WADI SHADIYA, Jordan -- On a hilltop in the country of Jordan, two F-16 Fighting Falcons break the calm morning silence is broken when they drop their explosive payload. As a cloud of powdery dust and shrapnel rise from the target area, the engines of five M1A2 Abrams Main Battle Tanks roar to life and move into position atop a hill overlooking a ravine.
A radio crackles as a platoon leader's voice pours from the speakers.
"Alpha, get ready. Top hat. Top hat. Top hat." Two 62-ton behemoths maneuver forward of the berm. "3. 2. 1. Fire!"
With a deafening boom, bursts of flame leap from the main guns.
This was the scene at the culminating combined arms live-fire exercise during Eager Lion 2017, a two-week-long multinational combined training exercise. Soldiers from the 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment "Warhorse," 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division built interoperability with their partners during this time.
"Eager Lion is a fantastic exercise," said Lt. Col. Brian McCarthy, commander of the Warhorse Battalion. "We've been here about two weeks, and it's been a great exercise to test both the interoperability between the American Army, American Marine Corps, Italian forces, and of course, our hosts, the Jordanians. It's been a great opportunity for us to increase our lethality and develop some great relationships."
The seventh iteration of the annual exercise began for the Warhorse Soldiers on May 7, when they convoyed with their equipment from a logistics support area in Wadi Shadiya to a vast training area. They spent the next 10 days conducting mounted maneuvers with tanks and M2A3 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles, dismounted maneuvers with infantry Soldiers, a live-fire accuracy screening test range, an unknown distance live-fire range, and a squad live-fire.
Company A commander, Capt. Colby Burkhart, said his primary training objective was direct fire control measures. During the course of the training, however, he managed to get more learning opportunities than he anticipated.
"I think we have a newfound understanding of how to incorporate the required control measures," said the armor officer and Glendale, Ariz. native. "I think we learned it's definitely a different environment. The weather always plays a factor. We can have all the technology in the world, and a cloud of dust can degrade your ability to fight. It affects your lasers. It affects visibility for driving. We just learned how to fight through all of the different elements that were thrown at us."
The company is usually organized into three tank platoons, but the task organization was augmented for this mission, integrating an infantry platoon with two tank platoons. This allowed for a true combined arms experience and an additional challenge for Burkhart and his platoon leaders.
"There was a bit of a learning curve, but we definitely validated that it is possible and that we can effectively incorporate the infantry and the Brads with a tank company," Burkhart said. "The dismounts were primarily used for any kind of a dismounted objective where we would need to enter and clear a building or to clear any type of dead space."
"We used all the capabilities that they have," he continued. We got to shoot Javelins out here. We got to shoot AT-4s out here. That's one of the capabilities that the tank company does not have. It was definitely a challenge. I'd say I learned a lot just incorporating the different skill sets that each platoon brings to the fight."
Through joint, combined cooperation, the troops -- U.S., Italian, and Jordanian -- learned the differences and similarities in each other's tactics, practices, vehicles and weapon systems. Working together, bridging the language gap, and learning about their brothers-in-arms helped to build camaraderie, cohesion and understanding. Ultimately, the training strengthened relationships not only company to company, platoon to platoon, or squad to squad, but also Soldier to Soldier.
"I think [my Soldiers] gained an appreciation for other services and other nations, other militaries, simple stuff, like communicating with a significant language gap," said 1st Lt. Kevin Northrop, platoon leader, 3rd Platoon, Company C, 3-8 CAV. "For one thing, whenever you deploy, you're not going to deploy to a region and just be working with American Soldiers or just the Army. You're going to be working with the Marines or other services. Most likely, you'll be working with other nations."
"That's hard to replicate, so [it's good] for the [Soldiers] to get to do that on their level where they don't really see it that much," Northrup explained. "I think this is the first time for most of them where they got to work with other nations. I think that was a big takeaway and one of the reasons this was really important for them to experience."
Staff Sgt. Patrick Robitaille, a tank commander assigned to Co. A, 3-8 CAV, agreed with Northrup's positive assessment. "[My Soldiers] gained better cohesion and teamwork," he said. "They've learned valuable experience on working with another nation and just how to put tactics together and implement everything that we operate."
In addition to this training, the Warhorse Soldiers wrapped up their crew, squad and platoon mounted and dismounted training with a company-level CALFEX, incorporating the two tank platoons and a Bradley platoon with dismounts armed with M4 carbines, M249 Squad Automatic Weapons, AT-4s and Javelins.
The company CALFEX validated Burkhart's integration of armor and infantry, and gave the Soldiers a glimpse of how all the puzzle pieces fit together to create a lethal force on the battlefield.
There has always been a friendly rivalry between the armor and infantry communities, and while the Soldiers still jab at each other, many of them developed newfound appreciations for one another's work.
"The tanks have a lot of firepower, for as much as we rag on them," said Northrop, an infantry officer from Fair Lawn, New Jersey. "They bring a lot to the fight, especially with the CALFEX, where we were able to have the tanks up supporting us against those armored threats, allowing my Bradleys to move up and set in position.
"They were suppressing while my dismounts moved out," he described. "So those larger pieces of support that don't always get worked in when you're doing platoon or smaller training really allowed us to train those pieces. How all those things are incorporated is something you don't get to do a lot, so being able to do that, and to do that in a foreign country, was really a cool experience."
All the planning, coordination, and joint and combined training culminated successfully in the CALFEX.
"I think it's amazing that we were able to come and be a part of that combined arms live-fire, because we learned a lot about how other countries operate and also their culture, just integrating with them with their tactics and ours and maneuvering our tanks in another country, learning the terrain and letting our Soldiers learn as well," said 1st Lt. Henry Rodriquez, platoon leader, 3rd Platoon, Co. A, 3-8 CAV. "And just using all these different munitions and seeing how lethal we are all together was amazing and definitely something I will always remember."
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