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"D" Bty 2 RCHA Flexes Its Muscle- Article 18 April/ 07

Bruce Monkhouse

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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. :cdn:
 
Another "pat on the backs" for the Long RangeSnipers

Keep up the good work.
 
WOOOO HOOOO!!! Them's my boys! (and girls!)

Hubby's bro is the B TC, and we are both really f'n proud of him...

Ironically Hubby's bro's GF is C TC hahah.

"The Guns, the Guns, thank God the Guns!"
 
As an ex-BC D, I was thrilled to read the story. Every round you land on the bad guys means more of the supported arms get to come home in one piece. Pour it to 'em.

Remember the line from The Screw Guns, "Just send in your chiefs and surrender, It's worse if you fights or you runs, You can go where you please, You can skid up the trees, But you can't get away from the guns."

 
D Bty, B Troop come in for some showers
http://www.hfxnews.ca/index.cfm?sid=24418&sc=89
Soldiers get much-needed reprieve 
AFGHANISTAN


JAMES MCCARTEN
CP

From behind a jagged mountain range, two Black Hawk helicopters thundered out of the Afghan sky and disgorged more than a dozen desert-weary Canadian gunners desperate for a cold drink, a warm shower and a hot plate of food.

Sun-baked and coated with dust, they slumped into the cool shade of an underground bunker complete with electric lighting, bunk beds and even a freezer - luxury compared with the flea-ridden swatch of desert in southern Helmand province where many have slept under the stars since late February.

"Grab a bed, boys," shouted Warrant Officer Dennis Goodland of D Battery, B Troop from the 2nd Royal Canadian Horse Artillery, based in Petawawa, Ont., as he surveyed the accommodations.

For B Troop, yesterday's 25-minute helicopter ride low over the Afghanistan countryside was their first relief in weeks from the punishing heat and ever-present grime of Forward Operating Base Robinson in the Sangin River valley, where they spent weeks pounding Taliban positions with the fearsome "Desert Dragons" - a pair of 155-millimetre M777 Howitzers, the mightiest artillery in the Canadian arsenal.

They're here on Sperwan Ghar - a Canadian base in the mountains of the Panjwaii district, 30 kilometres west of Kandahar - to do much the same thing, only with the benefit of amenities most Canadians take for granted: cold water, hot food, clean clothes and showers.

In Helmand, soldiers were reduced to leaving bottles of drinking water under the air conditioner in one of the supply trucks in a largely futile effort to cool it down. It was so hot during the day, some soldiers took water from outside and used it to make warm tea, straight from the bottle.

"Where we were, in Helmand, it's quite a bit more austere," said Capt. James Leslie.

"My soldiers haven't seen (drinking) water colder than the shade since February ... there's even water frozen stiff; it's a nice touch."

On Friday, two coalition soldiers - one Dutch, the other American - were killed in two separate mine explosions less than two kilometres from the base in Helmand. One suspected Taliban insurgent was killed and another wounded in the area later in the day when they were engaged by coalition troops.

Both were found with bomb-making equipment, an alliance statement said.

Yesterday, as the Black Hawks were taking off, an Apache attack helicopter could be seen strafing the area in an effort to detonate any remaining mines.

Operations in the area are all part of a NATO push, with the help of the Afghan National Army, to flush Taliban rebels out of the tactically important Sangin River Valley in opium-producing Helmand province.

But all that was a distant memory for Master Bombardier Art Fleming as he marvelled about his first shower after 15 days in Helmand's oppressive heat and ever-present dust.

"It was actually really nice; the water felt great," said Fleming, originally from Chance Harbour, N.B., a small fishing village 25 kilometres west of Saint John.

"You could see the dirt running off; I could actually see my skin again."

From a personal hygiene standpoint, the timing of yesterday's transfer couldn't be better: soldiers all over southern Afghanistan are falling victim to a nasty stomach bug that's been making the rounds in recent weeks.

Leslie said several of his troops have fallen ill over the last couple of months, and said soldiers are doing their best to battle the illness, which seems to take between 24 and 36 hours to run its course.

"We're North Americans, and so we don't get a lot of the microbes and such that do well in these areas," Leslie said.

"Generally, we work hard to keep our hands clean and we will avoid the symptoms, which include really bad diarrhea and vomiting ... it's a dangerous situation."
 
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.

I spent 13 years on the gunline, the last 6 or so as TSM. I can still smell the smoke from the propellant; I can taste the dust. I can feel the adrenaline course when "Fire Mission, Battery" comes over the tannoy or bullhorn. Man, I'd love to be there!  Way to represent The Regiment, Gunners!  Wooo hoooooooooo!

:cdn:
 
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

Yep, I've gotta quote that one too...  We had a reporter and a photographer with us in Helmund and the photog got some amazing shots.  As any gunner'll tell ya, the classic shot is the gun firing and the bullet in the air just out from the muzzle.  He got one of those with his whiz-bang expensive camera and it looks stunning.  That pic is part of a series that he took from behind the gun during a few missions.  Here's my two cents... er, points...
1.  For years I've fired howitzers and have always loved the "intensity on the gunline".  Thunderstruck always comes to mind.  But, now that I've fired the new maximum charge for the 777, I gotta say... that's loud.  No, not loud.  That's not what I'm looking for.  A tank firing is loud.  Even a mortar (unlike the silly 'whump' they portray in the movies) firing is loud.  MAC High, Charge 5 is more of a seismic event.  It collapses your lungs, compresses your chest, blows out the windows of nearby vehicles and I'm sure, on a quiet night, years from now, my as yet unborn grandchildren will feel it.  Intensity indeed.
2.  Getting back to those pictures...  When I look at them, I find myself not only looking at the technical details (the one with the bullet visible is early in the process and the concussion has not yet reached the ground, later pictures show the ground shaking, dust flying up, dust flying off of us, recoil of the gun, etc.) but also I'm looking at rounds being fired that are 'doing the job'.  The next day (or the one after that, I forget exactly) the ground commander who we were firing in support of came over to us and thanked us.  He explained how close he was in contact and how he felt after our rounds came in and silenced the opposition.  I will never forget that.
 
zanshin.. do you know which company the photographer was reporting for (cbc, globe, herald.. etc), and do you know of where to find said photos?

Keep Safe, Keep up the good work
 
Hi there,
If you are looking for great pics of the guns, CBC has an awesome image gallery.  Here's the link. http://www.cbc.ca/photogallery/world/438/ (hope I'm allowed to post the link, sorry if I'm not).  There are also some great ones in the image gallery of the Ottawa Sun online, in the Afghanistan section.
 
Hey no problem.  I have the link to all of the articles  about the battery if you've missed any. :)
 
MonicaB said:
Hi there,
If you are looking for great pics of the guns, CBC has an awesome image gallery.  Here's the link. http://www.cbc.ca/photogallery/world/438/ (hope I'm allowed to post the link, sorry if I'm not).  There are also some great ones in the image gallery of the Ottawa Sun online, in the Afghanistan section.

OMG, slide 9 has John Lorimer in it. Served with him in the Paras about a million years ago, when he was junior to me. If he's in charge, better order more ammo 'cause you'll be busy!
 
Hey MonicaB, tanks much for providing an answer during the delay in me getting online again!  ;D
You mentioned that you've got links to all the articles about us...  Could you possibly contact Zanshin9D (her profile here on army.ca is Zanshin9D) and give her the links you've got?  She's got some, but maybe you've got some more.  That'd be cool.  Also, for my own curiosity, who in the battery are you related to/associated with?  If you don't want to say, that's cool too, I understand lots of folks prefer anonymity online.

midget-boyd91, the photog was from Canadian Press.  I can't upload any of his stuff that I've got because it's copyrighted (not sure if that's exactly right... "copyrighted" in the case of photos, but he did say that I wasn't to publish them or anything).  Hopefully that CBC link that MonicaB gave shows his stuff (I can't open it here because this welfare PC doesn't have the appropriate Flash player).

cheers,
Mark

(Strange, I didn't used to say "cheers" so much...  Actually, I asked some brits a few weeks ago about "cheers" - since they say cheers if you hold a door for them, or give them an answer to something, or hand them something, or blow some Taliban up for them, or for just about every reason under the sun...  Anyway, I asked "since you guys use "cheers" for "thanks", then... what do you say when you clink your drinks together?  "Cheers" they said.    ??? ... was my response.  ;D
 
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