The Gazette, Colorado Springs June 10, 2012
Carson unit dusts off old gear to relearn tank combat
By Jakob Rodgers
Not everything went to according to plan.
Two AH-64 Apache helicopters circled overhead, unleashing dozens of rockets before firing bullets from a 30 mm cannon. A couple miles back, platoons of M-1 Abrams tanks, Bradley Armored Fighting Vehicles and soldiers pounded fake enemy tanks invading from the northwest with artillery rounds.
The mission destroyed the fictional enemy forces.
But Capt. Aaron Shattuck expected more.
After years of fighting insurgents in the crowded villages of Iraq and rugged mountains of Afghanistan, the Army has been tasked with re-learning a host of old skills for the new threats it faces in the 21st Century.
Soldiers have had little — if any — use for Abrams tanks and Bradley Armored Fighting Vehicles against shadowy insurgent forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. In recent years, the Army was focused on winning the hearts and minds of Afghans and Iraqis by taking a more personal approach to fighting — getting out of their vehicles and walking the streets.
They quelled insurgents with M-4 rifles and air assaults rather than with tanks.
Brigade commanders must now coordinate complex operations that combined helicopters, tank operators and mortarmen.
Before 9/11, these tactics were common. With troops out of Iraq and the end of the war in Afghanistan in sight, Army has found itself in a state of flux.
“It’s more going back to basics,” said Joseph Trevithick, a research associate with the military think tank GlobalSecurity.org. “There is a plan to get out of Afghanistan and there is also sort of this shift back towards the Pacific Theater.”
Defense Department officials have begun repositioning troops in the Pacific as a show of military might against North Korea and other nations harboring nuclear ambitions.
“The nice thing about hybrid planning is it forces you to do everything,” said Michael O’Hanlon, a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution.
In early June, Comanche troop with the 1st Brigade’s 7th Squadron of the 10th Cavalry Regiment — as well as helicopters from Fort Bliss, Texas, and tanks from 1st Squadron 22nd Infantry Regiment — embarked on a training mission to knock of the rust accumulated over the last decade.
For the roughly 150 soldiers taking part in that exercise, relearning those skills takes time. They began the “Raider Strike” training exercise in March — meaning that many of these skills are still raw.
Over the three days they carried out this plan, commanders repeated the mantra that troops must walk before they can run.
The soldiers of “Ghost” troop began by crawling.
•••
The dirt kicked up by the Bradley tanks outside never reach Pvt. Josue Dort’s workspace.
A day earlier, a couple dozen officers discussed the coming battle by passing around a broom handle and using it to move troop markers across the dirt-covered diagram.
The plan in place, Dort went to work, carefully repositioning green, yellow and red pins on a map of that same battlefield. Each pin signified a tank, Bradley or enemy force.
“When I first got here, it was like ‘I see colors, and that’s it,” he said, chuckling.
Less than a year into his Army enlistment, Dort doesn’t know a life apart from the hybrid force. Others have been around long enough to remember a far different job.
In western and southern Afghanistan, the 1st Brigade Combat Team ditched its Abrams tanks from June 2010 through June 2011 for armored trucks.
Many soldiers grew accustomed to walking the hillsides of Herat province in small teams, patrolling for insurgents or building relationships with the local villagers.
It was a change for the “Ghost” squadron — a reconnaissance unit that made a name for itself in the years after the Civil War. The soldiers here specialize in learning about enemy troop positions by rooting them out with bullets, a proactive approach that requires lightning-quick reflexes.
Reverting back to a more traditional-style of training has a few soldiers upbeat.
“We’re actually doing our job,” said Staff Sgt. Nicholas Lewis.
But there have been bumps along the way.
Officers noticed that the tracking pins Dort placed were growing dangerously close together. A few feet away, soldiers at a communications station tried to salvage the operation.
Shortly before 10 a.m., it all came to a halt. Rushing the approach, the soldiers found themselves clumped together — an easy target for enemy gunners.
Turning their tanks and Bradleys around, they prepare to do it all over again.
•••
“I want the troop to execute interdiction attack.”
Within minutes of issuing those eight words into a dusty radio, Lt. Col. Geoffrey Norman watched Comanche troop spring into action.
Two Apache helicopters flew low and blasted rockets into a series of fictional tanks in the distance. Their 30 mm cannon finished the job.
Bradley Armored Fighting Vehicles fired 25 mm rounds at trucks that popped up on hinges in the distance.
Behind him, four tanks crested the ridge to provide cover.
“It’s quite a ballet,” Norman said. “But it’s fun and it’s going well.”
Norman smiled. It took those units slightly more than 45 minutes to get to this position — almost perfect tempo for the attack planned by Shattuck. No enemy target remained standing.
But training is meant to expose flaws.
A couple hours later, Shattuck sat at the head of a table with a frown on his face. He saw room for improvement.
There were communication and navigation glitches.
Tank and Bradley drivers failed to use the terrain to their full advantage and didn’t move between shots. Move to the right, left or down into a concealing berm, Shattuck said, or suffer the consequences.
“We will be dead … in less than a minute,” Shattuck said.
Norman agreed, but saw a force beginning to walk.
In the fall, these men will train alongside the rest of the 1st Brigade at the National Training Center in California. The skills they learned this month will face their most vigorous test yet.
Norman offered a slight grin once again.
Standing before his men, he prepared them for the next mock battle — a bullet-riddled endeavor set to begin at dusk.
“He’s going to try to hit you with everything he’s got all at once,” Norman said. “I could not be happier with how you guys did today,” he continued. “But we still got tonight.”
© Copyright 2012, Freedom Communications
