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FORT IRWIN, Calif. - In darkness at 2 a.m., Soldiers conducted
their final personnel, vehicle and equipment checks Oct. 23, 2015
and headed out in their Humvees and Bradley Infantry Fighting
Vehicles to the first checkpoint of the night infiltration mission.
They were cavalry scouts, heading out into a simulated enemy
territory as part of a massive campaign to clear an opposing force
from a patch of mountainous desert more than 500 square kilometers.
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Soldiers assigned to Company D, 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, simulate a tank battle during Decisive Action Rotation 16-01 at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., Oct. 14. The two-week interactive training creates a live, virtual and constructive environment for brigade-sized elements. (U.S. Army photo by Pfc. Sarah Zendejas)
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In the first vehicle, a Humvee nicknamed by its crew “the
Black Pearl,” Sgt. Matthew Domek and his crew from Battery
A, 1st Squadron, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Armored Brigade
Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, headed out into the
darkness into enemy territory as the first element of a
campaign that would eventually involve three combined arms
battalions, a heavy artillery regiment, attack aviation,
close air support, combat engineers in Assault Breacher
Vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles and others.
“As a
reconnaissance element driving forward, our job is to
identify and defeat counter recon elements and report on the
‘trafficability' of routes and the enemy situation,” said
Domek, a native of Chicago.
Domek said it was an
honor to be the lead vehicle of the brigade's culminating
live fire exercise, an honor his gunner Spc. Jacob Troester,
a native of Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and his driver, Pvt.
Eric Fernandez, a native of Waco, Texas, earned scoring
1,000 out of 1,000 on a Table VI crew gunnery certification
at Fort Hood, Texas.
The fourth member of the crew,
Spc. Stephen Cuadros, is a dismount team leader and played
pivotal roles during the rotation at remote observation
posts, observing enemy positions and movements before the
culminating mission of the brigade's decisive action
rotation at the Army's National Training Center at Fort
Irwin, California.
“We are currently rated the most
lethal crew, that's why we were the first ones out,” said
Domek.
More than 5,000 Soldiers from the 1st ABCT,
and enabling units from active, National Guard and Reserve
units from 11 states challenged the 11th Armored Cavalry
Regiment's Blackhorse opposing forces with more firepower
than they've seen in many years.
Ironhorse Soldiers
brought more than 1,600 vehicles and pieces of equipment to
the fight, including 80 M1A2 Abrams Main Battle Tanks and
150 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles.
Combat power begins with planning and relies on good intelligence
on the enemy. To negate a determined enemy, good intelligence on the
disposition and capabilities of the enemy force, as well as
anticipating enemy courses of action is critical, said Capt. Dmitriy
Leontyev, intelligence officer, 1st ABCT.
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Soldiers from Company B, 2nd Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, infiltrate and secure buildings against oppositional forces during Decisive Action Rotation 16-01 the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., Oct. 22,
2015. Decisive action rotations ensure BCTs remain versatile, responsive and consistently available for the current fight and unforeseen future contingencies. (U.S. Army photo by Pvt. Jasmine Ballard, Operations Group, National Training Center)
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“We analyze the mission, terrain, the enemy composition,
and present an enemy course of action so the commander can
develop his plans,” said Leontyev, a native of Tampa Bay,
Florida, and originally from Moscow. “NTC is good training
because you can utilize all intelligence assets and systems
against an enemy actively attempting to defeat your
intelligence collection plans.”
The larger the
military unit or mission is, the more complex the planning.
“The footprint for an armored
brigade combat team is immense,” said Maj. Edward Arntson,
operations officer, 1st ABCT. “We executed deliberate
planning to move and position the force inside our area of
operations. We had nine battalions in the task force during
the rotation, including a chemical battalion and an aviation
battalion. The entire team had to understand the unique
capabilities and limitations that each of those formations
brought to the fight.”
Planning for a NTC rotation
begins at least six months before the unit is scheduled to
participate, said Arntson.
“Our home station
training plan was intense, and it prepared us well for NTC,”
said Arntson. “We executed multiple command post exercises
for the brigade staff, multiple tactical operating center
jumps, and conducted excellent live fire training. Our
August field training and fire coordination exercise,
Ironhorse Challenge, was a great culminating training event
to exercise all of the battalion and brigade systems before
NTC.”
While many young Soldiers were experiencing NTC
for the first time, for some, the rotation was not a new
experience.
“This is our third time at NTC this
year,” said Spc. Richard Russo, communications specialist,
Company B, 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st ABCT.
His company served as opposing forces at NTC in
February, and then his battalion was a supporting unit
during a 1st Armored Division rotation in June before
participating in the Ironhorse brigade's October rotation.
“Serving as OPFOR [opposing forces] in February was fun,
and they had us staying on the main post at Fort Irwin,”
said Russo, a Seattle native. “Coming three times in the
same year is not ideal, and my wife Marissa is not happy
about all the time away, but she understands, and it seems
like we get better every time.”
Soldiers undergo
rigorous training at NTC, with traditional force-on-force
missions, as well as civil-military engagements, detainee
operations, humanitarian missions, chemical, biological,
radiological, nuclear and high-yield explosive missions, and
many other challenging scenarios to prepare for a wide
variety of possible missions around the globe.
“The
training at NTC is a capstone, not a culminating exercise,”
said Col. John DiGiambattista, commander, 1st
ABCT. “In less than nine months we have returned units from
Europe, completed reset and gunnery tables, certified at
NTC, and are ready to deploy wherever our nation calls us.
We must sustain the readiness we have achieved throughout
training day 14 here. The final thing that underwrites
everything is Soldier discipline.”
By U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Keith Anderson
Provided
through DVIDS
Copyright 2015
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