Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Leticia Samuels | Soldiers from the 1452nd Combat Heavy Equipment Transporter Company perform isolating...... read more read more
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FORT BRAGG, N.C. - When you hear rodeo, bucking horses and 8 seconds come to mind, but for the 1452nd Combat Heavy Equipment Transporter (HET) Company, it’s about completing mission essential tasks and teamwork while conducting a truck rodeo here June 24, 2015.
“I think this keeps the morale up and keeps platoons competitive. We have a good time,” said Staff Sgt. Kyle Gentry, 1452nd HET truck rodeo noncommissioned officer in charge.
Thirty-six soldiers enrolled in an 80-hour course apply concepts and components learned during the course to a hands-on competition where they have to complete tasks transportation soldiers are required to perform at any time. They perform these tasks on these 72-foot-long behemoths for the fastest overall time while ensuring they are safe and accurate.
“They have one experienced person from the platoon that can help them and hand them tools,” said Gentry. “Everything is hands on only, by the students who have a maximum of about two week’s experience, that’s the catch for this.”
The competition consisted of a round robin circuit where soldiers filter in and out of three stations. At the first station, soldiers conduct the uncoupling of the HET bobtail from the 40 tire wheeled trailer. This requires soldiers to safely separate the bobtail from the trailer in a series of 24 steps that are to be performed in the correct order without incurring any safety violations or infractions that can result in a minute penalty.
“They can be docked for different things, from technical knowledge that they were taught in the school to safety violations,” said Gentry.
The second station is the straight line backing portion. Students pull the truck forward through a lane of cones clearing the entire truck through the cones. Once cleared, soldiers have to watch ground guides that assist in the direction of truck movement while backing through the designated cone lane. Students are graded on how well they react to hand and arms signals given by their ground guides and also have to refrain from hitting any of the cones while moving backward in the lane.
The final station is the isolation of a bogie, consisting of a set of dual tires connected to the hydraulic system on the trailer allowing them to have a swinging motion in contrast to the V-neck turn with standard semi-trucks. Soldiers perform a series of steps which conclude with an 180-degree rotation of the bogie and the removal of the inner most tire. This procedure must be completed with two or more soldiers to be performed safely and correctly.
The M1070A1 HET is an all-terrain vehicle and can operate in remote locations enabling soldiers to transport heavy military vehicles including the Abrams battle tank. The bobtail stands 3.7 meters tall, has a 150-gallon gas tank, and is attached to an axillary powered semi-trailer that has various functions to include controlling two main winches that operates independently of each other to recover, load, and unload heavy tracked and wheeled vehicles.
“The HETs are a very versatile piece of machinery, I hauled everything from Porta-Johns to M1 tanks to engineer bridges and everything in between,” said Gentry. “It’s a large piece of machinery, so there are a lot of places it can’t go, but you would be surprised at the places it will go.”
Ensuring soldiers can perform these major tasks not only keeps them safe but also gives them a cutting edge in logistical operations while keeping the North Carolina National Guard a ready asset to the military workforce.
“The most rewarding part is having a unit that’s larger than the average unit and keeping them trained like any other unit,” said Capt. Patrick Smith, 1452nd Combat Heavy Equipment Transporter Company commander.
| Date Taken: | 06.24.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 06.29.2015 09:14 |
| Story ID: | 168481 |
| Location: | NC, US |
| Web Views: | 184 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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