FORT BRAGG, N.C. - With the threat of various mines and unexploded ordnance in the Afghanistan theater, troops of the 82nd Airborne Division's 4th Brigade Combat Team were set on enhancing their skill set to provide an added measure of protection.
Soldiers of Company A, 1st Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment spent a week becoming familiar with the Army's latest technology in mine-detection equipment. The training was conducted by the U.S. Army Forces Command Counter IED Integration Cell, part of the FORSCOM effort to push more training to home station.
According to Chuck Launderville, a trainer with CI2C, it was all a matter of getting the equipment into the Soldiers' hands and training them on what to listen for.
"This course is a week long and it incorporates the basic use of the VMR-2 Minehound detection device, the VMC-1 'Gizmo' and the DSP-27 'Goldie' devices," he explained. "When a unit requests for training, I give them about an eight-hour platform of instruction on the first day and then the rest of the instruction during the week is nothing but time behind the device."
Launderville said the devices are easy to manipulate, but unless the operator gets behind it and gets to hear the various tones in relation to the device, it would be hard to determine what is below the ground when it comes to an (improvised explosive device).
"The different tones on the Minehound device include a 'chirp' and a 'gobble,'" Launderville said. "Depending on which one, a high-pitched chirp will indicate that the device has found a metal object at a shallow, buried depth. If it's a low-pitched chirp, then it's a metal device at deep burial depth.
"The gobble pretty much works the same way -- a high-pitched gobble means that it's a trigger displaced underneath the ground, but buried low. A low-pitch type of gobble sound indicates that it's a non-metallic object displaced below the ground at a deep buried interval," explained Launderville.
He said the trooper have responded to the training well. He said they were able to pick up the sounds fairly quickly, especially several noncommissioned officers who trained on the equipment.
"They've been, pretty much, setting the standard on evaluations of the operators themselves," Launderville said.
"It was good training, a lot of hands-on and lot of familiarization and a lot of it is learning the nuances of how to listen to this device," said Sgt. Josh Loper, a native of northeastern Ohio. "It seemed to be a pretty steep learning curve and the guys didn't seem like they had much trouble find the objects in the ground. As they got more familiar, they were able to give a little more details on what the objects were."
Loper said the metal detector aspect is a little less specific in that it provides an idea of how much metal is in the ground, not the specific object.
"The other part of the sensor gives off a different sound and it can tell you depth and other different density changes in the ground. If you learn the sounds, your ear will become atuned to it."
Spc. Allen Nutt, of Minneapolis, said the training was very useful and easy to learn.
"Once you learn the equipment and get some hands-on time, it's pretty easy to learn and understand how it works," he explained. "By getting hands-on experience, you're going to learn the different sounds, you can't even describe them, but if you give someone at least an hour to play with it, it's pretty easy to learn. It's a really good tool for us to use downrange."
Nutt said after the first day, he noticed that his unit members got more proficient with the devices, to the point that they could tell what type of equipment was underground.
He said the Soldiers were enthusiastic about getting the equipment in hand.
"After the first eight hours, everyone was like, 'let's go out there and see how it works.' The more time we worked, the better we got. The more hands-on you get, the better you are with the device," Nutt said.
Social Sharing