Video, C Company, 3rd Battalion, 116th Cavalry Regiment, M1A2 SEP and M2 Bradley live fire (the voice you hear in the video is one of the first female armor platoon leaders in the U.S.):
At the end of May, 2019, the Idaho Army National Guard’s 116th Cavalry Brigade Combat Team (which includes personnel from Oregon, Montana and Nevada) deployed more than 3-thousand troops to the U.S. Army’s Fort Irwin National Training Center (NTC) in California.
Idaho Air National Guard’s 124th Fighter Wing also deployed their A-10C Thunderbolt-2s to Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, to provide close air support at NTC. Even Tactical Air Control Party (TACP) personnel from Brazil joined in.
Video explainer of helicopter ops:
Specialist James Patrick launches a RQ-11 Raven Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV, drone).
Another 1-thousand-plus support troops from several other state militias (Arizona, California, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and Puerto Rico), and several Army Reserve units, joined the 116th Armored Cav.
Specialist Brett Neal on his M1 Abrams based M1150 Assault Breacher.
Video, M1150 Assault Breacher live fire:
11th Cav OpFor ‘surrogate vehicle’ is an M113 dressed up to look ‘Russian’.
The state militias faced off against the U.S. Army’s 11th Cav Opposition Force (OpFor), who provided what’s now called ‘near peer’ threats. Near peer is a reference to China and Russia.
Even Idaho Air National Guard’s 266th Range Squadron played bad guy, deploying fake 1/1 scale models of ‘enemy’ anti-air vehicles.
The wargame lasted 14 days. The official report stated that this training is preparation for 116th’s deployment to NATO Germany in Spring 2020.
VEHICLE I-D: M1A2-V2-SEP ABRAMS IDAHO LIVE FIRE, FEBRUARY 2019, preps for NTC
116TH SNAKE RIVER’S 2015 NTC ROTATION
