Iron Sappers Lead the Way: The 16th Engineer Battalion's Support of 1st ArmoredDivision in Southwest Asia

摘要

Operations in the desert of Southwest Asia presented enormous challenges to theorganic engineer battalion supporting the 1st Armored Division in its defeat of the Iraqi Republican Guard Forces during Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. Most of these challenges were METT-T driven. Although unachievable at times, most combat engineer doctrine proved to be basically sound, with the exceptions in certain matters of engineer combat operations, engineer command and control, countermine capability, and obstacle marking. This Personal Experience Monograph documents the challenges and problems encountered by the battalion through initial notification of deployment, arrival in theater, The 100 Hour War, cease fire operations in Iraq and Kuwait, and redeployment to Germany. Other lessons were learned concerning preparation for overseas movement, the family support group program, tactical assembly area layout, engineer intelligence gathering capability, engineer Class V requirements, engineer equipment winners and losers, and transportation challenges in Germany. The six weeks of post combat operations represented the best hands on training experienced by the battalion since World War II. The catalyst for all the accomplishments in the desert was soldier professionalism. Our engineer soldiers have never been better. Their initiative, pride, and professionalism made the difference. They made our operations successful.