Photo By Staff Sgt. Bob Yarbrough | Lt. Col. Christopher Auclair, commander of 1st Battalion, 76th Field Artillery...... read more read more
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FORT STEWART, Ga. – Artillerymen with 1st Battalion, 76th Field Artillery Regiment, 3rd Infantry Division Artillery, conducted a battalion mass shoot, March 22, 2015, on Fort Stewart, Georgia.
The “Patriot” Battalion's four batteries amassed 18 artillery pieces, including M-777 and M-119 howitzers as part of a 22 day field training exercise, while concurrently supporting 3rd ID’s 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team’s Vanguard Focus exercise.
The mass shoot exercise was meant to display the ability of the battalion to work together from a battalion level down to each gun team, a large-scale operations the battalion does not regularly conduct.
Pvt. Chad Granzow, an M-119 cannon crew member with Battery A, 1-76 FA, was responsible for recording and tracking the ammunition that his crew uses. “I've heard a lot of the [senior] ranks … say that they've never seen anything like that before,” said the Columbus, Ohio native. “I feel pretty honored to see that, and I'm pretty fresh here.”
The shoot was conducted from one area, while forward observers worked with radar operators at an observation point near the impact area.
Maj. Michael Calderon, 4th IBCT's fire support officer, described the collaboration of the observers. “We have our fire supports right here, observing the targets in the impact area,” said the Bayamon, Puerto Rico native. “But we also have the target acquisition element, which is a Q-50 radar, which assist us on determining the point of origin and the point of impact on those projectiles.”
The exercise included several dry runs, where each crew performed each step in receiving the fire mission, loading their gun, firing, unloading, and calling in a report. Finally, the battery was prepared to “go hot,” or fire live rounds. The sound was loud. All howitzers fired within one second of each other, and the reverberations could be heard for nearly 10 seconds, and the impact could be heard from the firing point.
“What we wanted to do was to mass the entire battalion, all 18 guns on-line, and make them feel good and comfortable about their ability to mass 18 rounds of combined 155 millimeter and 105 millimeter at the same time,” said Lt. Col. Christopher Auclair, commander of 1-76 FA. “You have to have a confidence to do that, and you have to know what that's going to feel like. We're not shooting one or two guns like we do in Afghanistan or Iraq. We're shooting eighteen at one time, engaging the enemy, and hopefully removing his ability to fight,” said the Latham, New York, native.
1-76 FA was previously the 4th IBCT’s artillery battalion, but even since the re-forming of 3rd Infantry Division Artillery, or DIVARTY, the Patriot Battalion has continued to partner and provide fire support for the Vanguard Brigade.
| Date Taken: | 03.22.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 03.31.2015 10:27 |
| Story ID: | 158638 |
| Location: | FORT STEWART, GA, US |
| Web Views: | 158 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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