morning, traffic was light and enthusiasm for the spectacle high.

“We’ve been out here since 5 a.m.,” said Dan Carver, 63, who owns a house just five doors down from the Wynn Haven Beach assault area where the Marines came ashore.

“I like anything that’s military,” he said, sipping a libation from a plastic cup and surveying the scene alongside his neighbors.

A red carpet was spread across the road to avoid damaging the tarmac from the amtracks’ treads and the 13 vehicles lumbered easily across the highway and into the woods accompanied by waves from local onlookers.

“We’ve had great support from the Air Force,” said Commandant Gen. Mike Hagee, who was observing the operation on its opening day. The Air Force shut down all operations on the base for the five days, forcing a variety of test programs to put their schedules on hold.

“It is an air-centric testing facility,” Hagee admitted. “We both will have to give a little bit” to make it work.

The exercises here will wrap up on Tuesday when the MEU returns to Camp Lejeune for the holidays. Then it’s back to the field for Special Operations Capable qualifications in late January and on to deployment soon after that as part of the Wasp Expeditionary Strike Group.


http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/story.php?f=0-292925-2476798.php


Sempers,

Roger
:marine: