FORT BLISS, Texas — Soldiers with Company A, 1st Battalion “Regulars” Battalion, 6th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, conducted squad live-fire exercises to refine tactics, techniques and procedures, to make them a more lethal force.
1LT Sean Murphy, Orange County, California native, Platoon Leader, 3rd Platoon
SGT Taylor Tracy, Salt Lake City, Utah native, Team Leader, 1st Squad, 2nd Platoon
CPT Travis Edwards, Spring Hill, Kansas native, Commander, Company A
Transcript
[Sgt. Humphrey] Shoot, move and communicate. 4th Battalion 6th Infantry Regiment Regulars went full out with tactics during their squad live-fire exercise. This three-week training allows them to implement all of their platoon tactics they’ve learned.
We are mechanized so we have the Bradley’s at our disposal, but they can only go so far. So, at that last 50 meters of the fight, oftentimes on the objective the dismounts, as we call them, we’ll have to get out of the Bradley and engage the enemy. And that’s where the typical light infantry tactics come into play. And that’s what they’re practicing, refining and hopefully mastering out here.
[Sgt. Humphrey] The squads now can react to an ambush, move forward and set up a support by fire while still engaging the enemy.
I really enjoy how in depth it is. Because in the past, a lot of live-fire’s seem to be in a straight line and they try to keep it really focused on the range and I really appreciate that this range has the focus with being able to do flanks and being able to give squad leaders control of how things would actually be done and it gives us freedom of maneuver so we can actually train how we really fight.
[Sgt. Humphrey] This training allows them to be implemented into any deployable environment, making them a more lethal force.
Mastery of the fundamentals is the same in combat in any environment so with a live-fire specifically what we get is we’re assessing marksmanship under field conditions, so marksmanship in combat not at a flat range, fire distribution, fire to commands and synchronization of fires. And that is applicable no matter what operational environment these guys will go to, whether that’s Yukon, Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq. The principles of small unit tactics are the same.
[Sgt. Humphrey] As the training continues, the squads will go from day to night live-fire. Reporting from Fort Bliss, Texas, I’m Army Sergeant Alan Humphrey.