Arrowhead Stryker crews train and succeed at YTC

Photo By 1st Sgt. Justin A. Naylor | A lone Stryker fires at popup targets during live-fire training at Yakima Training Center, Wash., Sept. 25. This training is part of overall crew qualification that ensures that Stryker crews are able to shoot, move and communicate while firing live rounds.  

JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, WA, UNITED STATES

09.27.2014

Story by Staff Sgt. Justin A. Naylor 

1-2 SBCT, 7th Infantry Division

JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. – With the overwhelming roar of .50-caliber machine guns pounding away at popup targets and the rhythmic hum of Stryker combat vehicles as they approach their firing lanes, 3-2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team, “Arrowhead,” 7th Infantry Division, Soldiers began their vehicle crew qualification training at Yakima Training Center, Washington, in late September.

The qualification, which is part of a much broader training initiative known as Integrated Training Strategy, ensures that vehicle crews are proficient and able to shoot, move and communicate as they engage targets with live rounds.

Although Stryker crews have certified together since the inception of the vehicle platform, the Arrowhead brigade is among the first to test a new system of qualification events.

“In the past, there was a different manual that we used,” said Sgt. 1st Class Marcus Gibbs, a Pensacola, Florida, native and the brigade master gunner who is helping oversee the entire qualification process. “The gunnery that we are conducting now is more traditionally known, to people who have been in for a while, as along the lines of a mechanized armored gunnery with different tables.”

The gunnery and tables, as Gibbs refers to them, are a series of key events that the Stryker crews must advance through to ensure their proficiency at all levels.

Gibbs explained that Stryker crews have historically gone through only two tables, one as a practice and the other as the qualification.

Now, however, the crews go through multiple practice and qualification tables and test their skills in various live-fire scenarios.

“Going through these extra tables benefits the crews,” Gibbs said. “We’re starting to see that now. These guys are getting better. The sky is the limit from here on out.”

This qualification training is part of the brigade’s Integrated Training Strategy, or ITS as it is called.

“The gunnery we are conducting now is just a phase of Integrated Training Strategy,” Gibbs said. “ITS can be anything from M4 qualification, team live fire, squad live fire, etc.”

ITS, which is conducted in phases, is a way for commanders to ensure their crews have all the training necessary to perform any mission they are given.

“It’s a more structured way to conduct both mounted and dismounted training,” said Capt. Cory Kastl, a Midland, Michigan, native and company commander for A Company, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, 3-2 SBCT.

“At the end of ITS phase 2, we will have all of our dismounted squads live-fire certified and all our crews through section qualification, so that we can bring them back as a platoon and continue platoon and company live-fires after that,” Kastl said.

The Arrowhead brigade currently has two battalions conducting Stryker crew certification and two more will begin their certification in October.

By the end of the crew qualification process, Gibbs said that crews should able to “actually go down, acquire targets and engage targets accurately while working together.”

Gibbs said that the crew qualification process would culminate with a large event that sees an entire company’s worth of Strykers conducting a simultaneous live-fire event, which will take place later in the training cycle.

• Date Taken: 09.27.2014
• Date Posted: 09.27.2014 18:34
• Story ID: 143482
• Location: JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, WA, US
• Hometown: MIDLAND, MI, US
• Hometown: PENSACOLA, FL, US