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Gather round, twitter. Uncle Art has a brief tale for you.
As you might guess, as long as you're not getting shot at, driving armored vehicles can be kinda fun.
Like, a LOT of fun. /
As you might guess, as long as you're not getting shot at, driving armored vehicles can be kinda fun.
Like, a LOT of fun. /
I spent quite a few years assigned to mechanized/armored units, but was never assigned as a driver for any armored vehicles. Oh, I was checked out on the M113 and the Bradley, and drove both a few times/
Including that time SFC Parsons and I drove my Bradley about 4 miles with the back ramp down. Oops. Hey, I wanted to give my driver SPC C a break. Sue me. /
Back in the stone age, in an Armor battalion, equipped with the mighty M1A1 Abrams tank, the battalion would have a strength of 56 tanks. That's 4 companies, each with 14 tanks.
Add in a tank for the battalion commander, and one for the S-3, there you go, 56./
Add in a tank for the battalion commander, and one for the S-3, there you go, 56./
Now, I know you're going to find this hard to believe, but occasionally, a tank breaks down.
Guess what? The Army has spare tanks. Much like your car dealer has a loaner?
In the Army, that's known as a "float."/
Guess what? The Army has spare tanks. Much like your car dealer has a loaner?
In the Army, that's known as a "float."/
Some units kept their floats at the division or brigade level. Generally, it was 2 floats per tank battalion. In my day, in the 1st Armored Division, each battalion kept it's own two floats.
One of the fun oddities of the Army is, while you can have spare tanks, you can't have spare people. Armor battalion commanders go to extraordinary lengths to get all their crews qualified (and your entire crew has to qualify together) to certify them. /
And *every* unit in the Army is short of people. Peacetime, wartime, doesn't matter. You're never fully manned.
We stuffed my Desert Storm Infantry Battalion to 125% strength, and still couldn't field more than half our rifle squads because issues. /
We stuffed my Desert Storm Infantry Battalion to 125% strength, and still couldn't field more than half our rifle squads because issues. /
A couple months after Desert Storm, the 1st Armored Division withdrew from Iraq, and staged into Saudi Arabia, awaiting redeployment to Germany, where we'd been stationed before.
We'll save the lesson on task organization for battle for another day, but let's just say the relationship between 7/6IN and 1/37AR was almost intimate. Infantry loves to joke about tankers, and they call us Crunchies. But 1/37AR were absolute pros. /
So, we're camped out in the Empty Quarter of Saudi, waiting to get sent home.
But the entire VII Corps was slated to be shut down. There was no point in shipping our vehicles home. Instead, they'd be left in Saudi in case tensions flared with Iraq again.
But the entire VII Corps was slated to be shut down. There was no point in shipping our vehicles home. Instead, they'd be left in Saudi in case tensions flared with Iraq again.
Basically, we're sitting in the desert with nothing to do. But when it comes close to time to get enough airplanes to fly us back to Germany, each unit would move all its vehicles to a designated space, and simply park them. /
Folks who have ever tried to turn in a piece of equipment in the military? Easiest turn in ever. No inventory of a damn thing. I mean, if the M113 was present, close enough. Not even a 2404 taped to it. Park it, and GTFO. There's a hell of a lot of hand receipts made whole. /
