Photo By Sgt. Marcus Floyd | 1st Lt. Michael Kukesh, the executive officer for Company A, 91st Engineer Battalion,...... read more read more
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HOHENFELS, Germany — An immense trench stretches before a group of engineers. Pushing forward, a giant plow cuts through the earth like Moses parting the Red Sea causing dark soil to cascade up from the ground like water. Afterwards, they pour the dirt into the channel creating a bridge to the other side.
For an engineer, overcoming obstacles comes with the job, but what makes this particular trial different are the vehicles used to master it.
Soldiers with Company A, 91st Engineer Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, used an Assault Breacher Vehicle to overcome several obstacles in a training exercise Oct. 29, 2014 in Hohenfels, Germany during Combined Resolve III.
“We’re working with the ABV, the Assault Breacher Vehicle, and we basically breach through anything that gets in our way,” said Pfc. Ryan Doyle, a horizontal engineer and heavy equipment operator with the 91st Engineer Battalion. “We’re blowing it up or pushing through it, that’s what our job entails.”
With only a year of training under their belt, Soldiers with the 91st Engineers were the first ones to use the ABV at Fort Hood, Texas.
The ABV is an engineer vehicle with the chaises of an M1A2 Abrams Tank, a full width mine plow that expands approximately 15 feet across the front and two linear demolition charge systems on the back.
“In the past a Bradley platoon of engineers would move up and have to breach an obstacle, all that man power we can now do with an ABV, which is just a two man crew,” said 1st Lt. Michael Kukesh, the executive officer for Company A, 91st Engineers. “The ABV can roll up to breach, fire its MICLIC [Mine Clearing Line Charge], reduce the obstacle, proof the obstacle with its mine plow, and mark the obstacle with its lane markers on the back.”
In addition to speed, the ABV increases security for the team.
“It’s a much safer way,” said Kukesh. “It really is a survivability asset because instead of putting 30 sappers [combat engineers] at the breach, you now put one vehicle with two sappers at the breach, and they can do everything a platoon used to have to do.”
Because the ABV has a smaller crew, the challenges of overcoming an obstacle that once fell to many engineers, now falls to just one non-commissioned officer.
An ABV crew consists of a driver and a vehicle commander who’s a NCO. At the moment of the breach the NCO becomes the main leader, said Kukesh.
“For junior leaders, in this vehicle, it really gives them a great opportunity to really step up and be a leader,” said Kukesh.
| Date Taken: | 11.01.2014 |
| Date Posted: | 11.01.2014 05:07 |
| Story ID: | 146742 |
| Location: | HOHENFELS, DE |
| Web Views: | 146 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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