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By Spc. Mitchell Ternay
SHOALWATER BAY TRAINING AREA, Queensland, Australia - “Gun one ready!”
“Gun two ready”
“Section ready!”
With the two machine guns aimed, demonstrators from 7th Battalion, Australian army, engaged their target, as U.S. soldiers with 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division, observed.
The U.S. soldiers trained with soldiers from the 7th RAR on their machine gun systems and tactics July 10, 2011, during Talisman Sabre 2011, a joint, combined biennial training exercise.
Through a flurry of commands yelled back and fourth between gunners and the fire team leader, the Australian soldiers demonstrated setting up their weapons systems and the different aiming techniques used to engage the enemy.
During the demonstration, soldiers like U.S. Army Spc. Ulysses Vasquez from 1st Platoon, Company C, 2nd Battalion, immediately noticed differences between how U.S. and Australian soldiers use this type of weapon.
“For them, it seems like more of an area target weapon. It seems really accurate, and there is a lot of math involved, but it looks like there isn’t much of a mobility technique, which is what we have,” Vasquez said.
The Australian gun teams establish a grid system so they can accurately identify the distance and location of enemy targets and friendly forces maximizing effectiveness, while preventing friendly fire, Vazquez explained.
They also use a complex sight system with their MAG 58 machine gun to zero the weapon, as well as make sure they’re parallel with other gunners in their element.
Vazquez went on to explain how the Australians zero their weapon.
“They don’t fire one round [to zero]. They gut out their weapon and put their sights inside their weapon and just align the sight to their barrel, unlike us, where we have to shoot to zero.”
For Australian Defence Force Cpl. Adam Revett, a fire team leader, demonstrations like this are a typical training tool for his soldiers.
“Its pretty much what we do most of the time,” said Revett. “We give instruction to our lads in a pretty similar form.”
Next, the U.S. soldiers ran through a step-by-step demonstration of how they engage the enemy using the M-240B machine gun.
Training like this allows units to learn from each other, incorporating each other’s methods to fine tune how they operate, said Revett.
“When we do work together on operations, we do have a greater understanding of how you guys operate and what capabilities you guys bring to the party,” said Revett.
For U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Michael Randolph, joint training like this presents an unique opportunity to learn different tactics from allied forces.
“With them being our strongest allies, … it’s really important that we understand each other,” explained Randolph, “These guys are a very professional army - very well trained soldiers. They’re going to learn a lot from us, and we’re definitely going to take a lot from them.”
| Date Taken: | 07.14.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 07.14.2011 05:16 |
| Story ID: | 73703 |
| Location: | QL, AU |
| Web Views: | 539 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, US, Australian machine gunners learn from each other during Talisman Sabre 2011, by LT John Drdek, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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