Mortar Live Fire

So wrap your head around this one. Now, we are in a "War Zone". We carry over 200 rounds of ammo on our person when we leave the base. On base we carry a couple mag's and a loaded pistol at all time. So, stay with me. I'm about to blow your mind. We just completed a "live fire exercise" in a war zone. Now before we get into these cool pictures let me give you the layout. We had the entire scout platoon with snipers occupy the range prior to our arrival eliminate any threat that could pose a problem. We had 2x Kiowa helicopters fully loaded with rockets, hell fire missiles and 10,000 rounds of .50 caliber machine gun rounds, and then we roll up on the AO and begin setup for our "practice range". I just really get a kick out of thinking about this whole thing. Anyway enjoy the pics.

Inside the back of a MRAP. The government has spent of 40 billion dollars on MRAP's since the war has started. Saves lives. If you look behind me you will see ropes. The seat is actually suspended in the vehicle. Not bolted down at all. Absorbs the shock of a blast better without breaking a Soldier in half.

So we rolled out about 0430 (a waited a bit to take a picture). This is a pretty common view for us. You can see the dust off to the left. Its always there, never ever goes away!

Like I said we had 2x Kiowa helicopters pulling coverage on us during the "mission". They have a really cool camera on top of there blades that can do some really cool stuff that I'm just not gonna post right now.

Pretty typical Iraqi town we passed through on the way to the range. Really not much to them.

Driving in my HAGA. We have some pretty cool intercom system in the trucks so we can talk to each other over the noise of the vehicle and all the systems we have inside them.

Setting up at the "range". Now, we had some Paladin's shooting from Marez, they are on the right side of this pics, on the other side of the mountains about 35 kilometers away. Lets just say that they didn't hit in the safety box every time. The concrete pad the tracks are on used to be a building that the US Army blew up during the beginning of the war.

Getting the mortar tube set up in the back of the tracks.

Getting ready to lob some rounds. Ya'll know me, any reason to shoot something or blow something up I'm there!

Successful completion of 2 mission sets. (a successful mission means no one got blown up, I tried putting a video in but it didn't work, go figure)

My medic and I. they let both of us hang some rounds. Sometimes I really like being me.

Here is one decent one that shows you the tube and the 120mm mortar. These tracks are surrounded by a cage that allows an RPG to detonate before it hits the actual track. Anyway another successful "Garry Owen" training event in a "war zone"! Go figure.