thedrifter
11-28-05, 06:17 AM
State-of-the-art Army
Fort Carson brigade returns to Iraq with latest high-tech gear
By Dick Foster, Rocky Mountain News
November 28, 2005
COLORADO SPRINGS - Fort Carson's second-largest combat unit begins returning to Iraq this week armed with the Army's newest, most lethal weapons systems and - for the first time - its own unmanned air force.
Two types of reconnaissance drones, new tanks with the latest computerzied weapons and communications systems, and a fleet of factory-armored Humvees are designed to give an edge to the 3rd Brigade Combat Team's 3,800 soldiers when they move into Iraq in January.
But the Army's high-tech arsenal has not changed reality: The fighting in Iraq still falls to the soldiers on the ground who are engaged in a grinding, low-tech counterinsurgency fought from town to town and often house to house.
With that in mind, the 3rd Brigade augmented its new weapons with hundreds of hours of urban warfare training. Units worked in a mock Iraqi village and practiced new close- quarters fighting methods and marksmanship. Many traded their M-16 rifles for the short-barreled version called the M-4 that is more nimble in close-in fighting.
Soldiers fired more than 1 million rounds of live ammunition, an unprecedented volume given traditional Army restrictions on live-fire training. And they adopted new tactics as basic as a more protective posture for firing their rifles, all based on lessons learned in Iraq.
The 3rd Brigade lost seven soldiers during its first Iraq tour. Forty percent of the brigade is going to Iraq for a second time.
"The first time we went, we didn't know what to expect, so I think this time we're much better prepared," said Col. Brian Jones, who assumed command of the brigade after it returned to Fort Carson in March 2004.
"We deliberately constructed training scenarios very similar to what's been going on in Iraq," said Jones. "In that sense, we have a great advantage over where we were last time."
A record of success
The 3rd Brigade is part of the 4th Infantry Division headquartered at Fort Hood, Texas, an enormous fighting force that will move its seven brigades and more than 20,000 troops to Iraq in early January after forming up in Kuwait in December.
The infantry division, whose storied past includes the D-Day landing at Utah Beach, already has made its mark in Iraq, capturing Saddam Hussein in a spider hole south of Tikrit on Dec. 13, 2003, during its first tour of the war.
Now, the newly dubbed "Digitized Division," returns as the most modern and lethal in the Army.
Camera-equipped drones are one of several major advances designed to give the 3rd Brigade and others in the division an edge against roadside bombs, ambushes and other hit-and-run tactics by insurgents. The planes are equipped with cameras that have both day and night vision capability, sending real-time images to a command post on the ground.
"It looks down and gives me a grid and tells me what it's looking at. It's the intelligence value that makes it invaluable for us. You can get up high and see things without putting anyone at risk," said Jones.
The 3rd Brigade has three large drones, called Shadows, and 15 smaller models, called Ravens.
The Shadow can fly for eight hours, scouting ahead of a convoy or loitering over a specific target and spotting enemy locations during a fight.
"You can fly it down roads to watch and see if anybody's been putting anything on the roads. That's how they use it in country," said Jones.
The Raven will be used more widely in the field by company commanders "to let them see what's over the next hill," said Jones. It is battery operated and controlled by a remote control box, much like a commercial model airplane.
A soldier "can throw it up, and when he's done, the wings are designed to come off and it's designed to crash. He picks it up, puts it in his truck and keeps on going," said Jones.
But the information does little good if it can't be shared with units in the field. The Army solved this problem with one of its biggest advances in warfare management - a new program that sends the same "battlefield picture" of friendly forces and enemy positions simultaneously to computer terminals in all vehicles engaged in a fight.
In Army parlance, the system is called FBCB2, or Force 21 Battle Command and Control, Brigade and Below. Jones and others believe it can cut through the fog of war with precise, critical information.
"Half of the problem in the Army is trying to figure out where you are. The other half is trying to figure out where the enemy is," said Jones.
"This allows me to see where every vehicle I own is on the battlefield. This allows us to track movements and send messages back and forth, allows us to identify the enemy. And it goes on everybody's screen all at once," said Jones.
That coordination is critical for troops to avoid shooting each other in "friendly fire" accidents.
The brigade also will take 60 of the Army's most powerful weapons, the M1A2 Abrams SEP tank. The SEP, or System Enhancement Program, upgrades the tank with new targeting systems and the FBCB2 battlefield computers.
"I can sit behind a thermal sight and see up to 12 kilometers. I can sight that target with a laser and send that data digitally to the guns," said Jones. "We can take out the human error - provided you're looking at the right target."
Learning from Iraq's lessons
The brigade made other essential changes in equipment and techniques at the individual soldier's level, all based on Iraq's lessons.
Before Iraq, standard marksmanship training had changed little since Vietnam, with soldiers firing at targets from 50 to 300 meters.
"That's not the fight we're in now," said Jones.
Now, training includes teaching soldiers to engage at zero to 50 meters for the urban fighting they face.
"We've done a lot of training on close-quarters marksmanship, shot a lot of rounds. As a soldier it's important to get comfortable with your weapon," said Spc. Ronald Garcia, of Las Vegas, Nev., who is returning for his second tour in Iraq.
Soldiers also were taught to change their basic firing position, squaring their shoulders to face the target head-on, where their armor-vest protection is best, rather than turned to one side.
And they're taught to fire faster.
"What you get is more accurate shots quicker, and whoever shoots first most, wins. It's an old Civil War adage that still applies, especially for a close fight," said Jones.
Iraq fighting has continued to exact a relentless casualty toll. Last month 96 soldiers and Marines were killed, the fourth-highest month since the war began.
Road bombs, car bombs and rocket-propelled grenades are causing such traumatic wounds that the 3rd Brigade led the Army in creating an advanced first-aid kit now carried by each soldier.
Each kit contains several types of pressure dressings, a blood-clotting agent, a tourniquet to stop severe bleeding from injuries such as severed limbs, a plastic nose-throat tube to open an airway, and a needle to re-expand a collapsed lung.
"The three most common causes of battlefield death are from blood loss, chest wounds and airway problems. This kit is designed to treat these," said Sgt. 1st Class Steven Chaapel, a brigade medic.
Along with the kit came training for every soldier in how to keep wounded soldiers alive until a medic arrives.
The new training and equipment represents an exhaustive effort to address the challenges in Iraq, Jones said.
"What you're trying to do is adapt faster than the enemy is adapting. We have some of the entire nation's finest minds working on this stuff for us," said Jones.
"We're comfortable and confident in what we're going to see and what we expect to see over there."
As for his soldiers, Jones said, "We're about as good as we're going to get. I might like to have another month to do this or that, but there is a point where soldiers are ready and they need to go."
3rd Brigade Combat Team
• Based: Fort Carson, Colorado Springs
• Number of troops: 3,800
• Main equipment: 60 M1A2 Abrams SEP tanks; 100 Bradley Fighting Vehicles; 300 M-1114 factory-armored Humvees
• Main elements: One infantry battalion, one cavalry battalion, one armor battalion, one field artillery battalion, one special troops battalion (including signal, intelligence, aviation and headquarters units), one base support battalion
• Description: This heavy infantry brigade with the Army's most advanced weaponry is attached to the larger 4th Infantry Division, which will deploy in its entirety to Iraq from Fort Hood, Texas.
fosterd@RockyMountainNews.com or 719-633-4442
Ellie
Fort Carson brigade returns to Iraq with latest high-tech gear
By Dick Foster, Rocky Mountain News
November 28, 2005
COLORADO SPRINGS - Fort Carson's second-largest combat unit begins returning to Iraq this week armed with the Army's newest, most lethal weapons systems and - for the first time - its own unmanned air force.
Two types of reconnaissance drones, new tanks with the latest computerzied weapons and communications systems, and a fleet of factory-armored Humvees are designed to give an edge to the 3rd Brigade Combat Team's 3,800 soldiers when they move into Iraq in January.
But the Army's high-tech arsenal has not changed reality: The fighting in Iraq still falls to the soldiers on the ground who are engaged in a grinding, low-tech counterinsurgency fought from town to town and often house to house.
With that in mind, the 3rd Brigade augmented its new weapons with hundreds of hours of urban warfare training. Units worked in a mock Iraqi village and practiced new close- quarters fighting methods and marksmanship. Many traded their M-16 rifles for the short-barreled version called the M-4 that is more nimble in close-in fighting.
Soldiers fired more than 1 million rounds of live ammunition, an unprecedented volume given traditional Army restrictions on live-fire training. And they adopted new tactics as basic as a more protective posture for firing their rifles, all based on lessons learned in Iraq.
The 3rd Brigade lost seven soldiers during its first Iraq tour. Forty percent of the brigade is going to Iraq for a second time.
"The first time we went, we didn't know what to expect, so I think this time we're much better prepared," said Col. Brian Jones, who assumed command of the brigade after it returned to Fort Carson in March 2004.
"We deliberately constructed training scenarios very similar to what's been going on in Iraq," said Jones. "In that sense, we have a great advantage over where we were last time."
A record of success
The 3rd Brigade is part of the 4th Infantry Division headquartered at Fort Hood, Texas, an enormous fighting force that will move its seven brigades and more than 20,000 troops to Iraq in early January after forming up in Kuwait in December.
The infantry division, whose storied past includes the D-Day landing at Utah Beach, already has made its mark in Iraq, capturing Saddam Hussein in a spider hole south of Tikrit on Dec. 13, 2003, during its first tour of the war.
Now, the newly dubbed "Digitized Division," returns as the most modern and lethal in the Army.
Camera-equipped drones are one of several major advances designed to give the 3rd Brigade and others in the division an edge against roadside bombs, ambushes and other hit-and-run tactics by insurgents. The planes are equipped with cameras that have both day and night vision capability, sending real-time images to a command post on the ground.
"It looks down and gives me a grid and tells me what it's looking at. It's the intelligence value that makes it invaluable for us. You can get up high and see things without putting anyone at risk," said Jones.
The 3rd Brigade has three large drones, called Shadows, and 15 smaller models, called Ravens.
The Shadow can fly for eight hours, scouting ahead of a convoy or loitering over a specific target and spotting enemy locations during a fight.
"You can fly it down roads to watch and see if anybody's been putting anything on the roads. That's how they use it in country," said Jones.
The Raven will be used more widely in the field by company commanders "to let them see what's over the next hill," said Jones. It is battery operated and controlled by a remote control box, much like a commercial model airplane.
A soldier "can throw it up, and when he's done, the wings are designed to come off and it's designed to crash. He picks it up, puts it in his truck and keeps on going," said Jones.
But the information does little good if it can't be shared with units in the field. The Army solved this problem with one of its biggest advances in warfare management - a new program that sends the same "battlefield picture" of friendly forces and enemy positions simultaneously to computer terminals in all vehicles engaged in a fight.
In Army parlance, the system is called FBCB2, or Force 21 Battle Command and Control, Brigade and Below. Jones and others believe it can cut through the fog of war with precise, critical information.
"Half of the problem in the Army is trying to figure out where you are. The other half is trying to figure out where the enemy is," said Jones.
"This allows me to see where every vehicle I own is on the battlefield. This allows us to track movements and send messages back and forth, allows us to identify the enemy. And it goes on everybody's screen all at once," said Jones.
That coordination is critical for troops to avoid shooting each other in "friendly fire" accidents.
The brigade also will take 60 of the Army's most powerful weapons, the M1A2 Abrams SEP tank. The SEP, or System Enhancement Program, upgrades the tank with new targeting systems and the FBCB2 battlefield computers.
"I can sit behind a thermal sight and see up to 12 kilometers. I can sight that target with a laser and send that data digitally to the guns," said Jones. "We can take out the human error - provided you're looking at the right target."
Learning from Iraq's lessons
The brigade made other essential changes in equipment and techniques at the individual soldier's level, all based on Iraq's lessons.
Before Iraq, standard marksmanship training had changed little since Vietnam, with soldiers firing at targets from 50 to 300 meters.
"That's not the fight we're in now," said Jones.
Now, training includes teaching soldiers to engage at zero to 50 meters for the urban fighting they face.
"We've done a lot of training on close-quarters marksmanship, shot a lot of rounds. As a soldier it's important to get comfortable with your weapon," said Spc. Ronald Garcia, of Las Vegas, Nev., who is returning for his second tour in Iraq.
Soldiers also were taught to change their basic firing position, squaring their shoulders to face the target head-on, where their armor-vest protection is best, rather than turned to one side.
And they're taught to fire faster.
"What you get is more accurate shots quicker, and whoever shoots first most, wins. It's an old Civil War adage that still applies, especially for a close fight," said Jones.
Iraq fighting has continued to exact a relentless casualty toll. Last month 96 soldiers and Marines were killed, the fourth-highest month since the war began.
Road bombs, car bombs and rocket-propelled grenades are causing such traumatic wounds that the 3rd Brigade led the Army in creating an advanced first-aid kit now carried by each soldier.
Each kit contains several types of pressure dressings, a blood-clotting agent, a tourniquet to stop severe bleeding from injuries such as severed limbs, a plastic nose-throat tube to open an airway, and a needle to re-expand a collapsed lung.
"The three most common causes of battlefield death are from blood loss, chest wounds and airway problems. This kit is designed to treat these," said Sgt. 1st Class Steven Chaapel, a brigade medic.
Along with the kit came training for every soldier in how to keep wounded soldiers alive until a medic arrives.
The new training and equipment represents an exhaustive effort to address the challenges in Iraq, Jones said.
"What you're trying to do is adapt faster than the enemy is adapting. We have some of the entire nation's finest minds working on this stuff for us," said Jones.
"We're comfortable and confident in what we're going to see and what we expect to see over there."
As for his soldiers, Jones said, "We're about as good as we're going to get. I might like to have another month to do this or that, but there is a point where soldiers are ready and they need to go."
3rd Brigade Combat Team
• Based: Fort Carson, Colorado Springs
• Number of troops: 3,800
• Main equipment: 60 M1A2 Abrams SEP tanks; 100 Bradley Fighting Vehicles; 300 M-1114 factory-armored Humvees
• Main elements: One infantry battalion, one cavalry battalion, one armor battalion, one field artillery battalion, one special troops battalion (including signal, intelligence, aviation and headquarters units), one base support battalion
• Description: This heavy infantry brigade with the Army's most advanced weaponry is attached to the larger 4th Infantry Division, which will deploy in its entirety to Iraq from Fort Hood, Texas.
fosterd@RockyMountainNews.com or 719-633-4442
Ellie