Camping again Base Shilo

[holdfast]

Again I was Tasked to Assist the Engineers in Winnipeg in their Training. So I had to take Friday off from my job and unfortunately take up a vacation day in order to meet my timings on Friday. I haven't had a Vacation since March Break in 2006 the year I retired from the Reg Force. Now I'm slowly taking away my days vacations that I finally earned in 3 years in order to commit my time for our young Soldiers.

 

Off to Winnipeg then a 3 hour drive to Camp Shilo, the home of the Artillery and PPCLI and once the German Army as part of NATO commitments. The weather was cold and Rainy, seems we may see another Red River Flood again. Anyways here's a few Pics in case anyone is interested. Of course these pics are in taste and not restricted as help for Omar and his friends.

 

The Engineers are attached to the Armour, so they were able to fire their machine guns both static and moving that were mounted on top of the G wagons. Unfortunately, our reserve armoured troops have no tanks to train with and probably never will so they have to play tanker using the jeeps. As one Armoured NCO eluded to me, seems Canadians would rather spend money on the CBC, Arts, or other countries than have his guys train with the proper equipment.

 

G wagons lining up

 

 

 

 

Static Firing

 

 

Once the Engineers finished firing they were off to practice cratering using explosives. Cratering is used to Deny or Slow the the enemy on a piece of ground. We will Crater runways, roads, open areas, fording sites, bridge approaches, or any where else that the enemy might want to use a piece of ground. We may not stop the enemy, but putting up obstacles against him will alow our Troops time to dig in to channel the enemy into a kill zone. Its up to the Combat Engineers to do this. We will either make or break the Commanders Battle Plan. This is why "we cant do it" is not in our vocabulary. We have to do our task no matter the odds. The Battle group depends on us to do our job.

 

Here is a simple Basic Charge. A block of C4, frapped with yellow Det cord. Only thing missing to set this off is a detonator and time fuse ( initiation set)

 

 

Because the ground is frozen, we have to use BeeHives which are shaped charges that will put a 2-4 meter hole in the ground so we can prime it with bulk explosives which will be Trigram. ( Explosive pellets). A

beehive works with the fact that once it is initiated it will send a molten slug through the ground. We will be using 30lb and 16lb beehives.

 

This is a 30lb beehive that is ready to explode. We found that it works better if we add more height on the stand off. So we added height by mounting it on the crate.

 

 

Close up of the nose cone. We inserted a det cap with det cord in the nose

 

Here we are going to try an experiment by adding a second beehive on top of another to try to get a deeper hole. I lost the bet as it was successful. I figured it would just smash the ground or produce a hole that would cave in. These are the 16lb Beehives that will give it a smaller diameter hole.

 

Here the troops are laying out detcord to the multiple beehives. We are going to rig it up so they all explode simultaneously( One Boom)

 

 

We walked about 150 meters and found some low ground before the Boom

 

Here's the result from the smaller beehive. A perfect hole which now can be filled with bulk explosive to produce our crater.

 

 

So now we are going to fill the hole with Trigram and use water to tamp it down. We will use 36 KG of explosives plus the basic charge.

 

 

The Basic charge which is being loaded in the chamber will initiate the trigram.

 

This lone crater is about 5 meters in depth as well as width. We would make a crater group to cover more ground. Once the crater is produced, we the Engineers would hurriedly return to confirm the obstacle then mine it to impede the enemy from breaching the obstacle. Then we would carry on to the next task.

 

 

I noticed that the threads on the insulting fox news story about our Brave Canadian Soldiers were quickly locked which really dissipoints me but I am not surprised as it would be uncool to really say how we felt. Bull. Wish I could of put my two cents in. it wouldnt of been Politically correct to most of you.

Edited March 24, 2009 by holdfast

[jediangler]

Cool photos of the crater process. Still looks pretty cold out there with the snow around.

[Sinker]

Who needs fishing when you get to blow stuff up!

 

thanks for the pics!

 

Sinker

[b2kptbo]

Well done interesting report, good job...

[danbouck]

Interesting, Thanks for posting!