101st Sustainment Brigade Air Defenders get back to roots

Written by Spc. Michael Vanpool
101st Sustainment Brigade, 101st Airborne Division (AA) Public Affairs

Fort Campbell, KY – Batteries of the 2nd Battalion, 44th Air Defense Artillery Regiment, 101st Sustainment Brigade, went to the range this week for their Table VIII certifications on their Avenger gun trucks.

At the ranges, the soldiers shot their M3P machine guns, mounted on their Avengers, at ground and aerial targets.

The qualifications brought the “Strike Fear” soldiers back to their air defense roots. The battalion, which was originally scheduled to be deactivated, was reactivated in 2010 and deployed to Afghanistan with a non-standard mission of training and mentoring the Afghan National Security Forces.

“We worked on getting our weapons back on line, it’s been a while for most of us,” said Staff Sgt. Mark Cozad, a team chief with C Battery, 2-44 ADA. “It’s good to get back on the range, because I know, for me, it’s been about five years since I last use these.”

Despite being separate from their organic weapons for a year, the soldiers jumped back into the turret and got back to shooting.

The Avenger is a weapon system designed to bring down enemy threats, including cruise missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles. They do this with both missiles and 50-caliber machine guns, said Sgt. Maj. Heather Smith, the battalion operations sergeant major.

The training was done with old vehicles for ground targets and remote controlled airplanes to fill in as UAVs. The planes’ flight moves around, making the gunners work harder to lock on to and shoot down the target.

Pfc. Michael Folk, an avenger gunner for Bravo Battery, 2-44 ADA Bn., earned the nicknamed, “the Avenger Sniper,” after shooting down two of the aerial targets. While in the turret, he shot 25 round bursts at the remote controlled planes. Both times he jumped in the truck, he hit the plane causing it to crash.

This was Folk’s first time to go to a live-fire Avenger range. He used the forward-looking infrared receiver, or FLIR, to aim and shoot the planes.

“It’s what they told us to do,” he said. “I was surprised it was a big deal and that I got an award for it.”

Battalion Commander Lt. Col. Jared Galazin said that was something he has never seen in his 18 years as an ADA officer. As soon as he saw the second plane crash down, he headed back to the headquarters to give Folk and his sergeant both Army Achievement Medals.

The FLIR is the sight for the Avengers, and the air defenders use it to find, lock on to, and shoot down a target.

The FLIR can be fired from inside the turret or it can be removed from the vehicle and fired remotely. The air defenders shot from both inside and away from the truck during the range.

When the FLIR is fired away from the truck, it protects the gunners in a hostile situation, Smith said. “The first thing an enemy will try to shoot down is the gun truck,” she said. Removing the firing system allows them to still fire back but in a safer location.