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ABV to protect combat engineers

Combat engineers use line charges to blast a path through minefields, but they don’t always work.

If a line charge fails to detonate, someone has to walk into the minefield, place an explosive manually, light the fuse and run like hell.

Engineers call it the Medal of Honor run, but the Corps intends to make it a thing of the past by training and equipping engineers with a new Assault Breacher Vehicle designed to keep them safe in the midst of a minefield.

“It’s basically a tank with a different turret on it and several plow instruments,” said Chief Warrant Officer 4 Michael Epperson, the academics officer at the Corps’ student detachment at Fort Knox, Ky., where the first 12 operators and eight maintainers will get their hands on the ABV when classes begin Oct. 1.

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Assault Breacher Vehicle in action

Built on the same chassis as the General Dynamics-built M1A1 Abrams main battle tank, the ABV is “a tracked, armored engineer vehicle specifically designed for conducting in-stride breaching of minefields and complex obstacles,” according to briefing slides published on Marine Corps headquarters’ Web site.

Rather than a main gun, it has a .50-caliber machine gun to make room for a line charge launching system on the back. A plow mounted on the front of the ABV lets it construct hasty earthworks for cover and to barrel through enemy obstacles.

As the vehicle moves through a cleared lane in a minefield, a marking system thrusts poles into the ground on either side “to let follow-on vehicles know to stay in between the poles,” said Gunnery Sgt. Bradley Gill, an instructor at Fort Knox who will teach Marines how to operate the new vehicles once classes start.

According to the briefing slides, “the ABV will provide crew protection and vehicle survivability while having the speed and mobility to keep pace with the maneuver force.”

“The big thing is our combined arms and mechanized breaching is a pretty dangerous business,” Gill said. “As a young lance corporal, when I trained to mark minefields, I would run behind the back of an amtrac through a breach lane putting my field marker poles in the ground.”

Though combat engineers also specialize in bridging and construction, it’s their role as demolition experts that puts them at most risk because “you’re dealing with live minefields and you assume an enemy obstacle is always covered by observation and fire,” Gill said.

Gill, who begins instructor training in August to prepare for his first students, said the combat engineers he’ll train as operators this year will get 53 days of classroom and field instruction on each of the vehicle’s mechanisms, followed by a weeklong exercise in the field. Once they graduate, they will earn an ABV-specific military occupational specialty as a skill designator.

The engineer equipment mechanics slated to maintain the vehicles will earn their own skill designator MOS after a 35-day course familiarizing them with the parts of the ABV that differ from the Abrams tank.

“My first couple classes are going to be a mix of [noncommissioned officers] from the fleet and privates coming out of engineer school,” Gill said.

Once the ABV arrives in the fleet, maintenance will be a joint effort between the engineer equipment mechanics and Marines who keep the Corps’ tank battalions rolling.

The fielding plan for the ABV begins next month, when the first two vehicles arrive at the schoolhouse at Fort Knox, said Marine Corps Systems Command spokeswoman 1st Lt. Geraldine Carey.

On May 25, SysCom commander Brig. Gen. Michael Brogan authorized full-rate production of another 31 ABVs that will arrive at fleet commands beginning in February, with delivery expected to be completed by September 2009, Carey said.

The Corps’ combat engineer battalions at Camp Pendleton, Calif., and Camp Lejeune, N.C., will each receive five ABVs under the fielding plan. Six will be sent to the enhanced equipment allowance pool in Twentynine Palms, Calif., and the remaining 15 will be dispersed throughout the world as part of the Corps’ maritime pre-positioning force, Carey said.