Staff Sgt. Jeremiah Driscoll, a cannon crew member instructor at the US Field Artillery School in Fort Sill, Oklahoma, walks us through 41 essential items an artillery soldier would bring on a mission. While some of Driscoll's gear is used by other units in the US Army, he showcases artillery-specific items like the M2 collimator and the fire-control computer.
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TechTranscript
00:00 Fire mission! Fire mission!
00:02 Chief, charge two, would it be verified?
00:04 Last round!
00:05 Stand by, fire!
00:07 [gunshot]
00:08 Rounds complete.
00:09 Hi, my name's Staff Sergeant Jeremiah Driscoll, Rock Hill, South Carolina.
00:13 I'm one of the instructors here at Charlie Battery 178FA here on Fort Steele, Oklahoma.
00:17 Here to give a quick explanation of some of the personal items I would carry to a 72-hour field exercise.
00:27 Starting with my M4 carbine, we carry these for training purposes to prepare ourselves
00:32 for combat situations. Go ahead and get that training mentality.
00:35 Moving along from top to bottom, I have my advanced combat helmet.
00:38 Because I am an instructor, I have this illuminating band to identify myself as an instructor out here on the firing point.
00:44 So that trainees and anybody that approaches the range or the firing point recognizes me as an instructor, they can come talk to me.
00:50 Above that illumination band, I have my battle roster.
00:53 It has my initials, last four, my social security, my last name, and also my blood type for any combat situations if that was become necessary.
01:01 On the back of my advanced combat helmet, I have these cat eyes.
01:04 They also illuminate under night vision goggles or NVGs.
01:08 And then on the front, we have an NVG carrier, our base plate right here to attach the NVGs for night occupations or night missions.
01:17 Moving down, I have my eye protection.
01:20 These are the ballistic approved eye protection for when we are in the field so I don't get anything in my eyes and cause any blur damage to my vision.
01:28 Especially when shooting howitzers and artillery, a lot of dust and debris can fly up and get me in the face.
01:34 So I have eye protection to protect me from that.
01:36 Moving down to my plate carrier, I have plates in my plate carrier to protect me during a fire mission.
01:42 God forbid if we ever have any kind of incident, we have our plate carriers to protect us and all of our internal bodily organs and everything.
01:50 Attached to my plate carrier, which I would have on me during mission, is my approved gloves to protect my hands.
01:55 We use a lot with our hands, whether working with ammo or the howitzers themselves operating the breach, even down to my weapon, my personal weapon.
02:03 We want to protect our hands to accomplish a mission and go home safe at the end of the day.
02:09 So on the front of my plate carrier, you'll notice I have these magazine pouches.
02:12 They're empty at the time because I am in a training exercise.
02:15 And then on my left, I have a pouch.
02:17 You can put your water canteen in there.
02:19 I don't have a water canteen.
02:20 I have my camelback for my hydration source.
02:23 Probably the number one thing we tell soldiers and trainees, always have a water source on them at all times to prevent dehydration.
02:28 Here in Oklahoma, in Fort Sill, home of the artillery, it gets really hot.
02:31 For when we are firing the howitzers, I use my ear protection to save my ears.
02:35 I do have another set that goes over my ears for a dual protection.
02:39 They're approved for the decibels that these howitzers create.
02:42 However, I don't wear those as an instructor because I like to be able to maintain communication with my soldiers and trainees at all times.
02:49 Make sure they can hear me.
02:50 And then I'm also hearing the fire direction center in case of any firing incidents or anything that I need to stop firing at that moment.
02:56 Total noise canceling, so I can't hear anything.
03:04 So when I'm trying to communicate with trainees, that can become an issue.
03:09 But they are great for ear protection.
03:11 So we do provide the subdued flags for these training exercises.
03:15 They're different than the garrison colored flags that you would see on the installation soldiers wearing.
03:19 Our trainees and our instructors, when we do go to the field, we try to make it as realistic as we can and get the trainees mentality for when they're in the force comm units or downrange, even down to the uniforms.
03:30 The Army authorizes several types and brands of boots.
03:34 Every soldier, in my opinion, is different on the boots that they like to wear for durability, whether they're running, rucking, or just mission boots.
03:41 Like they're operating daily in their boots.
03:43 12 years of service, I've been able to go through a lot of boots.
03:46 The tread on them is very good, so I have low slippage.
03:50 I don't fall a lot.
03:51 They also offer a lot of ankle support.
03:52 So when we are moving rounds, heavy rounds, or operating the howitzers, I know they're not going to fold over and cause an injury to myself.
04:01 I use them.
04:02 I prefer them.
04:03 I don't have much to say bad about them.
04:06 They've been good boots.
04:08 One of the tools that I use and highly recommend when going to a 72 or any field exercise with the field artillery unit is a multi-tool.
04:15 A multi-tool has multiple tools on it to include the pliers and small screwdrivers, knives, things like that.
04:22 Because whether I need to work on my personal weapon, take anything apart for cleaning or maintenance, or even the maintenance on the howitzer, these become very handy.
04:31 And I utilize mine a lot.
04:33 The second thing I would highly recommend is a watch.
04:36 Everything we do in the Army operates on a timeline, all the way down to our fire missions, and just a simple watch can come in handy.
04:43 Yes, please, something I know how to talk about.
04:46 One of the howitzers we have here at the FAAIT Schoolhouse on Fort Sill, Oklahoma is the Mike 119er Alpha 3.
04:53 This howitzer shoots a 105 millimeter projectile.
04:56 So this weapon is a digital weapon system.
04:58 We can shoot it digitally.
04:59 What that means is the Fire Direction Center can send us digital fire missions through a computer screen, and that is a fire control computer.
05:06 This FCC was basically a big fancy iPad that tells the Chief everything he needs to safe and verify, and what exactly he's shooting on that fire mission.
05:14 The Section Chief will receive that fire mission on the FCC, and it also shows right here on the gunner's display screen for the gunner to be able to see the deflection and quadrant.
05:23 Our deflections are numbers that will basically tell the gunner if he needs to, what we call traversing.
05:27 We don't say left and right.
05:28 He got traversing left or traversing right with this hand wheel right here.
05:32 We also have an elevation hand wheel, the quadrant, which are numbers that tell us whether we need to go up or down.
05:38 And in artillery, we use the terms elevation and depression.
05:42 We use the elevation hand wheel to go up to elevate or down to depress.
05:47 That piece?
05:48 Oh crap, I hate this piece.
05:50 So this is our degraded primary aiming reference.
05:54 This is the M2 collimator.
05:55 So if you look inside here, which is very difficult to see unless you're looking through the gunner's sight that's on the howitzer,
06:01 there's a lot of numbers.
06:02 There's hundreds of numbers left and right of a vertical crosshair.
06:06 I mean, I'm not seeing numbers.
06:08 I'm seeing like, oh weird.
06:10 Okay, maybe those are numbers.
06:11 They're really small.
06:12 Yeah, there's hundreds of them in there.
06:13 Wow.
06:14 And that gunner and the soldier who is setting this up are bringing those numbers in to match.
06:19 This gunner's sight is basically a fancy telescope.
06:21 The gunner will utilize this scope and look through that collimator, and he'll be able to line those numbers up.
06:27 Once they line the numbers up, the chief will verify all the data is safe and ready to fire.
06:32 And then we will place the weapon from safe to fire and fire the howitzer.
06:36 So underneath it, we just have the cover.
06:40 We face the cover like this because of the concussions from the howitzer firing.
06:44 Dust and debris, rocks will kick up.
06:46 We put the cover in like that, not like that, because you don't want to pull it out and there'd be a big rock in there.
06:51 And then you dump it on your collimator, causing it unserviceable.
06:54 So the Mike 119 Alpha 3 is a towed howitzer.
06:57 It's a light towed howitzer, and it can be slung from a helicopter or also dropped from an airplane.
07:02 Being a towed howitzer, we are able to hook it up to a Humvee and tow it to our firing point.
07:09 To hook the howitzer to the Humvee, we would remove what we have, the hand spike here.
07:14 This is just so the trainees and the soldiers have better control of the howitzer.
07:19 They're able to move this howitzer with ease.
07:21 This is the lightest howitzer that is in the Army right now.
07:24 Two soldiers can pick this up from the hand spike and do a complete 360 degree with it.
07:28 If we were to hook it up to the Humvee, we would remove this pin.
07:33 We would set that out of the way.
07:36 And then we have our lunette here, often called like a hitch or, you know, a trailer hitch.
07:42 But in the artillery, we have a lunette.
07:44 They would hook it up to the pental on the rear of the Humvee, would it be able to drive off.
07:52 Now notice this howitzer is sitting on a big metal base plate.
07:55 We call that our firing platform.
07:57 And it's held on there by these large steel cables, which we call stays.
08:01 These firing stays, it secures this howitzer to that firing platform.
08:05 It has two legs that come down from the left and right tires.
08:08 Those are called the suspension lockout system.
08:10 The suspension lockout system keeps the howitzer in place during firing.
08:13 And it also reduces recoil on the howitzer.
08:15 So we're not bumping all the way back across the firing point with every round that we shoot.
08:22 So right here to the left of the gunner seat, we have the gunner sight box.
08:26 We can't move the howitzer with this sight on.
08:28 So the gunner would take this sight off, remove it and place it in his sight box.
08:33 Also in the sight box, we have several other tools.
08:35 He has a direct fire telescope in the event that we do need to shoot direct fire.
08:39 We have a bore sight alignment device.
08:41 That's a verification for the gunner and the chief to verify that during that travel,
08:46 nothing happened to that sight mount or that tube to throw it off where they wouldn't match.
08:50 So this is basically a safety check for us to make sure everything is ready to shoot and safe to shoot.
08:54 Some other little tools in there, screwdrivers and things to take apart our breach.
08:59 This is our breach right here.
09:00 This is the breach block assembly and the breach.
09:03 Once the round gets placed into the tube, the assistant gunner would then close that breach.
09:07 Hearing that metallic click tells the chief that, hey, the round's in there and it's ready to fire.
09:11 We talked about the gun being digital.
09:14 If our howitzer is digital, obviously we need something to power that digital
09:18 and that computer capabilities.
09:20 So right here we have our sled.
09:21 Inside this sled is several batteries to power the howitzer and also a radio for our communications.
09:29 In any operation or any mission, we need to maintain communications
09:33 with our platoon leadership, our battery leadership.
09:35 So we do have just our basic ASIP radio here, an RTO, our radio personnel who will be on the
09:41 hand mic at all times in case information comes down or we need to let FTC or commando of anything.
09:49 You do have the inertia navigation unit.
09:51 So this gun knows where it is at all times.
09:54 It does have GPS capabilities.
09:56 If you notice these big spikes in the ground, these are what we call safety stakes.
09:59 These basically give us a left and right tolerance so we don't shoot out of our safety box window.
10:03 This is the max limit that the tube can go left and right so that if we get it out of
10:08 traverse mission or what we call azimuth where we have to change azimuth.
10:13 Azimuth is basically the direction of which we fire these howitzers.
10:16 So if they want to change our azimuth or direction, we can go left or right,
10:19 but we also have a tolerance of where we cannot shoot safely.
10:23 So these are here to stop us.
10:25 So this one right here, the small one in the ground, this is our initial azimuth of lay.
10:29 This is where the howitzer was laid when we occupied this firing position.
10:34 And this is where the howitzer will come back to upon every end of mission.
10:38 So they can fire out of, they can shoot at different azimuths,
10:42 maintaining inside the safety box.
10:44 But after every end of mission, the soldiers will then bring the howitzer
10:48 back to our original starting point.
10:50 Absolutely, let's move on to ammo.
10:51 So here in front of me are the Mike 105 millimeter projectiles,
10:56 the rounds and the propellants for the Mike 119 or Alpha 3.
10:59 It comes in this casing right here.
11:01 We'll uncase the round and inside it will be this canister which holds our powder increments.
11:08 They are all numbered one to seven.
11:10 This is what basically lights the, uh, hold on, pause.
11:14 Somebody give me a better explanation than lights the TNT.
11:17 Ignites the explosive train.
11:20 There we go.
11:20 Once it ignites, it starts the explosive train to send that projectile outside the fuse
11:24 and to its destination.
11:26 They're numbered because we shoot different charges.
11:28 We can pack all of them in there or if the FTC calls for just a charge five,
11:34 we'll remove bag seven and six and then place the round on top of the canister.
11:40 And then the chief will verify that the charges are correct
11:43 and then we can fire that round safely.
11:45 The FTC will calculate how many charges we need inside this canister
11:49 to upon the round hitting its target or destination.
11:53 Moving on to the round.
11:54 This is our 105 high explosive round.
11:59 On top it has a point detonated fuse so it will activate upon impact.
12:04 And then like I described, if it is a charge five, just for example,
12:08 we'll remove six and seven, keeping charge five in there and place the round.
12:14 And then the round is ready to take to the chief to verify the charge.
12:20 He verifies the type of round and he also verifies that it's correct fuse
12:24 and the fuse is on there tightly.
12:25 The chief, once he verifies that round and that charge is correct,
12:32 he cuts the charge.
12:33 He just gives it a quick swipe or this acrylic cord will break away pretty quickly.
12:37 He gives it then to the round runner and he sends them to what we call our power pit
12:41 or a burn barrel and they basically just get this propellant
12:44 outside of the net and away from the howitzer.
12:46 Charge two will be verified.
12:48 Verified.
12:50 Three, four, five, six, seven.
12:54 Three, four, five, six, seven to the rear.
12:56 The number one cause of firing incidents infield artillery is wrong charge.
13:02 So we want to make sure that that charge is not in that howitzer and not in that tube.
13:06 And that round is safe and ready to fire.
13:08 This round is a highly explosive round.
13:10 We call it HE round.
13:11 This is one of the most common rounds that we do use in our training exercise.
13:15 It gives the full effect of the fire mission from all the way from when we received the
13:19 fire mission to point of impact.
13:21 And here on this range, we are able to observe where our rounds hit.
13:25 So it's kind of cool for the trainees and new FAA soldiers to be able to see that.
13:29 Yeah, it's pretty cool stuff.
13:30 So let's shoot some fire missions.
13:32 Charge two will be verified.
13:34 Verified.
13:36 Three, four, five, six, seven.
13:40 Set ready.
13:45 Linking back, no one in action.
13:46 Stand by.
13:47 Oh, crap.
13:52 You can edit a lot of this out.