BRIEFED
A team of 5 soldiers from Echo Forward Support Company (EFSC), 8TH Engineer Battalion all meetup in the Misson Training Complex on FT Cavazos. The brief given by Captains and Majors about deploying smoke grenades and the M56 Coyote Smoke Truck.
Now we know we will be directing effecting another Brigade’s field time with smoke on the battlefield. Now we have our purpose and contacts. Senior officers from multiple Battalions ands shops come together to coordinate our taskings, requirements, timelines, and overall battlefield necessities. Our small team needs LMRs (Land Mobile Radios) -Tactical radio communications, JLTVs and then we need to inspect the Smoke truck for operations. We pack our bag for a three-day, two-night mobile situation and become rapidly deployable to the locations to come.
OUTDOORS OFFICE
I brought my laptop out because I was currently doing college classes. The benefits of the JLTV is that I could charge my laptop in it, then jump in the bed and set up for some nontypical yet peaceful studying. The very worst part of getting sent out to do something like this is that it does interfere with our personal objectives. It always makes some congenial stories!
SET UP IN SILENCE
Introducing the M8 SMOKE POT FLOATING to the battlefield. Multiple cans get opened and loaded on the back of the HMMWV that also carries the M56 Coyote smoke generator. One box of MREs, any cases of water and any dry foods we could fit in our personal bags gets loaded and waterproofed. The weather all week is gloomy, wet, and constantly raining. We get coordinates and move to a location in preparation for incoming units. Our singular vehicle is undetectable because the fog was extra thick that day, nobody could see us coming with these canisters because we could not see each other at 100 meters away.
We had several of these pots and pre-planned locations to set up an ambush. Scouting the area, the two of us wandered around for the best distance, placement due to wind and elevation, anticipated reaction routes, then ostensively whatever would be the easiest cleanup. We knew were this element was going to come from. So we kept moving to find a more suitable locus.
THE EXECUTION
The movement to the final coordinates is filled with excitement to execute all 3 M8 Smoke Pots simultaneously. We tactically placed each 20 meters away on opposite sides of the roads. Then the sound of the turbine engine winds up louder than the truck engine it sits on. The M56 Coyote Smoke Gen produces a wall of thick effect that pushes through the trees directly into the unit on the other side. The wind travels appropriately to match their movement so they have to react as expected.
We staged here perfectly. I wish I had spent all those days and nights in this exact mecca. The concealment from the trees was certainly essential for our element of surprise, but the canvas and river on the other side of this road was such a tonic accessory.
We did not see the unit that was getting the full effect, but we knew who it was. We could hear their vehicles nearby. The Pegasus Forge is a major event and the organization that was conducting it got our direct battle smoke given to them. They did not see our vehicles, nor our cans or our faces. The location we were given was ideal concealment for us and our equipment. We gave the smoke for nearly ten minutes. This is enough time for them to react, get out of the smoke zone, and it was all the fuel we had left, which we use to operate the smoke generator. Both teams moved back to the cow field as stealthy as we came in. Some Soldiers now can associate that area, that day, with a significant battle of smoke and indirect reacting and have no idea that it was me and three other troops. Congrats to PEGASUS FORGE!