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MARINE CORPS AIR GROUND COMBAT CENTER TWENTYNINE PALMS, Calif. – More than 2,000 Marines and sailors from 11th Marine Regiment and 1st Marine Division participated in Desert Fire Exercise 2012 here, April 29 to May 15.
hroughout the training, the “Cannon Cockers” incorporated the fundamentals of artillery to shoot, move and communicate as a regiment making their way through the Marine Corps’ largest live-fire training ground.
The exercise was also designed to develop and sustain the regiment’s ability to plan and execute artillery fires in an offensive scenario to support 1st Marine Division.
“Eleventh Marine Regiment provided direct support fires to 1st MARDIV in the form of cannon and rocket artillery,” said Lt. Col. Steve Pritchard, the operations officer for 11th Marine Regiment. “Our ability to integrate surface and aviation fires within the scheme of maneuver of an infantry regiment is a true representation of how the [Marine Air-Ground Task Force] concept works.”
The command and control for the regiment during the exercise simulated a situation where 1st Marine Division was engaged in sustained combat operations as part of the ground combat element for 1st Marine Expeditionary Force.
Due to the nature of combat operations in both Iraq and Afghanistan over the past 10 years, the opportunities for the regiment have been limited by subordinate units deploying and their opportunities to train as a conventional artillery regiment, Pritchard, from Weymouth, Mass., said.
“Shooting as a regiment provides an opportunity for the young Marines to see how the whole regiment works,” said Sgt. Raymundo Sesmas, a gun chief with India Battery, 3rd Battalion, 11th Marines. “It’s rare that we see the whole regiment in the same training area.”
The combat center, with close to 1000 square miles of training space available, also enabled the Marines to conduct long-range movements, communications and logistical resupply convoys throughout the base and simulate logistical hardships in displacing their gun lines, Pritchard said. This aspect of the training provided the closest reflection of sustained combat operations a unit can create in a training environment.
“The movements [as a regiment] are totally different,” said Sesmas, from Phoenix, Ariz. “Moving en masse as a regiment has a whole different set of difficulties compared to moving on your own. Moving on your own, you set your own pace and reach your own timelines. Moving as a regiment, someone tells you when and where to be.”
In addition to allowing the regiment to maneuver as a whole, the expanded training area gave the regiment more potential for fire missions on the gun line and faster target selection with safety still being paramount.
MCAGCC affords the regiment the opportunity to use minimum safe lines rather than specified target points, Pritchard said. Making use of this capability that the regiment is not able to use aboard Camp Pendleton allowed increased sustainment of fires with minimal training deconfliction.
This means the Marines on the gun line were able to send more than 4,000 rounds downrange and maximize their efforts on the gun line in preparation for any mission they could face. Individual Marines on the gun lines also had to push themselves throughout the training to maintain their tempo and combat mindset.
“We work long hours, get minimal sleep so it’s really good combat training,” Lance Cpl. Ernesto Baez, a field artillery cannoneer with Mike Battery, 3/11, from Atlanta. “It’s very important because if we aren’t training and doing our jobs we won’t be ready for anything that might happen.”
The exercise presented the rare opportunity for the “Cannon Cockers” to conduct field artillery missions to train and strengthen the Marines as a regiment.
“Going through this training strengthens the regiment as a whole and proves that we can function as a unit,” said Sesmas.
| Date Taken: | 05.09.2012 |
| Date Posted: | 05.16.2012 15:14 |
| Story ID: | 88517 |
| Location: | CALIFORNIA, US |
| Web Views: | 103 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, 'Cannon Cockers' shoot out Desert Fire Exercise 2012, by Sgt Benjamin Crilly, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
