Fire Support
- The Battalion FO teams operated from VCB for the first 17 days of the month. The last portion of the month they were participating in Operation SCOTLAND TROUSDALE NORTH in the DMZ. At various times during the first half of the month, individual teams operated in the field on Company size operations. The primary emphasis was on training of the new personnel. The teams are presently set with one officer and at least one enlisted man per FO team. At this time many of these personnel are quite inexperienced and need much more experience in the field in a live fire environment.
- Missions fired during the month of September are as follows:
- H&I’s – 776
- Observed fires – 123
- Unobserved fires – 11
- Illumination – 27
- The observed missions fall into the following categories, Counter Battery/Rocket/Mortar, suspected enemy positions, vehicular movement, prep fires and enemy movement.
- Due to the extremely heavy and dense foliage, surveillance was very limited. No NVA KIA confirmed were reported, however there were six secondary explosions and considerable evidence to indicate that some missions inflicted casualties on the enemy.
- While operating from VCB, the Fire Support Coordination Center operates under a designated restrictive fire phase. It is in effect from 0800H to 2000H daily, the reason being in the high density of aircraft around this base. The requirement is that all fires crossing the zones’ boundary both in and out and fires within the zone must be cleared through Regimental FSCC (see above). This includes 81mm and 60mm mortars, 106 recoilless rifles, tanks, dusters, ontos and all other direct and indirect fires to include small arms.
This page last corrected 3 September 2011