U.S. Crews Fail To Place In NATO Tank Competition
BY Herschel Smith
8 years, 7 months ago
A recent competition hosted in part by the U.S. Army and designed to test core tank crew skills saw European crews take the top honors, while crews from the U.S. Army failed to place. The results raise the question of whether the Army—after more than a decade of focusing on guerrilla warfare—has devoted adequate training to address “big war” skills.
Held from May 10 to 12 and jointly hosted by the U.S. Army and the German Bundeswehr at the Grafenwoehr Training Area in Germany, the the Strong Europe Tank Challenge included challengers from six NATO countries: Denmark, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Slovenia—which sent tank platoons of four tanks each to compete— and the United States, which sent two platoons.
The competition involved tank crews conducting both offensive and defensive operations, and both mounted and dismounted activities. Crews fired ten main gun rounds from various positions. In one event, crews had to correctly identify 25 friendly and unfriendly (read: Russian) vehicles while traveling a course. Other events involved operating in the aftermath of a chemical weapons attack, dealing with improvised explosive devices, and medical emergencies.
A German tank crew from Mountain Panzer Battalion 7, Panzer Brigade 12 took top honors, followed by a Danish crew from their country’s 1st Tank Battalion in second. Third place went to a Polish crew from the 34th Armored Cavalry brigade. It’s unknown where the American crews placed, only that they weren’t in the top three.
But hey. The upshot is that black females at West Point believe in black power, we now have gay pride events at the Pentagon, Navy Secretary Ray Mabus knows that green energy saves Marine lives, and they’re trying to push women through the Marine Corps officer school at Quantico despite the fact that every candidate so far has had pelvic fractures.
We may suck, but at least we’re culturally sensitive, green and color coordinated.
On May 20, 2016 at 6:24 am, Roger V. Tranfaglia said:
Sounds like somebody(s) wants us to lose………..
On May 20, 2016 at 7:57 am, Big Boss said:
Inexcusable, and it will cost us when the going gets tough. When I was part of a M2A2 Bradley crew, gunnery drills were a matter of pride. My squad in 2004 was battalion top gun at annual gunnery. Germans and Danish have won before, but we usually placed pretty high up.
On May 20, 2016 at 8:08 am, Haywood Jablome said:
Hey everybody, nothing to see here…we have Transgender bathrooms to worry about….
On May 20, 2016 at 8:25 am, Fred said:
Why do we even have tanks and guns any more? All they are is symbols of a past masculinity that must be destroyed. Clearly, the age of feminized male enlightenment is at hand through the socialized equality of unicorn wishes and lollipop rainbows. Nobody would even hurt another person anymore.
Not surprised Germany won. They always were good tankers.
On May 20, 2016 at 9:40 pm, Fred said:
Couple of interesting comments over at Sipsey. Doc has a pretty thorough run down of the history.
https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=7575061201749703300&postID=2504318654300965522&bpli=1
On May 20, 2016 at 8:20 pm, Pb B said:
I heard there was a anti military gay muslim as the commander in chief. Is that true?