- Reaction score
- 5,340
- Points
- 1,360
RCHA battery flexes its military muscle
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/War_Terror/2007/04/18/4057075-cp.html
By JAMES MCCARTEN
FORWARD OPERATING BASE ROBINSON, Afghanistan (CP) - The arid plains of southern Helmand province shuddered under the deafening thunder of Canadian military might Wednesday as an artillery battery pounded Taliban insurgents engaging coalition forces in the Sangin River valley.
Three Taliban fighters were confirmed killed as soldiers from 2 Royal Canadian Horse Artillery, based in Petawawa, Ont., shattered a three-day silence with 22 rounds from two 155-mm M-777 Howitzers. They were aimed at an enemy compound dozens of kilometres north of Forward Operating Base Robinson, roughly 100 kilometres west of Kandahar.
A fog of dust the consistency of powdered chalk leaped from the parched ground with every tug of the lanyard as two crews - one of eight soldiers, another of six - peppered the target with wave after thunderous wave of 50-kilogram shells.
Later, with the sun dipping behind the tranquil foothills west of the river, soldiers scrambled into position again as the radio crackled with a second fire mission, this time in support of troops who were tracking four Taliban in a position not far from the site of the earlier attack.
No casualties were reported in the second barrage.
All told, by the time darkness fell Wednesday, the soldiers of D Battery, B Troop had fired 36 long-range rounds - a dusty, deafening exercise for a group of warriors whose sole purpose in Afghanistan is to put their training to work and provide heavy artillery support to coalition fighters.
"It feels good to get back in the swing, get the adrenaline pumping," said Warrant Officer Dennis Goodland of Bonavista, N.L., who relays orders from the command post as he supervises the frenetic dance of loading, priming and firing the towering Canadian guns Taliban fighters are said to call the Dragons.
"We're sitting around, and guys get a little bored, so we try to keep 'er going the best we can and prepare ourselves for when the mission comes, because that's what we're here for."
Each day, coalition forces - including British, Danish and American troops, as well as members of the Afgan National Army - rumble in and out of the base, pressing north in a ceaseless effort to flush Taliban insurgents out of a valley valued for its water, communications and hydroelectric resources.
"I guess (they found) some Taliban in a compound, and they needed some assistance in order to help clear out that compound and everything on that end," Goodland said of the day's first fire mission.
"They call us in, we drop some rounds in on it and destroy it, and they go in and clean it up."
At one point, coalition troops could be seen escorting what appeared to be Taliban prisoners on to the base. A pair of attack helicopters were also seen in the distance, firing on a target not far from the base, sending a plume of smoke and dust into the sky.
Cpl. Mike Dobson, a technician who is attached to B Troop as a member of the Canadian Forces National Support Element, watched from a distance and lurched into action whenever one of the guns jammed.
It's Dobson's job to keep the Howitzers in good working order, and he said it's helpful to see them in action in order to better understand the things that can go wrong from time to time.
"I hate to see jamming problems and stuff, which is the biggest problem we're having right now, but it's good to see the action because as a tech myself, I've only seen how to repair it when it's broken," Dobson said.
"Now I get to see the operator side of it; I get to be right there, I get to see things, I get to see how it's broken."
I remember the intensity on the gunline firing rounds into the training rangs, I can only imagine how that feels to know these rounds are making a difference.
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/War_Terror/2007/04/18/4057075-cp.html
By JAMES MCCARTEN
FORWARD OPERATING BASE ROBINSON, Afghanistan (CP) - The arid plains of southern Helmand province shuddered under the deafening thunder of Canadian military might Wednesday as an artillery battery pounded Taliban insurgents engaging coalition forces in the Sangin River valley.
Three Taliban fighters were confirmed killed as soldiers from 2 Royal Canadian Horse Artillery, based in Petawawa, Ont., shattered a three-day silence with 22 rounds from two 155-mm M-777 Howitzers. They were aimed at an enemy compound dozens of kilometres north of Forward Operating Base Robinson, roughly 100 kilometres west of Kandahar.
A fog of dust the consistency of powdered chalk leaped from the parched ground with every tug of the lanyard as two crews - one of eight soldiers, another of six - peppered the target with wave after thunderous wave of 50-kilogram shells.
Later, with the sun dipping behind the tranquil foothills west of the river, soldiers scrambled into position again as the radio crackled with a second fire mission, this time in support of troops who were tracking four Taliban in a position not far from the site of the earlier attack.
No casualties were reported in the second barrage.
All told, by the time darkness fell Wednesday, the soldiers of D Battery, B Troop had fired 36 long-range rounds - a dusty, deafening exercise for a group of warriors whose sole purpose in Afghanistan is to put their training to work and provide heavy artillery support to coalition fighters.
"It feels good to get back in the swing, get the adrenaline pumping," said Warrant Officer Dennis Goodland of Bonavista, N.L., who relays orders from the command post as he supervises the frenetic dance of loading, priming and firing the towering Canadian guns Taliban fighters are said to call the Dragons.
"We're sitting around, and guys get a little bored, so we try to keep 'er going the best we can and prepare ourselves for when the mission comes, because that's what we're here for."
Each day, coalition forces - including British, Danish and American troops, as well as members of the Afgan National Army - rumble in and out of the base, pressing north in a ceaseless effort to flush Taliban insurgents out of a valley valued for its water, communications and hydroelectric resources.
"I guess (they found) some Taliban in a compound, and they needed some assistance in order to help clear out that compound and everything on that end," Goodland said of the day's first fire mission.
"They call us in, we drop some rounds in on it and destroy it, and they go in and clean it up."
At one point, coalition troops could be seen escorting what appeared to be Taliban prisoners on to the base. A pair of attack helicopters were also seen in the distance, firing on a target not far from the base, sending a plume of smoke and dust into the sky.
Cpl. Mike Dobson, a technician who is attached to B Troop as a member of the Canadian Forces National Support Element, watched from a distance and lurched into action whenever one of the guns jammed.
It's Dobson's job to keep the Howitzers in good working order, and he said it's helpful to see them in action in order to better understand the things that can go wrong from time to time.
"I hate to see jamming problems and stuff, which is the biggest problem we're having right now, but it's good to see the action because as a tech myself, I've only seen how to repair it when it's broken," Dobson said.
"Now I get to see the operator side of it; I get to be right there, I get to see things, I get to see how it's broken."
I remember the intensity on the gunline firing rounds into the training rangs, I can only imagine how that feels to know these rounds are making a difference.