So specifics of Operation Iraqi Freedom aside, what is a mechanized smoke platoon supposed to be used for? The following list of missions is taken from Army Field Manual 3-7 (paraphrased and chopped by me) describing smoke operations.
Applications of smoke include:
Obscuring
Screening
Protecting
Marking
Offense
Friendly forces use projected, generated, and self-defense smoke to:
Mark targets.
Obscure enemy gunners and surveillance.
Degrade enemy command, control, and communications.
Conceal passage of lines, movement to contact, and attacks.
Conceal landing zones, drop zones, or pickup zones.
Conceal river-crossing operations and reduction of obstacles.
Conceal logistics operations (for example, fast refuel sites).
Signal.
Support deception plans.
Degrade enemy laser designators, range finders, and weapons.
Enhance artillery-delivered minefields by concealing visual indicators.
Support Urban operations.
Defense
In the defense, forces use smoke primarily to increase survivability and counter enemy reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition.
Use smoke in the defense to:
Obscure enemy direct-fire gunners and artillery forward observers.
Disrupt enemy movement and command and control.
Conceal obstacle emplacement, prep of positions, and movement.
Conceal reconstitution, holding, and staging areas.
Conceal Main Supply Route activities.
Signal.
Mark targets.
Deceive the enemy as to areas of main effort and battle positions.
Reduce the effectiveness of enemy directed-energy weapons.
Now these uses of smoke can generally be done with artillery or by individuals with smoke pots. The mechanized smoke platoon, however, can provide a significantly higher volume of smoke, covering larger areas for longer periods of time. The platoon is mobile allowing for easy adjustment of a large smoke screen by repositioning vehicles. This mobility also allows the platoon to provide obscurant on the move.
Smoke generators practice making obscurant fields Using the "Racetrack" and "Figure-8" techniques in Kuwait.
The M58 mechanized smoke platoon provides smoke with a baby oil like substance known as fog oil. This is accomplished without combustion (though the generator itself is power by diesel fuel). The M58 heats up the fog oil to 1500 degrees Fahrenheit. Smoke is evaporated from the fog oil and released out the back of the generator. In addition to this visual obscurant, the M58 can obscure the infared spectrum as well by adding graphite shavings into its smoke cloud. This is known as "black smoke" and requires the operators within the smoke to use their gas masks for health reasons.
A mechanized smoke platoon is also equipped with an .50 caliber machine gun on each vehicle. The M58 Smoke Generator is a light tracked vehicle (on the M113 chassis) and has moderate armor. These characteristics give the M58 smoke generator platoon more firepower and protection than any other chemical platoon. They have to be though because most often they travel in support of Armor and Mechanized Infantry units.
Vehicle mounted .50 caliber machine gun range, training to fire the weapon system mounted on top of the M58 smoke generator.
Some of my platoon in Kuwait in AA Hammer. On the far left is our M88 Recovery Vehicle. The 5 vehicles in the center are M58 smoke generators and on the far right is an our FMTV truck as part of our resupply squad. In addition to these vehicles, there were two more M58s and a HEMMT fuel truck filled with 2500 gallons of Fog Oil in my platoon.
I get many inquires over what exactly it is I did during my two trips to Iraq, so I in my next series of posts I'll try and explain a few things in detail. I'll try and make it semicronological but it may skip around a bit later. This first series will be dedicated to my first tour of duty from February-June 03.
So all that being said the story of the journey from the USA to Kuwait in January and February 03, along with the ridiculous politics involved be will discussed at a later date.
By February 13, 2003 all the elements of 68th Chemical Company (to which my platoon belonged) had arrived in Kuwait. At the time of our arrival, there was generally no mission for my 25 man platoon. The rest of the company had been sent to Kuwait to perform decontamination operations of the ports in the event that Saddam did have some chemical weapons to put to work. The mechanized smoke platoon was really just along for the ride. There was speculation that we could be used as "force protection" which generally amounts to guard duties of different varieties.
The first week in Kuwait was spent getting our equipment unloaded from the port and getting it ready to go. We worked in some training where we could, but really this time was spent getting supplies and doing a lot of weapons and vehicle maintenance.
A practice "Mask Drill" in Camp Arifjan Kuwait.
By February 22 word was on the street that there was an unemployed mechanized smoke platoon in Arifjan and request for support from V Corps and 3rd Infantry Division had been made. It was only a matter of days before we moved from the luscious accommodations of Camp Arifjan (warehouse style indoor sleeping arrangements with access to showers, working toilets, a gym, a pay telephone, a dining facility, and an Army and Airforce Exchange Services Store (PX from here forth) where the soldiers could by hygiene products and other niceties) north to Camp New York. Camp New York was similarly equipped as Arifjan, but we only stayed there for one night and then moved with an Armor battalion as they left to occupy a new area. This new unnamed area was burmed up (making a large wall of sand) on all sides by engineers and was made home of the 3rd Brigade.
Once set up here we had none of the plush amenities of Camp Arifjan or Camp New York. Eventually we would take morale trips once a week to Camp New York or New Jersey to make use of their showers, pay phones, and PX. While at camp though, we were without tentage and food was served hot once or twice a day from a can. We slept on our vehicles, or on a cot next to our vehicles. I was very thankful that it was February and March at this point; it obviously could have been much worse.
As there was no way to dispose of human waste, and we would be camped here for quite some time, soldiers had to perform daily "shit burning" detail. Diesel fuel was added to the deposits left in the constructed outhouses and set on fire.
The austere conditions never really bothered me personally. Once you get going those things are nice but by no means necessary. My worries mostly focused around the fact that my direct boss was back in Arifijan and we were out with a whole other Division who would like nothing better than to crap on my big-ass First Cavalry patch. Some of my worries about this later materialized while others did not.
The worst part about being attached to another unit - and that unit would begin to change constantly in the future - was getting mail. Mail was nearly impossible for us to get. Our families back home would send it to Arifijan, and our company in Arifjan would hold it and try and get it to us when the could. They had little opportunity to get it to us however. Some of my guys decided to have their mail sent to the units we were attached to, but often by the time it got there we had moved on to the next unit. Its amazing how important mail ranks in comparison to things like showers and food, but the one or two times it did come through it was like Christmas for the whole platoon.
Once, months later, when I was on patrol in Baghdad, I ran into a British gentlemen on the street. He was a pharmacist who apparently had just arrived there to try and help the locals. He handed me his wife's phone number in London and asked that I try and contact her for him and tell her he was doing fine. It was hard not to laugh, but I broke it to him that I hadn't heard from my wife for 40 plus days, and I offered to try and send a letter from him through if he wanted. "Oh no indeed, that's much too slow." Ah western expectations I love it.
