Photo By Gunnery Sgt. Donald Holbert | Sergeant Caleb Pente, explosive ordnance technician with Special Purpose Marine Air...... read more read more
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USS AMERICA, At Sea - Explosive ordnance disposal Marines conducted familiarization training with the MK 2 MTRS (Talon) robot aboard the future amphibious assault ship USS America (LHA 6), July 23.
The six-man EOD team with Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force South, in support of America’s maiden transit “America Visits the Americas,” must conduct the training monthly, or as mandated, in order to maintain their required skill level.
“We are doing the training here because it’s one of our training and readiness standards,” said Warrant Officer Timothy Harrison, EOD officer in charge with SPMAGTF-South. “It’s a perishable skill working with a robot, and it was something that we could do here.”
The unorthodox training iteration took place on the vehicle storage deck of the ship. It included object recognition, and the moving of small objects from one place to another.
“Typically we would like to go outside and bury an improvised explosive device,” said Harrison. “But since you can’t bury anything on ship, we had to improvise and we laid some items out on the deck of the ship.”
Training aboard the ship provides a technician with unique challenges and benefits that would not exist ashore. The large amounts of metal, electronic equipment and radio frequencies interfere with the control unit’s ability to communicate with the robot.
“There is a lot of interference when using the robot on ship.” said Sgt. Caleb Pente, EOD technician, and a native of Detroit, Mich. “It gives you that worst case scenario training of getting a hazy picture. You’re going to need every asset you have.”
The technician must make deliberate movements to combat the consistent interference and utilize fellow team members to make up for the lack of visibility on the screen.
Having a trained technician to operate the robot is vital part of an EOD team’s capability and safety.
“If something does happen, we don’t have to send in a person to prosecute a scene,” said Harrison. “We can send a robot. In the event that something happens or explodes in a way that we don’t want to, nobody is going to get hurt.”
The EOD team with SPMAGTF-South will train alongside our partner-nations, exchanging knowledge and tactics. The team will share their IED lessons learned from Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. In return, they will receive any knowledge or experience our partners have to offer on the subject.
America is currently traveling through the U.S. Southern Command and U.S. 4th Fleet area of operations en route to her assigned homeport in San Diego, Calif. U.S. Naval Forces Southern Command and U.S. 4th Fleet employ maritime forces in cooperative maritime security operations in order to maintain access, enhance interoperability, and build enduring partnerships that foster regional security in the U.S. Southern Command area of responsibility. The ship is scheduled to be commissioned Oct. 11 in San Francisco.
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| Date Taken: | 07.24.2014 |
| Date Posted: | 07.28.2014 21:37 |
| Story ID: | 137570 |
| Location: | USS AMERICA, AT SEA |
| Hometown: | DETROIT, MICHIGAN, US |
| Web Views: | 270 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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