Week #18 - Hover Mode

by Mike

My 2nd to last week before heading out to sea, I've been trying to take advantage of my relatively light workload. While getting a full eight hours of sleep per night is certainly part of that, another part is getting out to play a little.

Early in the week we went to a gun shoot up in northern Kuwait. I was lucky to ride in the lead vehicle, a Ford or Chevy pick-up, rather than one of the mini-buses. Altogether we had over a half-dozen vehicles in our convoy.

I didn't qualify on the M16 back in San Diego, and its one of those 'theater requirements' we all have to do. There were a bunch of others that just needed the 'low light' qualification on either the 9mm, the M16, or both. Finally, they brought along a couple of our 'crew served' weapons, the M240. This is similar to the M60 which we had on the Shiloh.

Well, as with any movement this large we got behind schedule. And the elements were against us. The sand gets in the weapons and prevents them from working properly, especially in the prone position, which is where the course of fire for the M16 starts. To top it all off, they ran out of magazines, so even though I had successfully 'sighted in' my weapon, I had to wait until after the rest of my group fired. By then they decided to postpone the regular M16 course of fire to leave enough time for the low light. This is the only range we can do the low light quals, so they had to get them in. There is a range much closer to KNB for the regular small arms quals.

So they let us just shoot a bunch of ammo in semi-auto and full automatic. I have to say I'd never done that, and it's pretty fun. Normally, when you qualify, its just one shot at a time. You're trying to hit a very small target, after all. When you shoot on automatic the weapon 'walks' in one direction or another.

After eating my MRE (jambalaya) I managed to also shoot on the M240. Again this was down in the prone position, or down in the dirt. This crew-served weapon has a feed tray for the ammo. You either have someone, a 'crew', helping feed the belt of ammo, or a box next to the gun mount like on our boats. Another thing that's interesting about the crew served weapons is the tracer rounds every five rounds. That way you can see where the bullets are going.

After our shoot, it was time to head back to home base. Only problem was we took a wrong turn and almost drove into Iraq. We pulled up to a very large gate, larger than anything I'd ever seen. The guards at the gate gave us a funny look, and the first thing the American guard said was "A pick-up?" As in, you're going to drive into Iraq in a pick-up? Clearly not, so he turned us around and gave us directions to the other base we were supposed to rally at for dinner and gas. We eventually made it, I had some Burger King for dinner, we found the convoy gas pumps, and got back to KNB around midnight.

I also got to go for my first Humvee ride this week. I arranged it with our SECFOR Army friends. I got all dressed up in my battle rattle and got the 'windshield tour' of the base from one of the company commanders. We checked out the towers, gates, helo landing zone (LZ) and other far corners of the base. It's really a very small base, but it was good seeing it from the Army SECFOR perspective. And it was fun riding in a Humvee. I'm hoping to go stand watch with the SECFOR this coming week.

Finally, late in the week I arranged an LCAC ride for ten of us. Originally it was just for myself, but they told me they could take ten so I opened it up to Admin and a couple other departments.

An LCAC is a hovercraft. It stands for Landing Craft Air Cushion. It goes about 55 knots over water or land. They have four gas turnbine engines, two for lift and two for propulsion. There are rudders behind the fans on the stern, and bow thrusters up forward. Together they allow the hovercraft to turn around in place, travel sideways, and basically fly around like a helicopter. Except it doesn't leave the ground or water.

After an early start, including a Middle Eastern sunrise, we powered up, turned around, and raced out to sea. On the way out to the ship I got to sit in the cabin behind the craftmaster, engineer, and navigator. There's two seats behind them, and a ladder that one other person can stand on. There's more seats down below, and more on the port side, but no windows. So we rotated who sat up high while we were out at the ship and on the return trip to the beach.


The Iwo Jima is an amphibious assault ship. I actually had a midshipman cruise on the previous Iwo, LPH-2. The hull designation of the new Iwo Jima is LHD-7. L = amphibious Landing, H = Helicopter carrier, and D = Deck, as in well-deck. The Iwo and ships of her class can fit two LCAC in the amphibious well deck in the stern. They 'ballast down' or lower the stern by flooding some tanks, then lower the door so LCAC or other amphibians (LCUs, LCMs) can swim into the ship. In the case of the LCAC, I don't think they need to ballast down that much, or flood the well-deck at all, since it can go over land anyways. We lined it up and drove right in.

The LCAC was there to conduct a training event simulating loss of power. We rotated so that three went out on the LCAC and I brought the seven others around the ship a little. We went up to the flight deck, then back to the fantail to watch the LCAC. That's where I got the best photos. And also got to see the gunner's mate shoot the line through the prop AND the antenna during the training event (simulating the LCAC had lost power). Good thing we practice!

It's my last week here, and I'll be heading out to the Iraqi oil platforms. Yes, I said Iraq. I will be in Iraqi territorial waters. I cleared it with the Deputy that I can say where I'm going, just not exactly when. A quick Google search turned up some good articles about the OPLATS as they are called. So I will just paste them below. More to follow next week!

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/11/us-building-bas.html

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5409925

http://www.defenselink.mil/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=15903

http://www.defendamerica.mil/articles/feb2006/a021306dg1.html