FORT BENNING, Ga., (Feb. 18, 2015) -- Second lieutenants in the Armor Basic Officer Leader Course completed Phase 2 of their ABOLC training in classrooms and at the Digital Multi-Purpose Range Complex.
"This is a culminating event to see if we can (recall) and exercise what we've learned," said ABOLC student 2nd Lt. Austin Simons.
Staff Sgt. Manuel Alvarez, ABOLC Phase 2 live-fire instructor, said students were tested on machine guns - the coaxial machine gun on the tank, the M240, and the tank commander's primary weapon, the M2 .50-caliber Browning machine gun. They were also tested on vehicle identification, ammunition identification, and their ability to run tanks using fire commands, directions given to coordinate crew efforts and deliver effective fire on a target.
With the tanks, the students are tested on the seven elements of fire command: alert, ammunition and weapon, direction, range, target description, command of execution and termination.
Each lieutenant goes through three scenarios with the tanks, Alvarez said. They have one scenario in a defensive posture, and are allotted a fully operational crew to hit a target approximately 1,500 meters away.
From there, the crew proceeds to an offensive posture with a short halt.
The second scenario uses machine guns only no main gun rounds. The tank commander must successfully engage a set of troops with the coaxial machine gun and halt the vehicle so he can fire the unstable .50 caliber machine gun at a truck target.
In the third, a three-man operation scenario, the tank commander has to fire the tank on the offensive posture from his station.
ABOLC requirements include that the tank commander vocalizes each element of the fire command as he engages the target. Alvarez said they are mainly tested on their fire commands, but they gain points by hitting or suppressing the targets.
To test the students on the machine guns, students must clear, disassemble, reassemble, perform functions check, load and perform immediate action on each of the different weapons systems within 14 minutes, said Staff Sgt. Ralph Hensley, ABOLC writer-instructor.
Typically, a student can complete the test in less than seven minutes, but Hensley said he has seen it done in as little as four minutes and seven seconds.
"These officers, normally trained for tanks, are also being trained as scout officers," he said. "Many of them will end up with either the 240 or the .50 caliber on their Humvees in their platoon. In fact, they themselves may end up having to man these weapons at some point, so we train them on both."
Students also learn to shoot the machine gun dismounted from the vehicles.
Alvarez said beside the importance of the tank commanders knowing how to man their own weapons system, they must also be able to troubleshoot or assist their crew with that weapons system.
This ABOLC experience instills an idea of the time it takes to complete certain tasks so when they are leading Soldiers they can comprehend the time that goes into each process, Alvarez said.
"It's just a build-up process for them, they start at the bottom and build up until they know anything," he said.
The students are graded as a crew, two lieutenants working together as a team. Their final grade is an average of their scores together.
"They have to work together and actually build that teamwork bond to move on," Alvarez said.
The military vehicle identification portion is much less hands-on, as students are shown a PowerPoint slide and must correctly identify the vehicles by name on a worksheet. The students must correctly identify 18 out of 20 vehicles, but they must correctly identify all the U.S. vehicles in the slides.
Similarly, they are tested on ammunition identification by viewing a PowerPoint slide and identifying ammunition based on rounds or casing bases.
Following Phase 2, Soldiers move to the final phase of ABOLC, the tactics phase, before their graduation and upon successful completion, graduate at the end of their 19-week total ABOLC training.
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