4.2 inch Heavy Mortar Platoon
HHC, 4th Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment
Coleman Barracks, Mannheim, Germany
I was lucky enough to be the Battalion's Heavy Mortar Platoon leader for over a year. The soldiers and NCO's of the platoon were some of the finest people I've met and certainly some of the best soldiers I've worked with. I learned a lot from this very motivated and talented group.
Staff Sergeant Wiles prepares to move out with First Section
Staff Sergeant Cooper prepares to move out with Second Section
The platoon was organized into 2 sections. Each section had a fire direction center (FDC) housed in an M-577 armored vehicle (the bigger ones). There were also 3 gun squads in each section who transported their 4.2 inch (107mm) mortars in M-106 armored mortar carriers. As a matter of practice, the two sections operated seperately from each other to maximize our geographic coverage of the Battalion area. If moving, one section would be firing while the other was repositioning. Anyway, in the whole platoon, we had 6 mortars and 2 FDC's, for a total of 8 tracked vehicles. If you add in my jeep and the platoon sergeant's jeep, we had 10 vehicles and over 40 personnel.
Some more pictures of the platoon in action......
Me on Range 213 at Grafenwöhr with my good friend Rich Leonard, the Battalion Chemical Officer.
The M-30 Heavy Mortar (4.2 inch) set up in the dismounted mode and ready to go!
4.2 inch High Explosive rounds being prepared. The "cheese charges" are the square wafers of propellent on the rear of the rounds. You subtract charges, depending on how far you want the rounds to go!
1st Squad, or Number One Gun, fires one round on command from the FDC.
3rd Squad, or Number Three Gun, fires part of a barrage -- or Fire for Effect -- from the whole section. Note the pieces of camouflage net flying in the air.
A gun squad waits for deflection and elevation instructions during a live-fire evaluation exercise at Grafenwöhr.
Sergeant Sipes shows Sergeant Pitcher the price of not wearing enough camouflage on his pistol range while SP4 Godinez holds him down.
The FDC on the move during a free maneuver exercise, where V Corps (us) took on VII Corps using a good part of Germany as our maneuver box. Good stuff! Note our 100 meter intervals to reduce damage in case of air attack.
Speaking of air, some friendly air in the form of an AH-1 Cobra flies over our platoon Command Post. Earlier that day, we "shot down" an enemy helicopter (with a blue dot).
See Sergeant Coker teach some new arrivals another important skill while we have some down time on the range.
