Combat Engineers Explode With Confidence: Five, four, three, two, one — fire in the hole!” A moment later, the live ordnance explodes and a loud explosion shatters the ground and echoes through the atmosphere. This was just another day at the office for Marines with 9th Engineer Support Battalion as they completed a demolitions training evolution, employing several types of explosives Aug. 27-29 in the Central Training Area. The combat engineers maintained and improved demolition capabilities with common types of explosives like C-4, dynamite, TNT, bangalore torpedoes and various shaped charges during the training, according to 1st Lt. Richard J. Fitzgerald, a platoon commander with 9th ESB, 3rd Marine Logistics Group, III Marine Expeditionary Force. “The training evolution provides newer combat engineers with a solid foundation for future training on how to handle explosives safely, so they can effectively demolish defensive obstacles,” said Fitzgerald. During another part of the training, the Marines focused on working with the different initiation methods when firing the explosives. “Working with nonelectric blasting caps it allows Marines to do the math to calculate the time until detonation,” said Staff Sgt. Thomas L. Heinzelman, a platoon sergeant with the battalion. “However, the biggest benefit was the hands-on training the Marines received, since most of them have not seen these types of charges since they were in (military occupational specialty) school.”
Posted on: Mon, 09 Sep 2013 04:36:35 +0000
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