What Army Tankers Go Through In Boot Camp | Boot Camp | Business Insider

You've probably seen this before, but this is

what

it feels like inside a tank when shooting due to safety concerns. The US Army doesn't allow external cameras inside their tanks, but they gave us these exclusive images of

what

it's like to train in it. Inside, these soldiers are training to be

tankers

in the U.S. Army, and while the U.S. has used tanks in combat for more than a century, this generation of soldiers could have a unique advantage. These two triggers are for shooting. It's like a video game controller. What you have to do is just hold on to this and press fire.

The video games really help because when you're in there you have certain controls to operate the gun called the cadillac and it's basically like holding a controller as soon as they go into the gunner station that they're holding. Now that it's familiar to the gaming generation, I think they're doing really well with tanks because this is what they do at home: playing with a controller, that's what a tank is, playing with a giant controller, because? Do you like tanks, tanks, just run things over, blow things up all day? It's like, I mean, who wouldn't want to do that all day?

That's why we're here, we're here to shoot things and blow things up since I was little, it's always been a dream of mine to be able to say I work on tanks, people who like big guns and loud noises, gas engines. 1500 horsepower and fire, I mean, that's how it appeals to me. It may seem funny, but these soldiers figure it out. During training, there is much more to being a tanker than this, and fun comes with inherent danger. These things can happen, your arms and legs can get crushed, and whatever it is, there are a lot of things that can go wrong in a tank and we try to avoid it. tell them about the safety hazards that way they can be afraid and then respect them through fear inside the armor school at Fort Benning, Georgia, Army soldiers trained to fight with this, the M1 Abrams battle tank, nicknamed the Dracula beast and whispering death, I mean that.

It's a 70-ton hunk of American steel and it's crazy to think that one of us could get behind the wheel of that thing along with the

tankers

. The armor school trains cavalry scouts known as the eyes and ears of the battlefield. with grenade launchers and Anti-Tank Weapon Armor is basically the term the United States military uses when it comes to any type of mechanized force. Our primary focus is force on force with armor in scouts and tankers where the armored community all enlisted soldiers in armor must complete 22 weeks of unit training on a station after 10 weeks of basic training the trainees go through 12 more weeks of advanced training base salary starts at approximately 22,000 a year interns spent four days inside the armor school where we saw different groups of soldiers in various stages of training Once inside Fort Benning, it is about a 45 minute drive to the Hastings Firing Range, where soldiers train to drive the tank and use its weapons systems, including a 120-millimeter cannon and mounted machine guns.

So what are some of the things you guys noticed after watching the video? I made a mistake when I needed to put the gun away on the last shot. I missed the handle. You have to shoot low. See where your gusts hit and then walk up, like when you were growing up. I feel like a lot of kids play video games. You see tanks in games and you know that everyone's dream is to be inside a tank, but being on top of one and being on the side is completely different, I feel like it was much better than I could have imagined.

It was incredible, but tanks emerged long before the era. from video games first used in combat in world war i the us

army

transitioned its horse-mounted cavalry branch to a fully mechanized force in world war ii the lessons of world war ii They have taught the men of the US Army the need for tanks tanks and more tanks but what we have now is the ability to take a tank during the week in which the trainees can see up close the evolution of US tanks and those used by the enemy, so when that gun fired at a light aluminum vehicle it was a religious experience.

Because it held up like a colt after decades of evolution, a tank emerged as the Army's weapon of choice, the M1 Abrams, costing approximately $9 million per unit, debuted in combat during the Gulf War and remains the

army

's main battle tank. It is manned by a crew of four the tank commander the gunner the loader and the driver the driver sits in the front of the tank hull the other three occupy the basket attached to the turret of the tank which moves with the turret when tour how do you drive a tank? an accelerator like a four wheeler, you hold it down, you accelerate to go faster, I would say that's the easiest part of being in a tank, what was it like there when it really shoots, like a gust of wind really strong. it hits you there is some dust flying I mean it was crazy the smell inside the tank that smell is only what you get inside the tank you will never be able to get it anywhere else I can't explain it sir you just have to experience it yourself Do you feel safe when Is it inside that tank?

No sir, no, why? I don't have an answer for that, sir. Do you think because you know that anti-armor weapons could also take it out? Is that the kind of why or not, sir? Okay, when they walk in there and they see everything, it's daunting, it scares them a little bit because so many things can happen, there are so many moving parts, these things can happen, your arms can get crushed, your legs can get crushed and whatever, there's a lot of things that happen. can go wrong in a tank and we try to educate them about the safety hazards that way they can be afraid and then respect it through fear and that helps them throughout their career and they understand that, hey, I know what this is about. to do.

Me, if I'm on the road, I see these little guys, they just fall there, huh? Those big kids have to crawl up there before operating the tank. They go over the proper procedures step by step to ensure that the parking brake is set correctly. Forward. and unplug it and then put it back together, so we're driving it was a fire too, what's the first thing we do? We turn into the wind, you will alert that no one will start submerging them, okay? Then, what are we going to do? First, they learn about the characteristics of the tank just like that and its limitations.

Where is the restroom? In the aprons, sir. There is no bathroom in room A. There is in the bathroom. No, no, there is no bathroom in the tank, as everything inside the tank is intended. Destroy the enemy and continue the mission and finish the mission intention Where is the bathroom in the aid rooms? uh, in the bottle, yes, it's a bottle, there's no bathroom there if you have to go, you have to go, soldiers spend part of the training in the engine pool where they learn to maintain the components of the tank and its weapons, they learn to Repair the tracks and wheels of the tank using tools such as sledgehammers.

We teach them how to do things here where they can solve any problem because they already know the steps and things like that. that's just so they know what they're doing in a safe environment versus you know, if we're off the range and something happened, they didn't know what to do, they're going through the clear process, disassembly, reassemble, load, unload. and perform a function check on a 50 caliber it is a 50 caliber m2 machine gun it is one of the weapon systems on the tank it is mounted on the top of the tank you have to be trained and competent with it you are competent at each station the tank and each weapon system, in case something happens to someone in the crew, is considered a small weapon primarily because it has the 120-millimeter main barrel.

The 120 millimeter smoothbore gun of the abrams tank fires a variety of bullets that can destroy other tanks up to 3,000 meters away, this is a m865 training sabo rom. This is what we use to simulate our service. Sabo training ammunition weighs approximately 35 pounds. The blue aluminum pedals are discarded when fired. The silver tip is the actual subprojectile it fires. hits at low range with the target the tank can hold 42 shots in total our service ammunition is designed to penetrate through enemy armor and then has a devastating effect on the interior of the vehicle, come on, this one is a little heavier is the M-1002 Training Impact Round When such a service round hits a target, it will explode outside and form a copper jet stream.

I'm going to put it back on the ground. If it's heavy, it's a little heavy. As? How much does this one weigh? Approximately 62 pounds. They are expected to be able to load that 62-pound round in about seven seconds. The rounds are not light when loaded. You have to be fast and efficient. How have you trained physically with a lot of push? -oops, that's a movie, not a picture, female soldiers were eligible to train for combat arms positions in 2016. Today, about four percent of soldiers training at armor school are women , there are mostly male soldiers. I didn't expect many women to do it.

Being here when I first arrived I expect the same treatment that men receive, you feel that you have received that, yes sir, among the soldiers training to be cavalry scouts, the percentage of women is even lower, only about two percent, what is the scalp of a calf? scout calf is basically the eyes and ears of the brigade the eyes and ears of the commander the eyes and ears of the battlefield the eyes and ears of the battlefield so you go in and you're sneaky and you try to find out in the enemy and his scouts Positions are sent before any other larger elements such as infantry or heavy armor, so it's basically the lead scout's responsibility to make sure an area is clear or, if there are enemies in an area, we're broadcasting exactly what they're doing. in the chain of command.

During this training exercise, blank rounds are used. During the firefight, an instructor alerted this soldier that while he was aiming at the enemy, his fellow soldiers were in the path of his rifle, that's bad and that's something we. You have to stop immediately, you get the adrenaline, you focus on one thing, you get blinders on in a training environment, that's absolutely when you want to do something like that so it can be corrected and fixed. I had never shot. a gun before I joined the army sir, not really sir, not hunting or anything like that, not hunting sir, it has definitely become more familiar under normal conditions, it is basically a part of the uniform, at this point the scouts of Cavalries gain practical experience with even more powerful weapons. like the m320 grenade launcher that attaches to the m4 carbine and at4 rocket launcher, the reason why scouts are learning to use this weapons system is because we would need to be able to destroy enemy armored vehicles, tanks, definitely, a civilian vehicle would not resist Opportunity Against this, the AT4 is a single-use weapon, after being fired it cannot be reloaded and each real bullet costs around two thousand dollars, which is why soldiers in training learn to aim and shoot using nine millimeter bullets, although soldiers do not The instructors themselves fire real rounds and demonstrate what the AT4 can really do.

Sure, this is something soldiers look forward to. It gives them the ability to be able to destroy enemy armored vehicles as armored soldiers, tankers and cavalry scouts are technically teammates but there is a competition between them I have heard there is a saying for cavalry scouts it is as if you're not a calf you're not what does that mean you're not a cap scout if you're not a cap scout hey prize if you're not It's not like that, but tankers tend to disagree, scouts are just for me, they're just jealous because They have to walk into the woods and hide there and play hide-and-seek on a professional level while we, the tankers, relax inside this motionless beast that has air conditioning and heat, the mission of a cave explorer is to gather intelligence to share. with their commander, who can decide to send tanks to engage the enemy when we need the tankers, we need the tankers and when they need us.

They need us, we give each other a hard time but we really need each other. scouts report a section of enemy armor in your defending sector report that the association is simulated in live fire exercises 108 at this time stable battle transport prepare for a defensive engagement secure We are in hell, we reportdirectly on the target. Instructors watch and order soldiers from a tower overlooking the firing range. Updated thermal cameras show targets more than 1,000 meters away. I give each individual tank the proper orders on what to expect and what they should do. I'm going to shoot, when to move, it's my job to make sure the tanks identify and attack the right targets that they could deploy in Korea, Kuwait or Europe, it could be anything and I would just tell them: Hey, you need to be prepared mentally and financially. make sure you talk to your families and all this and be prepared for anything as soon as you graduate you will start working.

It feels great to know that I will be able to go out and serve this country in one way or another. Another, it's a little scary knowing I might leave home, but I know my family will be waiting when I get back. I never thought I would get this far and my battle companions kept pushing me forward without letting me give up and in the end it is so worth it, they change a lot in terms of discipline and camaraderie with everyone and you know from day one that they don't have to ever have built the brotherhood between them, but in the end the day they know that they have to work together because that is what we do in the United States military, we have to work together because without that, like no one told me about these

boot

s here, there would never have been seen something like that during the Battle of the Bulge in 1945 in Germany and the infantry was there in the mud and the tankers were inside the Shermans. and it was so cold that the laces on the infantry's

boot

s were breaking, so The tankers took off their boot laces and gave them to the infantry.

We took off our belts and put leather straps around our boots, but the most important thing is the flammable boot laces or leather straps. or not, having the least amount of flammable items on you while you are in the tank is where you want to be, are they comfortable? Oh this is all I wear, I don't wear other boots, I'll consider them as not. I don't stick with them, I do everything with these boots.