Platoons learning to deal with enemy, faltering equipment

[unhappycamper]

http://www.thenewstribune.com/2014/01/24/3009240/platoons-learning-to-deal-with.html



Spc. Rich Calbri changes a tire Monday for a Stryker in the 1st Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment. Keeping Strykers running has been half the fight for Joint Base Lewis-McChord soldiers at the National Training Center in the Mojave Desert this month.

Platoons learning to deal with enemy, faltering equipment
By ADAM ASHTON
Staff writer
January 24, 2014

~snip~

Three of the four Strykers vehicles in his platoon were immobilized — one from too many busted tires, one from a broken axle and one from an assortment of safety issues that made it undrivable.

His predicament is familiar to Stryker soldiers since they returned to their base south of Tacoma from Afghanistan a year ago. They’re working the kinks out of aging vehicles while preparing for a new kind of mission, one that would call on the eight-wheeled Strykers to face formidable armies instead of the elusive insurgencies of the past dozen years of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The training has unfolded this month as the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division goes through exercises at the National Training Center in the Mojave Desert. Keeping their Stryker machines in the field is no small challenge when they’re driving over jagged rocks and rough terrain.

“We popped a tire. No kidding. You’re driving over volcanic rock. You’re going to pop a tire,” said Maj. Adam Latham, the executive officer for the brigade’s 1st Squadron, 14th Cavalry Regiment.

[GeorgeGist]

1. $600 billion dollar organization ...

run by greased palms.