FORT DRUM, N.Y. -- For the first time in five years, more than 50 Soldiers from across 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division (LI), conducted a combined tube-laun-ched, optically-tracked, wire-guided (TOW) missile training to prepare for unified land operations.
Commandos Soldiers trained with the Humvee- or tripod-mounted Improved Target Acquisition System, or ITAS, during two days of simulation training before graduating to firing live rounds during an exercise held Aug. 18-21.
Enabling Soldiers to seek out enemy positions, the ITAS is equipped with a day and night sight, a laser range finder, and a Position Attitude Determination Subsystem, or PADS. The ITAS is capable of delivering lethal, long-range, anti-armor and precision assault fires.
"For us as a scout unit, we are going to conduct reconnaissance for the brigade," said 1st Lt. Peter Hokrein, platoon leader with 1st Squadron, 89th Cavalry Regiment. "So if we come in contact with any armored assets, this really gives us the ability to shape the battlefield."
Soldiers applied the practical knowledge and skills they learned during the virtual training sessions to prepare themselves to fire nearly 45 missiles during the two-day, live-fire validation course.
"This system increases our survivability and what we can engage," said Sgt. 1st Class Jason Huffman, platoon sergeant with 1-89 Cavalry. "Over the last five years, we have been training on multiple weapons systems including the TOW without actual firing a missile. Now we are getting these guys to actually fire one; this makes us more lethal."
Traveling at more than 250 feet per second, the TOW missile is guided by its operator, and it can strike a target more than 3,000 meters away.
The missile has a one-second delay before it fires, so it's like being at the top of a roller coaster waiting for the drop down that first big hill. That second feels like a lifetime waiting for the missile to shoot, said Pvt. Jimenez Sebastian, A Troop, 1-89 Cavalry.
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