By MAJ Justin Liesen
Fort Worth’s own 273rd Engineer Detachment, Forward Engineer Support Team – Advanced (FEST-A), the Texas Armadillos, attended the first FEST training course for the 2017 fiscal year at the Readiness Training Center in Mobile, Alabama.
The course provides team members with knowledge they need to perform their duties as members of a FEST and provide the military with high quality designs for basecamps, route assessments, and infrastructure improvement. The course is composed of two separate tracks designed to educate students on two of the core tasks a FEST is expected to perform; base camp design or reconnaissance.
The Contingency Construction and Base Camp Master Planning Track gave students the tools and knowledge necessary to design and layout a base camp taking the requirements of the various safety regulations. The class addresses some of the challenges associated with base camp master planning in a contingency environment. Students learned how to effectively use land while ensuring force protection, environmental, health, mission, and living needs. They then took the basic designs and applied them to the abnormal contours of the land.
Students in the route reconnaissance track learned about the tools and techniques associated with conducting area and route reconnaissance as an effort to determine the viability of land or a road network for usage in military operations. They investigated the components of bridges, the slopes of roads, and the curvature of a road. They applied this knowledge to determine if military vehicles would be able to use the road or cross a bridge. They took the knowledge that they learned and applied it through the tools and systems assigned to the FEST.
Both tracks culminated with a practical exercise designed to test the new skills and knowledge that the students gained throughout their time at the Readiness Support Center. The base camp planning team designed a contingency base camp based on a historical mission requirement. The reconnaissance track visited a bridge, gathered data, and classified the bridge for military use.
In addition to spending time learning about the tools and systems designed to make a FEST successful during their deployments, the team members took the opportunity to coordinate projects and gather lessons learned from FEST members attending from across the Corps of Engineers. The ability afforded to the team members to be able to work with their peers and learn from those who recently returned from deployments was invaluable.
After leaving Mobile, the team has the baseline knowledge and skills to provide the valuable products expected from a FEST. This training was instrumental in preparing them for their upcoming mission in support of Key Resolve 17.
| Date Taken: | 02.10.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 02.21.2017 17:19 |
| Story ID: | 224240 |
| Location: | FORT WORTH , TX, US |
| Web Views: | 163 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Texas Armadillos Attend FEST Training, by Denisha Braxton, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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