FORT SILL, Okla. (Army News Service, Jan. 28, 2004) – A new live-fire range to train deploying troops on convoy operations opened this month at Fort Sill, Okla.

Lessons learned in the sands of Iraq have led to the new training, mandated by the Coalition Forces Land Component Command. Officials said they hope it will give troops the skills they need to combat insurgents who see military convoys as easy targets.

“I’m tired of dust being my main meal,” said Spc. Brooke Davis, brushing herself off after a trip through Fort Sill’s new Live-Fire Convoy training range.

Davis was one of the first Soldiers to be trained on the newly developed convoy range Jan. 12. She was training with the 120th Engineer Combat Battalion (Heavy), an Oklahoma Army National Guard unit headquartered in Okmulgee, with units in eastern Oklahoma.

The 600-Soldier unit was mobilized in December and is at Fort Sill training for deployment to Iraq.

The new training is designed to counter “the number-one thing that is getting Soldiers killed right now,” said Capt. Boyd Sharp. “Convoys are getting hit hard.”

Sharp is with the 1st Battalion, 290th Training Support Battalion at Fort Sill. His Observer Controller/Trainer’s team is responsible for ensuring deploying reserve units meet training requirements before deploying.

Because of the hazards of traveling bumpy, dusty trails with Soldiers packed into vehicles with loaded weapons, Sharp’s team takes the units through a three-day train-up before allowing them on the range.

The three days are a combination of classroom work and battle drills, said Sharp. Once on the range, though, the training is as realistic as it can safely be, he said.

Soldiers convoy through a 1.3-kilometer rural route, loaded in the wheeled-vehicles they would take with them to combat.

Along the route, the convoy scenarios include losing a vehicle to an Improvised Explosive Device and insurgents attacking using a Rocket Propelled Grenade.

About 60 man-shaped silhouettes are spaced from 30 to 312 meters away from the convoy route representing insurgents. Grenade and field artillery simulators and smoke are used by the OCTs to add to the realism. The unit is required to move casualties and Soldiers from a “destroyed” vehicle to another convoy vehicle, while providing security. Each step is evaluated, and the convoy is given the opportunity to improve each trip through.

The units typically convoy through the range three times. First, for a “dry-run” with no ammunition, next using blank ammunition and, finally, using live rounds. The range is only for familiarization, not qualification.

But, despite its realism, the real value behind the range is its intellectual property, said Sharp. Nearly all of his OCTs are combat veterans. Also, the range was built with cooperation by C Battery, 3rd Battalion, 13th Field Artillery. The unit came home from Iraq in June, and applied its lessons learned in the range’s development, said Buddy Leavell, Range Operations Officer.

Staff Sgt. John Lee was in Iraq in October. He is now one of the OCTs, helping to train the reserve units. Lee said the new training is needed.

“As quickly as we come up with new tactics, the enemy is studying those tactics so they can counter-attack,” he said. “We’ve got to stay one step ahead of them.”

Lee said that the live-fire portion of the convoy training is needed to closely simulate what the Soldiers would experience in combat.

“The most realistic training you can get, is what you need,” he said. “Over there, Soldiers will not have a ‘safety’ over their shoulders watching them. It’s going to be their call.”

His partner, Sgt. 1st Class Brian Trimble, is a Desert Storm veteran. He said the training standardizes convoy operations for the units.

“Regardless of what type of convoy you’re in, you should react the same,” Trimble said. He also said the training focuses the Soldiers, so that if they are attacked, they know how to respond.

“Some have the tendency to want to suppress the enemy on their own, and they lose sight of their focus,” Trimble said. “Success is measured by getting all of your people and all of your equipment from point A to point B safely.”

“It’s good training. If they’ll adhere to the training, they’ll make their mission successfully.”

A Company, 120th Engineers Platoon Leader 1st Lt. Claude Oliver said the training has built confidence in the Soldiers in his unit, and puts his troops in the proper mindset to go to combat.

“Confident Soldiers react better under pressure. It definitely makes a difference,” Oliver said.

“This is what you might have to do,” he said. “You need to look to the left and to the right and realize that what you are training on might save someone’s life.”

Staff Sgt. Cleydon Reynolds is an electrician and plumber with A Company. Despite the support role his unit plays on the battlefield, all of the members of his unit are “Soldiers first,” he said.

“Everybody needs to know how to survive in a combat situation,” he said. “This kind of training sums it up. I have no doubt that this training has prepared us for the scenarios over there now.”

Despite the dust, Davis said she liked the training. She is a college student with less than three years in the unit.

“It makes you realize how it’s really going to be. You can’t just be joking around in the back of a truck. You have to be ready for anything,” she said.

In addition to dust, the fair-skinned specialist hates the sun. This brings more laughter from other Soldiers waiting for the unit’s After Action Review.

She doesn’t even go to the beach, Davis said.

“It’s one big beach over there,” said one of her fellow Soldiers.

Despite the hardships, Davis said she doesn’t regret joining the military.

The convoy training, and other training, her unit has received here has helped build her confidence, she said.

“I’ve learned a whole lot since we’ve been here. I think there would be something wrong with you if you weren’t a little nervous,” she said. “But I trust my unit.”

(Editor’s note: Fred Baker III writes for the Fort Sill Connoneer newspaper.)