Photo By Staff Sgt. Michael Crawford | Paratroopers from 1st Squadron, 91st Cavalry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade and...... read more read more
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ADAZI, Latvia - Paratroopers with 1st Squadron, 91st Cavalry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade demonstrated various recovery techniques for the Latvian Technical Support and Repair Company, Combat Service Support Battalion, Land Force Infantry Brigade here July 15.
"The Latvians just got their wreckers from the Norwegians … and they don't have a formal recovery school like we do in the states," said Chief Warrant Officer 3 James Abraham, a native of Natchitoches, Louisiana. "We're trying to help establish that course on how to train on safe recovery techniques."
Using a Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck (HEMTT), the American paratroopers based at Grafenwoehr Training Area, Germany, demonstrated how to rotate an overturned car.
"The idea behind recovery is you want to be fast," said Sgt 1st. Class David McMahon, a maintenance supervisor with 1st Squadron, 91st Cavalry Regiment, and native of Fort Wayne, Indiana. "If you're stuck, you're obviously not completing a mission somewhere."
After Latvian Soldiers mirrored the paratroopers' techniques on the overturned car, the Americans wedged a Load Hauling System truck into loose sand on a nearby hill to practice recovery on a larger scale. Then paratroopers demonstrated how to pull the LHS from the sand using the HEMTT, which is roughly twice the size of the Norwegian tow truck used by the Latvians.
To compensate for the less powerful winch on their tow truck, the Latvian Soldiers connected a pulley to the LHS and hooked the end of the winch to a nearby truck, nearly doubling their towing power and enabling them to pull out the LHS with relative ease.
Latvian Cpl. Arturs Cvirko, an infantryman serving as a mechanic, hopes he and his Soldiers can pull as much information from their American allies as possible to develop their own operating procedures.
"All these things are new for us," said Cvirko, a native of Riga, Latvia. "We just got our trucks in December, so in the future we need to start to make a new program for working on our trucks -we need to train more."
Vehicles can get stuck in more than just dirt or sand and rubble often becomes a trap for many pieces of equipment. Not only did the Latvian Soldiers learn to free their vehicles from rubble, but they learned to navigate the difficult terrain as well.
"If you can put the vehicle where the enemy doesn't think you can put the vehicle, you become that [much] more effective," said McMahon. "The intention is when they're out there on the road, they can determine in the truck, 'okay, I can make this route,' and if they get stuck they can figure a way out of it."
McMahon, mirrors Cvirko's hopes, eager for his paratroopers to learn as much as they can from the Latvian Soldiers.
"The Latvians do more with less," said McMahon. "They have seven or eight different types of equipment in their motor pool, so just think about the knowledge base they've got to have - there's a lot to learn from them."
Approximately 600 paratroopers from the 173rd Airborne are deployed throughout Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland as part of Operation Atlantic Resolve to demonstrate commitment to NATO obligations and sustain interoperability with allied forces.
| Date Taken: | 07.15.2014 |
| Date Posted: | 07.28.2014 07:26 |
| Story ID: | 137508 |
| Location: | ADAZI, LV |
| Hometown: | RIGA, RIX, LV |
| Hometown: | FORT WAYNE, IN, US |
| Hometown: | NATCHITOCHES, LA, US |
| Web Views: | 508 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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