Nothing. Nothing happened. The gunner announced, "Misfire. On the waaay."
With that, he pulled the trigger on his left control handle. Again, nothing. "Shit! Misfire!"
It was now the tank commander's turn to try. Grabbing his control handle and crouching down so that he could view through his sight extension, the tank commander laid the sight onto the target's center of mass, hit the laser range-finder switch and watched for the readout.
Satisfied that he had a good range and sight picture, he announced,
"From my position-on the waaay," and pulled the trigger.
Nothing. The tank continued to roll down the course road. The tank commander continued to track the targets. And the targets continued to stand, un hit Totally frustrated, the tank commander ordered the driver to stop, then called the tower to inform them that he had to clear a misfire.
In the control tower Major Scott Dixon pounded his fist on the table and let out a stream of obscenities. This was the third run that day that they had failed to complete. With their own equipment en route to the Persian Gulf, the units of the 25th Armored Division had to train on borrowed stuff while they waited to be flown over. The whole arrangement was less than ideal. What they received from the Armor School was already well used when it arrived at Fort Hood. No doubt the Armor School was careful to keep the better equipment to meet its own surge in training. Continuous use by different units did not permit serious preventive maintenance. The result was a high number of malfunctions and mechanical failures that frustrated the battalion's attempts to prepare for combat.
The officer in charge of the range turned to Dixon. "Do we let him continue or pull him off?"
Without looking at the officer, Dixon thought for a moment before answering. "See if he can clear it through the tube. If not, pull him back and have maintenance find out what the problem with that one is.
In the meantime, push them through as fast as you can. We only have the rest of today and tomorrow to finish the battalion, and we aren't even halfway through." Then Dixon turned to the young captain and asked, "Paul, do you think you can get 'em all through?"
Captain Paul Tait, the battalion S-3 Air, tried to think of something witty to come back with, but couldn't. He simply replied that he would do his damnedest. With that, Dixon left the tower, signaling his driver to crank up his hummer-the new M-998 high-mobility multipurpose wheeled vehicle, or HMMWV. He didn't know for sure where he was going to go. Wherever he went, it had to be more productive than standing around on the range watching tanks break down and, as the crews said, "go tits up."
Hopefully the battalion was getting something from the crash training they were conducting instead of merely marking time while waiting for deployment.
Fort Campbell, Kentucky 1735 Hours, 4 June (2335 Hours, 4 June, GMT) Like clockwork the two A-10 ground-attack aircraft came rolling in on their run and began to fire on the crest of a hill. From the concealment of a stand of pine trees, four M-113 armored personnel carriers of a mech infantry platoon came rolling out. One thousand meters to their right, the gun tubes from four M-60A3 tanks poked out and began to belch fire as they also engaged targets on the hill that was their final objective. The A-10s had by now turned and were making their second, and last, run in, firing their 30mm. GAU-8 gun along the length of the hill. Satisfied with the results of their effort, they overflew the control vehicles, wiggling their wings as they skimmed along at treetop level.
No sooner had the aircraft cleared the area than 155mm. artillery firing high-explosive and white phosphorus rounds began to hit the hill. The first mech infantry platoon was joined by a second platoon that followed it out from the tree line and came up on its left.
Together, the two platoons advanced on their objective as the tanks and the artillery continued to work it over. This continued until the M-113s of the two mech platoons reached a predesignated point less than five hundred meters from the hill.
When they did, the artillery-fire-support officer issued a curt order to the firing battery. On cue, the guns lifted and shifted fires to a new target beyond the hill. The tanks continued to fire, but now concentrated on targets on either side of their objective.
With the fire lifted and only two hundred meters to go, the M-113s stopped and dropped their ramps. Infantrymen of the Tennessee National Guard came pouring out, running to either side of the M-113s in staggered lines. On signal, the M-113s and the lines of infantry began to advance. Only when the dismounted troops and the M113s masked the tanks' fields of fire did they cease fire. The track commanders of the M-113s stood upright, firing their.50-caliber machine guns while the dismounted infantry fired from the hip as they went into the dust and smoke that now shrouded the hill.
From their observation point the battalion commander and the executive officer of the 2nd Battalion, 354th Infantry, watched the end of the last run of the day of the company combined-arms live fire exercise.
Turning to his XO, the battalion commander asked why they had never been able to do that in Tennessee. The XO, Major Ed Lewis, simply stated, "When the Army got serious about sending the unit to war, all kinds of wonderful things were possible. The last ten days are ample proof of that."
After being mobilized, the battalion had assembled at Fort Campbell in accordance with its mobilization plans. Surprisingly, its first mission was to prepare its equipment and ship it to New Orleans for embarkation. This was quickly accomplished, but left the unit nothing to complete its post mobilization training with. Initially, the battalion had been slated to move immediately to Fort Hood to join its parent Active Army unit, the 2nd Brigade, 25th Armored Division. This, however, was canceled. Fort Hood was already overcrowded with units trying to train with small amounts of borrowed equipment. Instead, the 2nd Battalion of the 354th Infantry was left at Campbell. Heated discussions between the unit commander, the state, the National Guard Bureau and anyone who would listen did not change the ill-conceived peacetime mobilization plan.
Instead of training for war with its parent unit, the battalion was left to its own device", training in isolation while the rest of the 25th Division rushed to complete its preparation for war.
Training at Fort Campbell, however, did have its advantages. With the 12th Infantry Division in the throes of deploying, there were plenty of maneuver areas and ranges available. The 2nd of the 354th, being a round-out unit and high on the deployment list, had a higher priority over other Guard and Reserve units assembling at Campbell. Equipment, including a fully manned tank company with which to train, was borrowed from the Kentucky National Guard. Although the personnel carriers were the old M-113s instead of the M-2 Bradleys, they were better than nothing.
In addition to equipment, ammunition for live fire training was not a problem. Whatever the 12th Division left at the ammo storage point on Campbell was given to the 2nd of the 354th. It was in live fire training that the battalion spent most of its time. The commander felt that the men needed to get used to handling their weapons and getting the feel for what it would be like when everyone was blasting away. Men who had been assigned to the unit as TOW and Dragon antitank-guided-missile gunners for years finally had an opportunity to fire a live missile. Sometimes the results were quite embarrassing, as when the shock of firing their first live missile caused the gunners to jump and send the missile spiraling into the ground. As Lewis, the battalion XO and full-time training officer, said, "Better to miss at Campbell and be embarrassed than miss in Iran and be dead."