12 November: The New Red 8 Lima

I hate putting pictures of myself up but I just had to show you this obnoxious CVC helmet that SSG Terry handed to me as I climbed up on his tank. "You gonna be on my tank, you gonna wear this CVC."


1800

I ran back to my platoon. It was a no-brainer of a maneuver. The Bradleys were not going to dismount any of their crunchies, to their chagrin. All I had was one tank I really need to worry about. My only concern was the turning part. SSG Terry explained to me that a tank can’t turn when it’s plowing. Unlike plowing snow, a mineplow’s blades are buried underground. Imagine him trying to turn left or right. The blades serve as an anchor. That kind of torque created by the tank track will rip the very sprockets that are only meant to move track forward and back. If you still don’t get it, take a model car with rubber wheels. Hold it down real hard against a table while you twist it like you were juicing an orange and see what happens to the wheels. To make it even worse, turning is not recommended for even fractions of turns. Yet here we were talking about a complete 180 degree turn.

To accomplish a plow mission that requires you to turn lanes or create new lanes, you must raise the plow, then move the tank, and then drop the blades again. But SSG Terry’s plow could only be raised and lowered manually. There was no way in hell we wanted to risk having a bunch of guys standing right by a major kill zone in the open. Then have the ballistic tank skirts open, leaving the fuel cells and driver vulnerable, and be dicking around with the mine plow.

“Fuck it. We’ll do it.” SSG Terry said matter-of-factly. “I’ll turn this goddamn tank.”

I didn’t even ask for him to elaborate. He had already told me a hundred times previously that turning couldn’t be done with the mine plow down. “The plow lane has got to be straight Sir. I can only go straight,” He had told me. “I ain’t fucking turning the slightest bit.” I remember this conversation from the first night when Hunter platoon had hit a land mine and blown up out in the middle of nowhere and we had to go get him. That was the same day we recovered the snipers.

But there was something to be said if SSG Terry says it can be done. If I asked SSG Terry to pop a wheelie with his tank, and he said it could be done, then you would see Arkansas “T” driving down the road with 12 sets of road wheels airborne, and 2 sets down. It doesn’t matter if it’s impossible.

EXECUTE:

At 1900, we pulled out of our assembly area and rumbled south down Phase Line Mike. We headed back to that corner where we had spent the night sitting up in our tanks at the enemy’s front door. It was PL Isabel. SFC Kennedy had jumped onto my tank during the night to tell me that hilarious story with Roby and the hand grenade. When we reached the intersection of PL Isabel and PL Mike(which we were moving south on), we stopped and I jumped out of the loader’s hatch onto the front slope. I grabbed the plow release cable and yanked. The blades lowered and after I climbed back in the loader’s hatch, we were off on another plow mission.

PFC Padilla was down in the driver’s hole just plugging away with SSG Terry’s commands. SPC Stoker was in the gunner’s hole with his gun tube completely over the right side of the tank.

R-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r

It was the longest burst of coax I had heard yet. He was facing the buildings and spraying into the windows with 7.62mm. It was fascinating watching everyone operate. Padilla had his mission to move the earth in front of him. Stoker was shredding anything that chose to stand behind the walls of mud and brick. And SSG Terry was surveying his work, looking in front of him, and watching the BRT move in behind him. I watched the humvees follow us like little ducklings. They churned like boats over all of the turned and twisted sand. The tank just glided through like a submarine. I always enjoyed the fact that the tank was such a smooth ride over rough terrain and the humvees just bounced and the gunners bobbled horribly halfway out of the roofs holding onto their guns for balance.

“Hey SSG Terry, just a heads up. I’m gonna let loose with the M240.” I warned him.
“Go for it, Sir,” he said smiling.

The M240 was a more personable machine gun than the .50cal. The .50cal on our old M1A1 tanks was in a very rigid and bulky mount. You could only move it using the elevation and azimuth controls in your station. The M240 was something you grabbed by the butterfly handles and swung around like a hose. And you depressed the butterfly trigger on the backplate of the receiver on the weapon itself. The .50cal had a roller that depressed the butterfly for you. You hit a red button on your elevation control to activate that roller. Bottom line: M240 – more personable.

I grabbed the M240 and laid into the houses. Stoker started taking aim at the rockets in the tubes on the rooftops with the coax. The loader’s M240 was by no means an accurate weapon. It was an area weapon. I flooded the front of all the houses with copper and lead. I finished off a 200 round load of ammo and grabbed another box of 7.62mm. We had over 10,000 rounds of 7.62mm. We were going to be fine.

We reached 300 meters and it was time to turn around. SSG Terry had Padilla start a left turn. The turbine seemed to groan from turning an anchored 68-ton beast but when the strain seemed too much, he went straight, releasing the tension in the track. Then he started some more to the left until the tank whined again and then straight again. SSG Terry kept guiding Padilla like this until we were finally turned around. It was amazing. SSG Terry did a 180 with the mine plow down, and we didn’t shear a sprocket. Shearing a sprocket is some nasty maintenance. We dodged that bullet. We now faced the BRT but we were to the right of them. They were coming towards us, filling in the plow lane and moving southeast still. Stoker had kept his cadillacs(the gunner’s power control handle – called cadillacs because they are made by the Cadillac Gage company) depressed so the gun tube never took it’s eye off of the houses while Padilla was turning. The entire hull had turned a half circle while the three of us in the turret stayed facing the houses. As we moved northwest, Stoker continued to lay into the house with 7.62mm. The machine gun fire was too loud outside of the turret for me to talk on the radio so I dropped down in the loader’s hatch to give CPT Mayfield a SITREP. Suddenly SSG Terry started screaming. I looked at his station. He was outside of the tank from the waist up, but I watched his left leg snap forward and kick Stoker as hard as hell right in the back of the head. Stoker’s head recoiled off of the browpad and bounced backwards.

“WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING STOKER? THERE’S A GODDAM HUMVEE IN FRONT OF YOU!”

I jumped out of the hatch. I realized what had just happened. As we were moving northwest, the first humvee was moving towards us in the southeast initial plow lane and passing us on our left side. Stoker had no visibility of that whatsoever. A gunner can really only see what his gun tube sees. There is no such thing as peripheral vision for a gunner. SSG Terry kicked him right before the humvee passed in front of the gun tube.

Goddam that was close. SSG Terry knew where the responsibility really fell. Everyone did, so there was no need to discuss it but the truth was - it was SSG Terry's responsibility to maintain 100% situational awareness. Friendlies do often die like this and it's one of the reasons people hate tankers and think we are big dumb idiots. But in our defense, tankers were designed to fight in open ground against other tanks. They weren't built for close combat and good nearby visibility. If you don't believe me, sit in a tank and try to look around nearby. That is why we hang ball-defilade out of our tanks. Because it's the only way to see what's going on around us. And then our commanders yell at us to get inside of our tanks where we can't see a goddamn thing.

We finished the CASEVAC plow lane once we reached the rear Bradley that was up at PL Mike and Isabel. Now nobody had to get out of anyone’s way if a vehicle had to egress in a hurry. They could just back up and take off in the plow lane that was right behind the first one. Once we were covered by the Bradley, we jumped out and raised the plow behind the security of a Bradley and came back down the CASEVAC route to get into our original position in the front.

The BRT was firmly positioned in the plow lane and started letting loose with machine gun and MK-19 grenade fire. It was just an awesome display of firepower. M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tank, Armored Humvees with M2 .50cal machine guns, M240 7.62mm machine guns, Mk-19 grenade launchers, AT-4 rockets, and Bradleys with their 25mm HE, 7.62mm machine guns, and TOW missile launchers. And to top it off, we had Stalker platoon with us.

We unleashed a barrage of machine gun fire and grenades into the house. As the machine guns chattered away, the TOWs corkscrewed amusingly into the air and landed among the houses without exploding. It was funny but also disappointing. Those Bradleys had just been through too much hell for those TOWs to stay serviceable. Or else it was just a bad lot of TOWs. But then something suddenly flew straight out of the sky like a kamikaze bomber. It entered the roof of a third story and blew out every single window as it drove itself to the first floor.

“DAMN!”

Debris shot out of every window and every level of the house seemed to be exploding in a flash. And just like that, everything in the house was cooked. I remember it like it was in slow motion, even though it happened in a flash. The windows and debris blew out level by level as the missile worked it's way down.

“What the hell was that?”
“That was a fucking Javelin. Stalker platoon.”

Stalker was the only platoon that I knew of that had the Javelin system with them. The weapon is absolutely devastating. No tank is safe from a Javelin. It is designed to shoot at the target and then drive itself straight up into the sky, and then nose dive onto the top of the tank. We’ve all seen the video of a Javelin hitting a Soviet T-72. Let’s just say that after a few seconds on impact; the turret comes falling out of the sky. And nothing is left but scrap metal. It’s scary.

Now it was main gun time.

“Alright Sir. You ready?” SSG Terry asked me.

I had only loaded once before in my life. It was at Ft. Knox. And it was a dummy round. Made of metal and plastic and rubber. And we were in a motor pool. In peace time. And I had had a full night’s rest. I never got to be in the loader’s station when the gun fired. Gunnery was different because back then, I was in the TC's station doing my own thing, worrying about fire commands and acquiring targets and not messing up for my gunner.

Now we were in combat. And these were real rounds that explode. The only reason there was nothing to fear was that the enemy was not taking the offensive with us at the moment.

“Yeah I’m ready.” I said.
“Just give us a good loud ‘UP!’" SSG Terry instructed me.

When the loader puts a round in the tube, he raises a giant metal lever up which arms the gun. If it’s down, there is nothing the gunner can do to make the round fire. By announcing “UP!”, the loader tells the crew that the gun is armed and that he has backed up against the radios or the side of the turret; any place that is clear of the breech. The tank commander can now say “FIRE.” When the main gun fires, the breech recoils almost to the back of the turret and if you were in the way, you would get royally screwed. The breech would smash into you shattering your bones. During gunnery, failing to announce “UP,” or giving the command to fire before getting the “UP” is a safety gig and a crew cut in points. That is why loaders give a bloodcurdling “UUUP!!!” instead of that stupid cheery “Up” you hear in the UCOFT computer trainer and the CCTT simulations.

“Let’s GO!” SSG Terry said.

I hit the knee switch to open the ready rack and was too nervous to enjoy the sweet smell of the ammunition. It’s not gunpowder or cordite, it’s something else. You can smell it in the honeycombs that support platoon brings when they deliver the rounds.

I slapped the clip that retains the round and the back end of a HEAT round squeezed out a few inches. I grabbed the end and pulled it out. Somewhere along the way, I gashed my right index finger open. It was a blunt injury so it was numb as the skin peeled and bled everywhere. I shoved the round in the tube and popped the lever up.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” I screamed as I made myself as narrow as possible. It was the longest, loudest “UP” in the history of tanking. And if someone saw me in the loader’s station, it would like Owen Wilson in Shanghai Noon trying to hide behind a little wooden beam as he was getting shot at in the church. I was straight up and down with my arms pinned to my sides and my chin in my chest. Go ahead, laugh. The gun fired, the afcap dropped with the sound of a pot falling to the ground, and the breech dropped. I opened the ready rack door and repeated my mission. By the third round, I was dripping with sweat from my forehead. My CVC was feeling extremely humid and my hand started to hurt finally. This continued for 9 more rounds. It was exhausting. While Stoker was going to town with the main gun, SSG Terry was letting loose with his machine gun still. And it’s typically the loader’s job to refill the ammo on the TC’s gun(even though I do it myself on my own tank). .50cal ammo isn’t heavy but it is by no means light. And replacing can after can in the middle of loading main gun rounds was making me break a sweat.

“Sir, you GOTTA wear gloves when you’re loading!”

He saw the blood on my finger.

“I know! I can’t believe I forgot!” Tankers never tanked without their gloves. Tanks are unforgiving. You find yourself without gloves, then you’ll find yourself incapable of pulling maintenance on those hot ass tank parts.

I try never to take my soldiers for granted. Which is why I try to do as much stuff myself as possible and lend a hand where I can (where it doesn’t put me in their way). But serving as a loader on this day really humbled me. I thought I appreciated Langford before, but now it occurred to me that loading will smoke you. And my respect for his job was the utmost now.

Just then Ramrod 6 pulled up at the end of our column. I looked over at the extra Bradley that joined our melee and watched as he unloaded his basic load of 7.62mm and 25mm HE.

R-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r-r. POCK.POCK.POCK.POCK.POCK

This went on for what seemed like minutes. The TOW launcher rose up slowly on his Bradley.

“Jesus, let ‘em have it, Ramrod 6.”

Zzzzffeewwwww. The TOW entered the house and exploded much like a main gun round. It still wasn’t as cool as a tank because it lacked the initial BOOM from launching out of the tube.

He launched his TOWs and suddenly did a right face and pulled away.

“Guess he’s not sticking around for the after party.”

After about 2 hours, we were through pummeling the city block. We headed back to the stronghold area and from there Phantom 6 cut us loose to refuel and re-arm at the LRP.