GRAFENWOEHR TRAINING AREA, Germany -- Engineers from three units and two countries worked together to cross train on equipment that is vital to the success of current missions in support of Atlantic Resolve and future operations.
Engineers from 3rd Platoon, Bandit Company, 588th Brigade Engineer Battalion, 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, teamed with Bravo Troop, Regimental Engineer Squadron (RES), 2nd Cavalry Regiment, and British engineers from 22nd Engineer Regiment, 5th Armored Engineer Squadron. They converged on a training dig site here March 23-26 to enhance interoperability with equipment common to Bandit Co. but not normally used by the other units.
"This is a digging exercise where we're practicing general horizontal engineer operations: creating berms, anti-tank ditches, emplacement and survivability positions like … hull defilade and turret defilade fighting positions for the M1 Abrams tank and dismounted fighting positions with the high mobility engineer excavator," said 1st Lt. Mike Taylor, 3rd Platoon leader.
Not all engineer units have the same equipment.
"The RES is not equipped with D7R bulldozers," said Staff Sgt. Emanuel Ambriz from the RES Bravo Trp. "The 3rd ABCT guys honored our request for assistance because we were tasked to cross-train with the British soldiers on the D7R. The 3rd ABCT was kind enough to share their range as well as their equipment."
Although the British and Americans have similar equipment, there's still a need to cross-train, said Ambriz.
"The British will potentially fall upon a D7R down range, which they don't have in their arsenal. That's why they came to us to cross train with them so if ever or whenever they fall in on this dozer, they're already ready to go and trained up on it," said Ambriz.
Five British Engineers were on site for the training.
"The cross-training has been really good and really interesting," said Cpl. Kevin Day a British engineer. "Pretty much found out that we're very similar. The machines we use are generally the same and a lot of the specifications that we work to are exactly the same as."
The engineers trained together for four days, including a night digging exercise.
"We went over the basics of the bulldozer, including maintenance and the operations of it. Now we're doing full-blown berms, tank ditches and anything else you can do with the D7R. By the end of this, the British Soldiers will be fully qualified to go on missions with the knowledge and practical skillset of operating the equipment."
There are two primary tasks with a D7R or any similar engineer equipment: emplacement/survivability and counter-mobility positions.
"Counter-mobility positions would be the anti-tank ditches," said Taylor. "Survivability would be the berms, hull defilade and turret defilade -- all those fighting positions for an M1 Abrams or the M2 Bradley -- whatever vehicles you have. Hide locations as well."
Because there are differences in some of the equipment, Day said: "Today we found out that some of the controls are 'back to front' from ours. That has proved to be a bit of a challenge. Everything else has been similar."
During a break in training, Taylor said that working alongside British engineers wasn't much different from working with other U.S. Army units.
"Engineers are real easy to work with and good people. A lot of the stuff we work with is very, very similar, so it's easy to fall in on each other and work together, side by side, with no issue at all," he said.
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