Photo By Sgt. Joseph Guenther | Paratroopers with 2nd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat...... read more read more
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FORT BRAGG, N.C. – Paratroopers across the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division were contacted in the early morning hours of Nov. 28 and told to be ready to conduct operations at any time. By 2:00 a.m., the calls went out and assembly of all the personnel and equipment necessary to deploy began.
From those early morning hours until Dec. 8, the Paratroopers of 3rd BCT conducted a combined arms maneuver live fire exercise, an ongoing series of field training exercises ranging from convoy live fires by 82nd Brigade Support Battalion, to direct infantry assaults by 2nd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment supported by indirect fire from 1st Battalion, 319th Airborne Field Artillery Regiment, to staff drills at the brigade’s tactical operations center in a forward location.
While some individual missions were not directly related to each other, they did establish the conditions necessary to evaluate the brigade’s readiness to deploy as the 82nd Airborne Division’s Global Response Force.
One of those evaluations was used to validate the recent certification of the brigade’s forward observers and fire support officers, said Lt. Col. John Zeigler, the brigade FSO and acting chief of operations.
“We gave the FOs and FSOs situations in which they could use mortars and artillery to support direct assault missions in the field,” Zeigler explained. “And we were also able to get rotary wing assets from the North Carolina National Guard up in Raleigh to come down here and support us with target handovers.”
The skill of the fire support teams and 1-319th AFAR was on clear display as round after round landed on their targets while the infantrymen of 2-505 PIR assaulted a simulated enemy village in both blank and live fire exercises.
Meanwhile, members of the brigade staff conducted their own series of simulated missions at the tactical operations center. Although the brigade TOC did maintain accountability of personnel, equipment, and range status for the rest of the exercise, their primary tactical focus was based on a simulated view of real-world operations, said Staff Sgt. Jeffery Creighton, the battle noncommissioned officer for the mission.
“We track the status of units on the ground with front line traces and situation reports they send to us,” Creighton explained.
“Everything goes through us, and it’s our job to give the commander a broad, overall picture of the battlefield.”
Both veteran and inexperienced Paratroopers, many of whom have never worked together in a forward operations environment, were given the opportunity to collaborate their efforts and experience by receiving notional intelligence reports and enemy contact and act on them with mission planning and TOC battle drills.
After a commander’s battle update brief, Maj. Matthew Weinrich, the executive officer of the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, took a few moments to explain to the TOC staff and other supporting Paratroopers the importance cooperation and integrating their efforts.
“We have to take advantage of this time to learn what works and what doesn’t. It’s our responsibility to ensure the commander the information he needs to make a decision and move out,” Weinrich said.
| Date Taken: | 12.08.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 12.11.2011 08:22 |
| Story ID: | 81197 |
| Location: | FORT BRAGG, NORTH CAROLINA, US |
| Web Views: | 1,407 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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