Photo By Spc. Kevin Wang | Battle Group Poland Soldier Pfc. Kyle Pollard begins lowering a cratering charge in a...... read more read more
Subscribe
BEMOWO PISKIE TRAINING AREA, Poland — Shouts of “Fire in the hole, Fire in the hole, Fire in the hole,” and then big booms sounded throughout the day as Battle Group Poland soldiers ignited demolition charges during live-fire training here May 11.
U.S. Soldiers from the battle group’s Engineering Platoon along with some U.K. soldiers from Mustang Troop, spent the day planting and igniting various demolition charges. From prepping, setting, priming, then to firing the charges, each explosion taught the soldiers about the different charges they can utilized for destroying caches, demolishing a bridge and creating craters and obstacles with explosives.
“This type of live-fire training is important because it helps build our soldiers’ confidence in using demolitions that we would use for our various missions. Some of the new soldiers haven’t shot demolition since basic training and it also helps to give the non-engineers experience,” said 2nd Lt. Dave Truong, platoon leader. “The training also reinforces our ability to use demolition in a safe and effective manner on the battlefield.”
Having the U.K. participate in the training also was important so the battle group can learn how each nation conducts demolitions and to work together to accomplish the mission.
There are differences between how the two armies handle demolition operations, according to Mustang Trooper, Cpl. Adam Russell, Jackal crew-member.
“In the American Army, the engineers are more specialized in specific areas, whereas our engineers are more of ‘jack-of-all-trades’ and do a bit of everything,” Russell said. “It’s good to do training with the American Army engineers so we get the hands on experience and gives us the opportunity to learn much more about demolitions.”
The training was also beneficial to one battle group combat engineer, who got to set off the last charge of the training.
“That was my first time actually pulling the pin to make a charge go off. It was an amazing feeling,” said Pvt. Steffin Myles.
| Date Taken: | 05.11.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 05.23.2017 10:04 |
| Story ID: | 234858 |
| Location: | PL |
| Web Views: | 281 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Battle Group Poland combat engineers start their day off with a bang, by SPC Kevin Wang, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
