1-62 ADA completes gunnery certification

FORT HOOD, Texas - After several weeks of sleeping and working in a mock deployed environment, Soldiers of 1st Battalion, 62nd Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 69th ADA Brigade, completed Table VIII gunnery certifications May 9, on a local training area.

Sgt. 1st Class Kevin Timmons, the master evaluator with 1st Bn., 62nd ADA Regt., 69th ADA Bde., said there are 12 gunnery tables, but Table VIII is the certification that allows a Patriot unit to qualify for deployment.

"The Table VIII certification says we are trained and ready to assume a real world mission as a Patriot unit anywhere in the world," Timmons, a Kalamazoo, Michigan, native, said.

Patriot gunnery manuals lay out a program of training that starts from beginner certifications, which are Tables I through IV, to intermediate certifications, which are Tables V through VIII, and ends with advanced certifications, which are Tables IX through XII, Timmons said.

In order to certify as a Table VIII battery, the unit must pass multiple tasks, including march order and emplacement drills.

During march order drills, Patriot crew members prepare to move equipment, including the engagement control station, which is the only manned station in a Patriot fire unit, electric power plant, antenna mast group, radar set, and launching stations, to a new site.

After conducting a convoy to a new site that a reconnaissance team already surveyed, units begin emplacement drills, which is the crews setting back up the equipment.

Part of emplacement drills is assumption, where Soldiers in the ECS ensure all the Patriot launchers are fully operational. The status is indicated by green lights next to the condition of each launching station.

The entire certification process requires teamwork and synchronization within the battery, said Staff Sgt. John Griesgraber, a Patriot launching station enhanced operator/maintainer with Battery C, 1st Bn., 62nd ADA Regt.

"As long you're helping out others, there shouldn't ever be an issue with certifying," said Griesgraber, a St. Paul, Minnesota, native.

According to Griesgraber, the Table VIII certifications were the first time the battery, as a whole, attempted to certify since returning from its 2014 deployment to Southwest Asia.

Certifying on the Table VIII gunnery tasks is important so the unit can be successful when they next deploy, said Griesgraber.

"We want to teach these guys everything they're supposed to know," he said. "You never know when you're going to be called into action."