A spacious and airy home away from home for U.S. service members is where our story begins. Soldiers who drill with Headquarters, Headquarters
Company, 86th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Mountain), have a couple of new airbeam shelters which they recently practiced inflating in their own
backyard.
The Vermont Army National Guard is incorporating mobile, inflatable
tents for their ease-of-use and rapid deployment in field operations that
require structural cover. Leaders of the 86th IBCT (MTN) added inflatable
airbeam structures to their own inventories after seeing them in use at 10th
Mountain Division Warfighter Exercises.
Col. Nathan Lord, commander of the 86th IBCT (MTN), says that the
brigade's older shelter systems have reached the end of their lifecycle.
"This is all about making an effort to modernize and improve our mobility
and survivability." Lord also says that these shelter systems are the next
evolution of the brigade's tents.
Soldiers who drill at HHC, recently unboxed one of their new airbeam
shelters at the Camp Ethan Allen Training Site in Jericho. Few on the team
have first-hand experience with the tent system, but appear eager to see how it works.
Cpt. Thomas Malinowski, the brigade's finance officer, says that older
tents demanded a greater number of people to set up.
"I don't have any experience with these new shelters, but older tents
required quite a bit of fitness, tallness and equipment to set-up safely."
Soldiers unroll the tent, stake the guy-lines and set up the air
compressor. They emplace an electricity generator and attach all the
connectors. The air flow starts and Soldiers reposition the rising columns
as necessary. Inflation of the structure takes roughly 15 minutes.
Sgt. Jeremy Breckenridge, who participated in the brigade's recent
Joint Service Training Center rotation at Fort Polk, Louisiana, already sees
how airbeam might have advantages over the older systems he wrangled down south, "Theoretically, just a couple of people could set this tent up."
Breckenridge had worries about punctures with the tents, but those were
quickly quelled.
Sgt. First Class Eric Kilburn, acting first sergeant of HHC 86th IBCT
(MTN), says that airbeam are designed to withstand collapse if punctured
while inflated.
"It can get shot, but there are adjustment features that section off the air
so that the whole thing won't come down."
Combat isn't just about fighting enemy, it's also about conserving and
parsing resources wisely.
Back at headquarters, during lunch, Soldiers discuss what they think about
their new airbeam. The conversation banks mostly around the savings in time and manpower that such tents might afford.
There is consensus that all the right pieces must be in place for the system
to work. Some at table think airbeam could make the experience of setting up command posts while dressed in chemical protection gear a lot easier. One Soldier slips into a thousand-mile stare remembering just how well chemical protection gear, combined with physical labor, uniquely strains the human body.
"We hit the ground, we get the tents set up quicker, with less manpower
which frees others to bring in the tables, chairs and computers," Kilburn
states.
Tactical operations centers, or TOCs, are the life blood of the
brigade. They are an overall necessity for the S2 who collect and analyze
intelligence, for the fires planning team, and for the S3 who track units on
the battlefield. These teams all use sensitive computers and communications systems that are better off sheltered from environmental hazards.
He estimates that his Soldiers can inflate an airbeam in less than an
hour. Only the TOC's complexity of configuration and environmental factors
will increase set up times. Kilburn also says that faster set ups will allow
TOC personnel to grasp the battlespace earlier in the fight.
"We definitely ran into a few snags early on," Kilburn says referencing
the short period of time when Soldiers could not find certain parts tucked
inside pouches of the tent's transport covers. Determined members of the
detail had scavenged for the exact, alternate parts needed to bridge the
impasse.
Discussions about the unit's future with inflatable shelters are now
underway, "We're already thinking of ways to improve our tent layouts and
rethink what our TOC is and isn't," says Kilburn.