Has technology diminished the importance of each crew member? Do you see crew sizes being reduced?

No. I do not see crew sizes being reduced. Technology has not diminished the crew’s capabilities or their sizes. What’s happening now, with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, is we’re not doing so much of the open terrain fighting like we used to do back in World War II, where those big bulky vehicles, trying to get them to move down an alleyway and things like that, they were more in the fire support role. What you are going to see is that we really figured out in Iraq how to use those vehicles to support troops when they are maneuvering through villages and things like that. If anything, now that the Army is going to have a little more time at home station, they are going to find ways to enhance the capabilities of both of those vehicles. Maybe they can make them air-conditioned for the Bradley, because it’s not air-conditioned for the crew. The British Warrior is.

 If anything, now that the Army is going to have a little more time at home station, they are going to find ways to enhance the capabilities of both of those vehicles.

 

Do you envision a day when armored fighting vehicles are soldier-less or remotely operated?

I don’t think I would say it would never happen, because I think there is a possibility that it would. What I think you’ll see is that you will always have at least one vehicle with a crew in it. You might see some other vehicles that are remote, because with some of the technology that we are working on down here, the trucks and things, we were trying to do that with the lead truck being a robotic truck and someone in the back manipulating it. We might get to a point where we can do that. One thing I will say though, is that the cost of those vehicles compared to the cost of some of those UAVs, the Abrams tank and the Bradley fighting vehicle are very expensive. We will see.

 

The last decade has placed a lot of emphasis on irregular warfare and special operations. Has the readiness and lethality of armored units taken a back seat or suffered in recent years?

No. There was a time in the Army when infantry units, especially the heavy armor units, were the elite. Now what you see, from Afghanistan and Iraq because we do more movement on foot and the more light fighting type techniques, they are making all branches of the military become more in tune with the warrior ethos and more of the infantry type stuff. The Army is just going to have to figure out how they are going to use the Bradleys and tanks, because there is definitely a role for them. I know when we were doing route clearance in Iraq during my time over there, those tanks were what you needed to use to get through some of that terrain out there.  The range of those weapons systems, 3,000 plus meters of standoff, you can always use them in a supporting role to provide supporting fire. The military really has to look at that and see how they are going to implement that into their training moving forward.

 So, I shot the entire engagement from my hand station and I was the top gun for my battalion and that’s how I got the name the ‘Hit Man.’

You were known as a top gunner and your nickname was the ‘Hit Man.’ Was that from your time in the M1 or M2 or both? How did you get that reputation?

The Bradley. I worked a little bit with the Abrams tank, but I spent pretty much all my time as a master gunner, with the exception of a year or so, with the Bradley. The way I got the reputation as the ‘Hit Man,’ was my first crew I had at Fort Riley [Kan.] when I was a platoon sergeant, I made a bet with the platoon leader. I told him I would take anybody he picked as my gunner and I would out shoot him on the range. Of course he was like, “yeah, yeah, you’re not going to do that.” So he gives me this young man and we go out on our first qualifying tables and I make my engagement and he misses his. We go on to the next table, I make my engagement he missed his, and I’m thinking, you know, I was just a battalion master gunner, I can’t go out here and roll a doughnut on the table here. So, I shot the entire engagement from my hand station and I was the top gun for my battalion and that’s how I got the name the ‘Hit Man.’ I shot the entire gunnery table from my hand station.

 

What does it take to be a top gun?

It takes precision in the crew. The crew, including the driver, everybody has to understand what their role is and they have to anticipate things. One of things, especially when you do moving engagements with the Bradley, is if you have a driver that doesn’t understand the speed that he should drive, how he should do cover, because he is driving tactically here, that throws off your ability to acquire the targets and shoot the targets in a timely manner. If he’s going too slow, you’re exposed. If he’s going too fast, you can’t get a good sight. The gunner has to know when to hand the targets off to the commander. So, the most important thing to me is crew precision and efficiency. You’ve got to train, train, train, train, train. You’ve got to train like your life depends on it, because that’s what it really comes down to when you are inside that vehicle.

 

Is there a particular story you could share with our readers that you are proud of or that speaks to the special nature of today’s soldiers serving in armor?

I would just like to talk about an engagement we had when I was on the range at Fort Riley. This is just a story about gunnery and about proficiency. We were on the range and we were shooting. We were in the running for top gun. You have 60 crews in a battalion and we were down to the top three crews. We had two engagements left and the last engagement was the commander’s engagement. What this is, is what is called a retrograde, where you’re moving away from the target. You have to apply a reverse lead on the target when you shoot it. You can’t shoot it from your sight, you’re shooting it from the auxiliary sight, which is a really weird thing. I learned a trick when I was in the master gunner course. On the weapons system they have a sight, almost like the sight on your M16 or a rifle, but it’s on the end of the barrel. If you put that sight on top of the target, you can stand up and shoot it without looking through any of the sights in the vehicle. The record on the target was 10 seconds, so I had to shoot the target in nine seconds or less to get the top gun trophy for that month.

What ended up happening was, my driver said, “I’ll tell you when the target comes up. I’ll start moving the vehicle, but you only have one shot at it and you have to get three rounds in it.” We did a little countdown thing, kind of like you do in the club here. He gave us the “one, two, shoot,” the gunner told me to, “aim the gun in this direction at 12 o’clock and pull the trigger.” The driver started moving; I pulled the trigger and killed the target in nine seconds. I killed it before it came up and we ended up getting the top gun trophy. That’s one of my proudest moments, because it took all three of us working together to pull that engagement off. I had shot that thing many times and I had never got it under 12 seconds. It speaks to the proficiency that you have to have when you work with your crew.

 

Is there anything you worry about in terms of the training, organizing, and equipping of today’s armored units?

I do. I’m concerned about the amount of deployments that crews are doing, because when you are deployed you can’t really train. When you are gone for a year and then you are back for a year and for six months of the year you are training and then for six months you are trying to do your school. I worry about the mental capacity of our soldiers. How many of these deployments are really good for them? And then, how much training are they really doing when they are back here on rotation home. I will say this over and over again; you have to train like your life depends on it, because it does. I really worry about the amount of training they are receiving. Not so much the equipment, because one thing the military has been very good at is supplying soldiers with the most modern equipment, with the best equipment that they can give them for their deployments. It’s just ensuring that they get the proper training and schooling.