Photo By Master Sgt. Paul Wade | A company of M1 Abrams main battle tanks belonging to Delta Company, 1st Battalion,...... read more read more
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CAMP ROBERTS, Calif. - Each unit arriving at Camp Roberts for training makes it a point to showcase their might. Logistics and sustainment units roll by in their vast array of support vehicles, fuel trucks and heavy transporters. Field artillery brandish their guns. Aviation crews snap and crack the air before landing in a swirl of dust. Infantry and cavalry companies parade by in their turret-mounted Humvees with equipment poking from every seam. And so on. All very impressive.
But when the main battle tanks and fighting vehicles of the California Army National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 185th Armor Regiment arrived the first week of June, it was like “The Greatest Show on Earth” just pulled in.
Most Soldiers who perform their two weeks of annual training at the camp have never seen our armor there. It has been roughly 12 years since the unit’s tracks churned up the dirt of California National Guard’s largest training installation. That is because the mainly Southern California-based unit keeps its hulking beasts housed at Fort Irwin. The home of the National Training Center is the perfect location for armor to train, with its vast open landscape and long-distance firing ranges. Logistics to keep these mechanized monsters purring also play a decisive role.
The armor drought at annual training at Camp Roberts ended this year, and with the help of an armada of heavy equipment transporters, history was written. Each HET, courtesy of our Riverside-based, 1498th Transportation Company, deftly hauled a 27-ton Bradley, or the smaller, versatile, armored personnel carrier variations, such as a M113, along California’s highways.
Spanning the 300 miles between the desert proving grounds of Irwin and the rolling coastal hills of Roberts, newly-upgraded rail yards at the 74-year-old camp made the transport of the 68-ton M1 Abrams and 50-plus ton M88 Hercules recovery vehicle feasible.
Once in the hands of their eager crews they blazed a path into the camp’s backcountry, using tank trails, and got to work.
“Our overall intent was to integrate our heavy forces with other units in the California Army National Guard, especially the light infantry of the 79th Infantry Brigade Combat Team,” said Lt. Col. Kris Kough, commander of the armor battalion. “We liked the idea of giving our crews and dismounted infantry a different type of terrain to maneuver and train on.”
The armor of the unit isn’t the only war hammer they can throw down. The unit is considered a combined-arms battalion, meaning they have dismounted infantry, mortars and scout assets.
“Fort Irwin is great for mechanized heavy forces,” said Kough. “But not so great for dismounted infantry so our infantry squads benefited greatly from the landscape at Roberts. In the end, we worked with engineers from the [578th Brigade Engineer Battalion] improving vehicle fighting positions and breaching obstacles. We conducted some air insertions of our scouts and infantry. Finally, we integrated with light infantry of the [1st Battalion, 160th Infantry Regiment] for company and team operations.”
While the foot Soldiers stomped dirt instead of sand, the tankers practiced maneuvering, focusing on attack and defend tasks.
“My driver had a blast,” said 1st Lt. Rito Guerra, commander of Delta Company, 1-185th, and an M1 Abrams tank commander. “We are just used to vast open spaces with little elevation, but Roberts provided great training with some steep hills, riverbeds, water sources and trees!”
Just the addition of a wooded area raised the danger factor a DEFCON level or two. The powdery dirt layering at Camp Roberts was an additional issue.
“We found out the dirt here clogs our road wheels causing a thrown track,” said Guerra. “So we brushed up a lot on track maintenance, which is a good thing. Overall, it was great fun.”
Despite its 44,000-acre training area, Roberts still has its limitations.
“We were not able to conduct tank or Bradley gunnery because Camp Roberts can’t facilitate those training requirements,” said Kough. “We did complete a dry run [gunnery table] with no firing in preparation for crew qualification coming up at Irwin. However, our tanks were able to knock out a Live Fire Accuracy Screen Test and put steel on steel targets, which is really awesome to see.”
On a massive range surrounded by high hills, a company of tanks sent 120 rounds of high-explosive anti-tank warheads and Sabot projectiles into rusting hulks of old vehicles and armor that dotted the landscape.
“It was great [zeroing] our guns at the Roberts range,” said Guerra. “At Irwin we shoot at wooden targets. Here we had the chance to put actual hard targets in our crosshairs and light them up.”
The full brunt of force wasn’t on display during annual training due to expected restrictions, but it appears it wasn’t needed to impress the Soldiers gathered there or the leadership. According to Kough, the unit capitalized on all their available resources and truly enhanced the realism of the training exercise and could be summed up in one aviator’s words:
“Having the chance to train alongside armor made my annual training.”
| Date Taken: | 06.07.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 07.17.2015 16:38 |
| Story ID: | 170386 |
| Location: | CAMP ROBERTS, CA, US |
| Hometown: | BAKERSFIELD, CA, US |
| Hometown: | BARSTOW, CA, US |
| Hometown: | CORONA, CA, US |
| Hometown: | PALMDALE, CA, US |
| Hometown: | PORTERVILLE, CA, US |
| Hometown: | RIVERSIDE, CA, US |
| Hometown: | SAN BERNARDINO, CA, US |
| Web Views: | 677 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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