The Hot Ones

Hot Ones A tactical road march of some 130 by Robert E. Rogge ARM 0 R Assistant Editor “They are a great bunch of troops, and I’m proud of them,” said Lieutenant Colonel Jerry Bussell, 41- year-old 1st Battalion commander. “The battalion has been talking about doing this for the past year or so,” he said, during a scheduled maintenance stop in the middle of a dry lake bed. “We finally got it all together; we rounded up all the permissions we needed from just about everybody you can imagine and now we’re doing it.” The dust-covered commander made it sound simple. It wasn’t. When the;/221 rolled into the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, CA, after. their two-day march, they faced two weeks of platoon, company and battalion training exercises with their own A Company acting as the OPFOR. Then they would road march back to Henderson, their start point. After their busy 2-week stay, there was also the annual PT test to be passed, a wingding party to be faced up to and, best of all - payday! One of the prime purposes of the unprecedented road march was to test realistically the state of the unit’s vehicle maintenance. The march, the training exercises, and the return march would surely tell whether they could take the 180 tracked and wheeled vehicles on a rugged, cross-country march, fight them, and get home again. When it was all over, the numbers pointed to success. “We made it back with 95 percent of our equipment up and ready for a fight,” said the unit maintenance chief, CWO James Smith. “Each tank had over 500 miles on it and we never had two tanks down at the same time. This was very good...”... And perhaps the understatement of the year. “This is a first for any Army Guard unit,” said Lieutenant Colonel Bussell. “The only time previous to this that an armored unit has taken on a trip of this caliber -along with field exercises - was more than 45 years ago when General Patton trained Regular Army armored units in the desert out here. What we have,” he said, “is Patton Tanks following in the tracks of their namesake.” The unit cranked up at 0530 on Friday, 14 June, and by 0730 the last vehicle was moving out. Seventy-one tracked and 109 wheeled vehicles made up the convoy. At the end of the first day’s march - covering 94 miles - one M48A5 was down with a blown engine and one M561 Gama Goat broke down. The M48’s power pack was replaced at Fort Irwin and the tank was in 25

I s c The Guardsmen’s relatively trouble-free road march hinged on aggressive preventive maintenance. Here, road wheel bearings get a shot of grease during scheduled halt. action at the end of the two-day road march. The so-called “Weekend Wamors” drove, fixed, fueled, cussed at and sweated every vehicle through the mountains and desert with the minimum of delays. There were 43 M48A5s, six M577Al command post carriers, eight MI 13A2 personnel carriers, four M106Al mortar carriers, two M578 recovery vehicles, six M88A1 recovery vehicles and two M60 AVLB bridge-laying vehicles in the tracked inventory. A total of 109 wheeled vehicles completed the convoy: Twenty-one M35A2 2%-ton trucks, nineteen M813 5-ton trucks, seven M561 Gama Goats, one M816 wrecker, three M911 heavy transporters, forty-seven M151A1 utility trucks (jeeps), two vans, one CJ5, one carryall, four Blazers, one 2%-ton stake truck and two sedans. The convoy stretched from 15 to 25 miles along the torturous route. Routine mechanical problems were cured during the march by drivers and crewmen, or by the maintenance platoon that ate dust all the way as it tailed the convoy. Maintenance was the key to the move, said the commander. “Our maintenance practices were not exactly viewed with complete pleasure at higher echelons,” he said, “but this move proves that we were right. And the credit goes to CW03 Smith... He knows his stuff. He’s been at this work for years, and he gets the work done properly and on time,” Lieutenant Colonel Bussell added. CW03 Smith is typical of the long-service chief warrant officer (he plans to retire sometime this year). He tends to become a bit irritated at times with foolishness and forgetfulness, but his men real-lv work for him. Thev know that he knows what it’s all about. Smith’s vehicle maintenance program carried out with a full-time crew of only 11 technicians and 25 of an authorized 100 part-time Guardsmen, saw to it that the 1/221’s vehicles were ready for the long desert trek and the training maneuvers that followed. Their track record for the out march proved Smith’s maintenance capabilities. “He gets pretty wild at times,” grinned the colonel, “but he gets things done. We couldn’t have made this trip without him.” The U221 won the highly prized Draper Trophy in 1983 for its overall excellence,. and vehicle maintenance played a big part. Three maintenance halts were planned along the route for routine work on the vehicles. The sight of crews hammering at track connector links, heaving on track adjusting wrenches and really sweating over steaming hot engines was something to see. Everyman worked hard at keeping the vehicles running despite heat that made the colonel lay down the order: “Every track crewman will drink one quart of water every hour when on the road.” Track drivers were changed frequently as temperatures inside the hulls topped the 150°F mark. The overnight stop at Silver Lake, CA, brought welcome relief to the dust-caked and weary troopers - and the unit’sown mobile shower rig ran its 1,200-gallon tank dry in short order. Smith’s maintenance shop worked up a simple, six-shower-head unit that pumped warm but welcome water on to the skinny dippers. After their showers, the crewmen lined up for evening chow that was ready and waiting for them. During the seemingly interminable road march, the battalion motor officer, Captain Robert Brewer, kept control of all 180 vehicles with radio jeeps stationed at intervals along the route and a “get-there-quick” repair truck equipped to handle all but major problems. ”We’re training to one set of standards - excellence.“ This was not an all-male tactical movement. Three women drove the M911 heavy transporters, hanging in there as they literally man-handled the immense vehicles right along with the brawniest of tank crewmen. Female MPs from the 72d MP Company, NARNG, worked traffic control at the Nevada-California border where the convoy crossed i I Crossing 1-1 5 at the California-Nevada border, an M48A5 is lined up perpendicular to the roadway before crossing SO as not to chew up the pavement with locked tracks. 26

The unit throws up columns of dust emerging from McCullough Pass and entering a dry lake bed. 1-15. These young women kept their cool in the heat - and in the face of irate 18-wheeler drivers and their blasting air horns as road traffic was halted to allow the convoy’s crossing. That crossover was the only patch of paved road the convoy traversed during its record-making march. A tactical crossing of a railroad was made during the first day’s march. One of the 1/221st’s M60 AVLBs bridged the Union Pacific Railroad tracks - between trains - for the passage of all vehicles. Air support was provided by two UH-1Hmedevac choppers, one CH- 54 Sky Crane chopper to airlift pre-assembled power packs, etc., and one OH-58 command and control chopper. At the completion of the cross-country to Fort Irwin, only one man had to be air evacuated for heat problems. Advance planning for the road march was detailed and time consuming. Coordination had to be accomplished with the Nevada and California departments of transportation, many county and local governments, the federal Bureau of Land Management and several electric power companies before one wheel or track turned. Guard units from Winnemucca, Yerington and Hawthorne, in northern Nevada, and from Henderson, Boulder City, North Las Vegas and Las Vegas convoyed to Henderson to join up for the march. “It’s still a paper war,” Colonel Bussell grinned. The move also pointed out how much a modern Guard unit depends on fuel. CW03 Smith figured out that the 1/221st burned nearly 10,000 gallons of mogas and diesel fuel on its road march from Henderson to Fort Irwin. said CW03 Smith, when he heard about the extra mileage. The 1st Battalion, 221st Armor, is justly proud of its long road march and extends the challenge to all other Army National Guard units: “Here it is. Beat it, if you can.” And then there was the heat. Outside thermometers hit the 120- degree mark and those inside the tracks topped the 150-degree line. The commander’s order to drink lots of water was obeyed with gusto in the moving steel ovens. A specially insulated and refrigerated truck kept a constant supply of crushed ice at the designated maintenance halts and at the overnight stop. It was to see full-time service during the two-week training period and on the road back. It would be a safe bet (even for Las Vegas!) to say that as much water was consumed as vehicle fuel on that road march. But not a drop of alcohol. “Alcohol will kill vou in this desert.” said Lieutenant kolonel Bussell. “It dehydrates you, and that’s the last thing youneed in the desert. You sweat gallons as it is, and you don’t need anything to help the drying-out process. A dried-out crewman will pass out, and if he’s not attended to right away, he’s gone.” Major General Thomas Cole, deputy commander, 6 Army, said while lined up for chow, “We’re training to one set of standards - excellence. This unit has an advantage over the Regular Army units because of its stability and relative lack of troop turbulence. This march is providing very good training for the troops. It is, I’m sure, instilling them with a large measure of confidence in themselves and their fighting equipment.” The 1/221st did things the right way. On their arrival at the NTC, quartering did not meet the commander’s standard - so the unit back-tracked 25 miles into the desert and made another run in. And this time they got it right. “There’s another fifty gray hairs for me,” Pulling Batteries With No Sweat How many times have two or more men bashed knuckles, murdered the English language and generally worked themselves into a sweat pul. ling tank batteries? The 1 st Battalion, 221 st Armor, Nevada Army National Guard had the same problem with the batteries in their M48A5 tanks - sc they did something about it. Rather, their maintenance chief, CWO3 Smith, did something about it. Smith and his crew of expert m e chanics made a battery puller thal works. Fabricated from locally avail. able supplies, and some scrounging, the hand-operated winch fits into the machinegun pintle on the turret and withdraws the heavy wet cells witk the minimum of effort, sweat and tough language. It’s a simple gadget, but simple gadgets often work where sophistication fails. 27