The picture is my son and my g/daughter (his niece) He is a policeman in civilian life, has a wife and three year old son.
Can you tell me more about Stryker Brigade Combat Team Tactical Studies Group (Chairborne)?
Posted on 11/12/2003 12:49:58 PM PST by Cannoneer No. 4
PORT OF KUWAIT, Kuwait (Army News Service, Nov. 12, 2003) -- For the first time since World War I, the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division has deployed overseas.
The brigade’s Stryker vehicles and other equipment arrived Nov. 12 in the port of Kuwait on board the USNS Shughart and USNS Sisler after a three-week voyage from Fort Lewis, Wash., via the Port of Tacoma.
The deployment marks the second time that Stryker vehicles have landed on foreign soil though. In August a platoon from the Army’s first Stryker Brigade Combat team conducted a capabilities demonstration in South Korea.
Also on Nov. 12 the first main-body flight of Arrowhead Brigade soldiers completed their day-and-a-half trip from Fort Lewis Kuwait. The troops got onto buses and headed for Camp Udari in northern Kuwait while some went to the Port of Kuwait to assist in ship offload operations.
Soon after docking, advance-party crews from 3rd Brigade and members of the 598th Transportation Group (Forward), a Reserve unit deployed to Kuwait, went to work unleashing the vehicles and equipment in the ships’ cargo holds to prepare them for unloading, and eventually for their convoy to Camp Udari.
The team hopes to have the approximately 2,300 pieces of cargo unloaded in less than 48 hours, according to Maj. Faris Williams, 598th Transportation Group (Fwd).
“What makes it go so fast is that equipment is all fully mission capable and can be easily transported off the ship,” said Williams.
The goal for the 3rd Brigade soldiers is to get their vehicles ready for action.
“We are trying to download the ships and get the equipment to the marshalling yard,” said Staff Sgt. Darren Rone, 367th Maintenance Company, 44th Corps Support Battalion.
In the days leading to the ships’ arrival, the advance-party crews received safety briefings and were drilled in every aspect of the operation to ensure that the offload would be as safe as possible, said Maj. Sean McKinney, 3rd Brigade S-4, the unit’s logistics’ officer. The crews also had time to rest from their trip from Fort Lewis.
“Job number one here is taking care of the soldiers doing the work,” said McKinney. “The soldiers here were given crew rest and a place to recover and rest for the next day’s operations.”
That rest included time to go to the Internet café and take in the post exchange at the port so that they would be ready to go when the ships sailed in.
Rone said two shifts are working around the clock to put the vehicles in action. The teams of drivers and safety workers come from all across the brigade. Drivers are told to get in the vehicles they are licensed for and drive them off the ship.
“My job is to drive trucks off the ship and get them lined up for the soldiers to take to the marshalling yard,” said Spc. Sean Cruz, 296th Brigade Support Battalion.
A second set of drivers take the vehicles from the port to the marshalling yard further inland and ready them for their trip to Camp Udari, said McKinney. Once enough vehicles are ready, groups of soldiers will come down to the marshalling yard from CampUdari and begin the convoy north. The vehicles will head for each company’s motor pool and each unit will make final preparations for the journey into Iraq.
The brigade has been preparing to leave Fort Lewis for about a month. It held a going away ceremony Oct. 30.
The ceremony featured leaders from 1st Corps and 3rd Bde. who furled and cased the unit’s colors, a gesture symbolizing the end to the unit's training period and the beginning of its new mission as a certified combat unit, ready for action in Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Following the ceremony, Soldiers were showered with kisses from spouses and hugs from children.
"I think (the departure ceremony) was a great idea," said Maj. Mark Landes, 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Bde. "It allows a sense of closure and a sense of community getting behind the unit. It's great for the families, too."
While the departure ceremony helped prepare families for separation, everyone knew the upcoming year would be challenging.
"It's tough. But I am here to support my husband - sending letters as much as possible, sending pictures (of the children)," said Karin Markert, wife of Maj. John Markert, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, 3rd Bde., and mother of three.
(Editor’s note: Sgt. Jeremy Heckler is the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division Public Affairs non-commissioned officer in charge. Steven Field, a journalist with the Northwest Guardian newspaper at Fort Lewis, also contributed to this story.)
My son is part of that - with the 724 Transportation Division. it took about a day and a half as reported via N.Y. to Germany, then to Kuwait. About two weeks there then he says they have been told they will go to near Takrit.
One correction to the article. Ft. Lewis is in Washington, not Kuwait.
Most of us would be interested in what your son has to say.
The picture is my son and my g/daughter (his niece) He is a policeman in civilian life, has a wife and three year old son.
Can you tell me more about Stryker Brigade Combat Team Tactical Studies Group (Chairborne)?
And I guess LOSAT is actually getting a little old these days. They were initially developed in the late '80s. I understand they've got primitive mass launchers (rail guns) coming on line soon. No gunpowder at all -- carry all kinetic rounds in your ammo box. All the versatility of a cannon with the bennies of LOSAT. Hypervelocity rounds cutting right through OPFOR like butter.
This is just too good NOT to repeat again.
My son is with the 724th Transportion Company a support unit for the Stryker Brigade, he drives a fuel truck. I don't know how much he or I will be able to add to the discussion but I am interested. Thanks.
Welcome aboard, sir.
The Javelin is man-portable, Fire-and-Forget, easily reloadable, and the crew only has to see the target for a short time before it locks on.
With all that's going on in development of new munitions, the Army probably won't want a LOSAT anyways.
My worry is these Strykers will become coffins, but they will hold up better then the 998 and 1114 HMMWVs patrolling Iraq now.....I hope
The most attractive feature of LOSAT is flight time from launcher to target of 2 seconds or so, all without unspooling wires, fiber optic cables, laser trackers or sensors eating up warhead payload. A 10KM-range LOSAT is probably a desirable and usable item, even if not perfectly so, particularly if teamed with a secondary system like ground-launched Hellfire, AKA Brimstone, maybe in conjunction with a 25 or 30mm gun for lesser targets, as per the Russian *Kliver turrets* being fitted to both new production and older BMD/BMP/BTR/MTLB vehicles and the T55 and T72 tanks being reworked into personnel carriers.
But at least a LOSAT HUMVEE can be air-transported aboard a C130 and air dropped or LAPES delivered. And it's not much of a stretch to imagine a twin or triple tube LOSAT launcher capable of being fit on one of the Ranger battalion Land Rovers, which can be carried aboard a CH-47. If we can't have fighting vehicles capable of fording rivers, we'd better have at least some that can get across via other means, unless we plan on always stopping at the blue lines on the maps.
-archy-/-
Your son has his work cut out for him. Nobody rolls without go juice.
No. Because on the necessity of having a Central Tire Inflation System on the vehicles, the sidewals are necessarily thin and subject both to easy penetration and deflation beyond the capability of the CTIS package to cope with such deflation in the event of hits of .50/ 12.7mm or larger. The tires ARE fitted with runflat inserts; which may get the vehicle out of the beaten zone unless the tires catch fire; there's an unarmored external fuel tank in the wheel well behind the two rear nonsteering tires, and multiple fuel cans are frequently carried in racks on either side as well.
The necessity of the two front pair of tires to turn for steering prevents the fitting of effective armor sideskirts. And the handling characteristics of a Stryker with all flat tires on one side are iffy indeed; there've been rollovers in training with all tires inflated, much less with multiple flats.
-archy-/-
Unless, of course, they ever go up against Russian BMP or BTR vehicles equipped with the 9M123-2 Khrizantema antitank guided missile system, with a 4KM range now, expected to be improved to 7.5 KM in its next generation.
The good news, such as it is, is that as planned at present, each BMP will carry only 15 missiles in the loading rack for the twin-tube launcher. After that, they'll only have the 100 mm main gun with 40 rounds, plus 10 bore-riding guided AT missiles for it, then the 30mm gun.
Then there are the 9M114 *Sturm missile launch vehicles with a 6 KM range, already being fielded for long-range AT vehicles, helicopters, and even coastal patrol vessels. Between Kornet, Konkurs, Khrizantema and Sturm, not to mention all those 100mm missiles in every BMP-3 [and those 50,000 *obsolete* T-54/T-55s, suddenly not so obsolete any more.] Maybe we'd be well advised to have something with a bit more than a 2.5KM range....
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.