Photo By Command Sgt. Maj. Ryan Matson | U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Vanessa Goggia, right, and Spc. Samedy Muth, both crew chiefs...... read more read more
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Air crews from the 1st Battalion, 214th Aviation Regiment “Cougars” perfected their aerial gunnery skills Feb. 15 to March 1 as part of the Cougar Flurry field training exercise held in Baumholder Training Area, Baumholder, Germany.
UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter door gunners from Alpha Company, 1st Bn., 214th Aviation Regt., and CH-47 Chinook door gunners from Bravo Co., worked with their pilots and Firing Instructors to suppress or destroy targets on the range.
Staff Sgt. Justin Pickering, a Chinook flight engineer with Bravo Co., said effectively acting as a door gunner is one of the ultimate feats of multi-tasking.
“Not only are you looking for the targets, the pilots are helping you identify the targets, you also have to make sure the helicopter isn’t going to hit anything, it’s a lot going on at once,” Pickering said.
“You have to make sure you’re weapon is armed and ready, your ammo is loaded, you have sight of the target, you have positive confirmation of the target with the pilots and the pilots are clearing you to engage that target, and you have to make sure you’re shooting in those 7-to-10-round bursts, because if you don’t it can jam, or overheat or you can have a ‘bent gun’ and have to perform immediate or remedial action.”
In addition to all of this, door gunners must also calculate factors such as rotor wash, which will push the rounds different directions depending on the location of the target.
“It was real cool; I liked it a lot,” Spc. Seth Gordon, a crew chief from Aurora, Colorado, who has been in the Army less than two years and qualified from an aircraft for the first time, said.
“Everything’s moving…you just have a different perspective and views on the target.”
In addition to shooting with their normal flight gear, the door gunners also shoot wearing a chemical protective mask and through night vision goggles. Spc. Samedy Muth, a crew chief with Alpha Co. from Stockton, California, who completed the second aerial qualification of his career, said night firing was his favorite portion of aerial gunnery.
“It’s pitch black and you’re shooting a 240 machine gun, lighting up targets,” Muth said.
While crew chiefs spend hours maintaining their airframes, this training allowed them to develop their skills to be ready to protect it as well. Staff Sgt. Vanessa Goggia, a crew chief with Alpha Co., explained the training actually began well before Cougar Flurry.
“We go through several hours of weapons familiarization and academic training before we even get out here,” Goggia, who helped train her Soldiers to prepare for the aerial gunnery, said.
Goggia said the door gunners learn the communication commands issued by the pilots, weapons control and safe handling, changing configurations from the 240B (on the ground) to the 240H (mounted in the door of the helicopter), and how to handle malfunctions.
From the academic instruction, Goggia and Pickering said the crew chiefs move to a ground firing table before taking to the air.
“We’ll do a day portion, then a night portion, then a day and a night portion and move into a multi-ship operation with more than one Chinook, or Chinooks and Black Hawks or Apaches,” Pickering said.
Goggia said a successful aerial gunnery is not possible unless the entire air crew works together as a team. The pilot’s air speed and smooth handling of the aircraft as well as target identification will greatly affect the door gunner’s success in engaging the targets.
“In aviation in general, everybody has specific duties,” Goggia said. “We’re very tight-knit because we’re either going to succeed as a crew and make the mission happen and come back safely or we’re going to fail as a crew and that’s a very real fact of life in aviation.”
“In relation to gunnery, as a general rule the pilots are going to see the targets ahead of time before the crew chiefs who are further back and looking out the sides. The pilot in command will call out the targets and let the crew chiefs know what the target is and if we are clear to engage – whether or not they can confirm the target is an enemy or friendly force. At that point, the door gunner will then engage the targets. The most important thing from a safety aspect is to make sure we’re constantly communicating with each other on exactly what we’re seeing, the weapon’s status and other safety measures.”
“I like the camaraderie of everyone working together on the aircraft – everyone either shooting and flying or loading ammo – you’re helping get cans or just switching out, working together to make everything smooth,” Gordon said.
Pickering said the firing instructors will score the table, and either say “target suppressed” or “target destroyed” after each engagement. He said “target suppressed” means the enemy has fled or is no longer engaging the aircraft, whereas “target destroyed” means the target has been completely eliminated.,
This was the first time the battalion has conducted the aerial gunnery at BTA, as Goggia said they usually fire at Grafenwoehr Training Area but it was unavailable due to other training. Besides the aerial gunnery, which Goggia said the battalion would typically conduct two to three times a year, she said the battalion got in a lot of additional, valuable training during Cougar Flurry.
“Besides getting both of our companies through the aerial gunnery tables, we’ve done everything from ground ranges to convoy exercises, field exercises, mass casualty exercises, driver’s training with vehicles, and night vision training,” Goggia said.
“We got a lot of well-rounded training out here.”
| Date Taken: | 02.25.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 03.01.2021 13:23 |
| Story ID: | 390219 |
| Location: | BAUMHOLDER, DE |
| Web Views: | 592 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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