Support Weapons in actual use.

[pbi]

While in AAP (TOW platoon) in Bosnia in the late-90s, our platoon received a briefing from GEO TECHs about GEO TECH capabilities. The GEO TECHs related a story about an incident during a previous deployment (I do not recall which roto) concerning a tank firing in a village. The GEO TECHs said their trade was able to provide AAP with grid locations from which a TUA could engage the tank - but was out of the tank's range  (the story ended with a near-miss and the tank fleeing).

Can anyone, with first hand knowledge, confirm the incident and the use of the TOW missile?

Does anyone have any first hand knowledge of incidents where Support Weapons have been used by a CF unit (something other than personal weapons or sniper rifles)?

Note: I'm wondering more about the weapons/systems used rather than the incidents themselves.

During our tour in Croatia in 94 (1 PP on OP HARMONY), C6s were fired a couple of times to discourage random pot shots by bored Croat Home Guardsmen at our OPs. We also staged a full-blown TOW firewpower demo for the local Serb command structure, using their own anti-tank range outside Benkovac (near Zadar). TOW Platoon shot up a bunker, some old hulks, and topped it off with the good old standby of a  tank (old T-34) filled with POL and C4. Afterwards we let the Serb officers take a look at the systems. They were very impressed: the TOW II that AAP was firing was a far more powerful system than the little Sagger the Serbs had. TOW also ripped up the tank hulks quite nicely.

In my company we deployed all our support weapon forward on our line: C6, .50 cal, 60mm and Karl G, either mounted at the OPs or in hte APCs. I also had a sniper team. Fortunately we never had to open fire.

Cheers

 

[Journeyman]

The topo guys worked for the speciality teams in theatre not the Bn.

SFOR Roto 1: Topo worked for the BG (I had sole tasking authority and I wrote their PERs). The "specialty teams"....the US troops spent most of their time sun-tanning and trying to out "war-story" the Brit; the Cdn's - playing volleyball and hitting on any female in-camp that had a pulse (when my section's two women were on HLTA, JTF2 abruptly stopped dropping by with support requests).

KFOR Roto 1: Topo was moved into Bde HQ (Pristina) because our camp "didn't meet their requirements" (ie - the camp wasn't comfy). Support weapon use was limited to CO RCD firing a burst of C6 into the Leo in front of him while visiting his Tp.  ~d'oh~

Edit -> ..not JTF2 bashing. Just a matter of the right tools in the toolbox. What they do, they appear to do quite well; they were, however, grossly underemployed in both missions.

 

[3rd Horseman]

Journeyman,

  You are probably right I was not on those SFOR or KFOR rotos, I was talking about the last UNPROFOR roto before IFOR arrived. At that point they worked for the specialty teams directly along with the locating artillery and other assets. The specialty teams I spoke about I might add are not JTF2 teams. The JTF2 had no tasks during that time. As a side note the TERE or TOPO guys as I called them were invaluable to me and my team and I used them extensively. To any TOPO guys watching out there ...Thanks you saved my bacon more than once!