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Clavicula_Nox

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Posts posted by Clavicula_Nox

    Holiday Bones, Norman Style

    in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy

    Posted

    This was my official "Place of Duty" in Iraq but I was rarely there. The equipment was automated and only required attention when it stopped working, which left me free for all kinds of fun things. The insurgents used my antenna as a mortar TRP, and I found out that Apache pilots would use a red light hanging on my door to site their cannons. Awesome. We were located directly on the berm and did have to defend our position a few times, so even the 2 POGs in my team were able to earn their CABs. The area separated by HESCOs was a rifle range and a small MOUT course that 10th Group used to train the Iraqis.

    troposite.jpg

    I have more pictures scattered around my HD and on my laptop. I'll try post when/if I find them.

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    Holiday Bones, Norman Style

    in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy

    Posted

    Near the KBR office, MI, and the interrogation area.

    Detainee2.jpg

    One of our LP/OPs. Most soldiers didn't care for this duty. I onyl had to do it once and it consisted of a squad, or so, of guys taking turns sitting up top, or sitting in the CONEX and wasting time. Fortunately, I spent most of my time outside the wire or I would have done this more.

    lpop.jpg

    Tried not to include any pictures of me, but in this case it was impossible. Behind me you can see the TOC and the 155th's orderly rooms. Further to the right, off camera, was the 2-11's orderly rooms. Funny story(sorta) about the porta johns to my right (picture's left). One of my buddies was taking a dump when we got rocketed and it exploded just outside the door. He wasn't hurt, but it tipped over. This picture was probably taken around August or late September. We had to wear full battle rattle outside until August '05, but I was up north in early-mid September. I don't remember when it was, and it isn't too important.

    tocorderlyrooms.jpg

    Behind 2-11's orderly rooms

    211acrtoc.jpg

    Another LP/OP

    lpop2.jpg

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    Holiday Bones, Norman Style

    in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy

    Posted

    Well, I left in Oct 2005, so I'm sure it's changed considerably since then. In the last couple of months, the Guard started erecting a lot of wooden buildings to replace all of the tents and, because of a rape (rumoured), all of the females were moved into some trailers on the opposite side of the FOB. Right next to the berm. With no guard towers. The central building was converted into a TOC on one side, and a giant consolidated orderly room on the other. 2-11 maintained their own building, however. Behind the TOC was a motor maintenance area that was also used as a parking lot for various CSMs and the MP brigade's Dragoons.

    The airfield before 155th assumed control from the Marines. This is what served as our control tower, and I don't believe anything better was ever constructed while I was there:

    kalsuairfield.jpg

    The sign reads "MCAS Kalsu. Pardon our noise, it's the sound of Freedom!" That phrase, and many variations, became a running joke over the year.

    A photo taken after the VBIED I mentioned earlier. I don't remember taking this one, so it's likely it was taken by someone else and given to me. The green humvee on the left is where my group was parked and, after the blast, we were among the first responders.

    vbiedgatefront.jpg

    Part of the gate. The burning hulk was the delivery mechanism. The driver's face was found, uh, relatively far away. I was told that parts of his ***** were also found, but I didn't see it, nor do I have any photos and cannot verify.

    vbiedgatefires.jpg

    Tent City:

    tentcity.jpg

    MSR Tampa just across the way:

    msrtampa.jpg

    Limited to 5 pictures, and I have 11.

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    Holiday Bones, Norman Style

    in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy

    Posted

    Small world. Years ago I was in FOB Kalsu with the 82nd.

    That's really cool.

    When I showed up on the scene (Jan 05), it was being run by Marines with 1 CAV in attendance. The Marines left the place in sorry shape. I remember that it also rained for 2 weeks and left knee-deep mud for a long time. When I get back on my desktop, I'll post some pictures of the FOB itself.

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    Holiday Bones, Norman Style

    in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy

    Posted

    The 3ACR group was very small and when the Battle of Tal Afar kicked off, we escorted them up north. We arrived after the majority of the operation was over, but everything they did was top notch. A good group to work with. Good commander, good senior NCOs.

    I don't remember them running too many missions in our AO, I think that element maintained some OPs south of Baghdad before going North, but I don't know for sure. There could have been a larger element at FOB Iskan, or FOB Duke, or something, both of which fell under 155th's AO, but I really couldn't tell you for sure.

    *edit*

    Some of the units representing had very very very small units there. For example, the board shows 3rd ID. The only 3rd ID unit on the FOB was a platoon from a finance company. Their mission was handing out money to PsyOp/CA/SF and giving soldiers cash advances. Another unit is 22nd Signal Brigade which had exactly 4 soldiers on the FOB operating a single TACSAT terminal. By that standard, the 82nd should be up there because they had a single soldier attached to the BCT's S-2 shop.

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    Holiday Bones, Norman Style

    in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy

    Posted

    Clavicula Nox,

    Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions. I am obliged to you.

    I don't think the fat bloke was in a unit involved in an "insane op empo", insane calorie tempo, perhaps. I don't suppose FOB Kalsu had a burger king so maybe he was just a REMF, to use a term from my era, visiting from Kandahar.

    Thanks again

    No, we didn't have anything like that. We had a little 5x5 tent that shared space with miscellaneous Gear Queer stuff and snacks, A respectable "Hajji Mart" where local traders sold us pirated DVDs, electronics that failed after a few days (portable HD died and killed 2gb of my pictures and video leaving me with fragments that I just hadn't gottena round to uploading yet!), and all sorts of other things. We had a little DFAC, too, that was frequently mortared. This was in Iraq, so no Kandahar. There were perhaps 2-3000 soldiers on the FOB. Most were combat arms, or working as combat arms, but a few never had to worry about it.

    Nice Bradley picture.The soldiers on the ground come out with a lot of good pictures and nasty ones to, like that VBIED one.Good to hear that you weren't injured in your close call with those improvised explosives and hopefully no one else was hurt it that blast.It be nice to see a thread of pictures that some of you Soldiers have taken from your experiences overseas or anywhere and share them with us, as long as they're censored or not to gory for BFC sake,I personally don't care, but we don't want BFC to run into some kind of censor problems with their site. I think a lot of people on here would appreciate seeing the pictures of the lands and the military hardware from your points of view.After all, the situation you Soldiers out there see is a very unique one that most people cannot imaging without the help of your words and pictures.Id encourage more if possible.

    The blast was pretty deadly. It happened in the early morning as the local workers were coming on to start their day. It also caught a group of Iraqi SWAT and SF coming off of a mission, as well as the gate guards. My group had cleared the gates a few minutes or so prior and were parked about 300m or so from the gate when it went off. The bomb was delivered in the bed of a tractor and killed the bomber, several of the Iraqis (some were reduced to ash), maimed the gate guards, killing one. I have a picture of my group's interpreter, who was with SF and SWAT, who received several pieces of shrapnel to his back. They also tried hitting two of our LP/OPs a little bit after that, but were not successful.

    The sign is just the dedication. Bob Kalsu was the only professional football player to be killed in action in Vietnam. Bob Kalsu's Wiki link:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Kalsu

    The FOB's wiki link:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FOB_Kalsu

    It's not wholly accurate. For example, the FOB wasn't in Iskandariyah, it was just nearby. FOB Iskan was part of the city, but was subordinate to us.

    We were located in the Sunni Triangle, and most of our problems were a result of the fallout from 2nd Fallujah. Enemy fighters first fled to Baghdad, and then filtered down into the South's Babil province. We experienced a high degree of ethnic violence between Sunni/Shi'a militias, a fairly vicious organized crime infrastructure, on top of the regular insurgent behavior. It was an interesting time/place. As far as the news media was concerned, Fallujah,Baghdad, Mosul, and Tal Afar were the big stories of the time and our little corner of the country never received much attention. Which was okay.

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    Holiday Bones, Norman Style

    in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy

    Posted

    From left to right, the "Airborne" insignia is:

    Psy Ops/ Civil Affairs (we had both)

    101st AASLT

    16th MP Brigade from Ft.Bragg

    35th Signal Brigade from Ft.Bragg

    44th MEDCOM from Ft.Bragg provided our rather extensive medical facilities. Really,, everything on the FOB was in terrible shape, but we boasted a top-class field surgery unit.

    The oval patch at the bottom, next to Special Forces (10th Group from Germany, btw) belonged to the Al-Hillah SWAT team, so that's the early insignia for some early-Iraqi SOF personnel.

    Well, the last picture was taken in September and some people manage to get fat over there. Somehow. I really don't know how it's possible, I lost between 20-30lbs on that deployment, and I was skinny to begin with. I came back emanciated. I didn't know the guy personally, so he may have been one of those "Fobbits".

    Oh, we also didn't do any organized PT or PT tests on that deployment. Most of us, though, didn't need the PT to stay in shape. Between the gym and an insane op tempo, we managed to stay in shape, or at least not get fat.

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    Holiday Bones, Norman Style

    in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy

    Posted

    This sign had the insignia for every unit which comprised the BCT. 2-11 made up a significant portion of the heavy infantry.

    4653_1107198853887_1644270921_268803_2734155_n.jpg

    I can't remember where this was taken. A random, anonymous patrol or raid.

    8931_1189391708657_1644270921_509410_8269848_n.jpg

    This was 2-11's CSM. He was shady.

    8931_1189399828860_1644270921_509438_6723482_n.jpg

    This is the centerpiece of our FOB:

    9128_1194561037887_1644270921_523484_6851848_n.jpg

    This is part of a series of photos I took after a VBIED hit our gates -one of my close calls. The censored out portion is all that was left of the bomber, his face.

    vbiedgateface.jpg

    I thought I had more of 2-11, but I don't.

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    Holiday Bones, Norman Style

    in Combat Mission Battle for Normandy

    Posted

    I wasn't in 2-11, but they were attached to the same brigade I was in Iraq, 2004-2005, and participated in several operations with them. I, uh, wasn't a fan. I can't think of many who were, they suffered from a leadership problem (in that there wasn't any). Individually, they were alright and they were competent enough. Have some pictures if you're interested.

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    Crazed idea for AI improvement?

    in Combat Mission Shock Force 1

    Posted

    I didn't read the thread, but let me say this:

    Steve, keep making the games I enjoy. In a weird way, you've been a part of my gaming entertainment since I was little, and Small World phenomenon has brought me here, through the desert and fire and lead to continue to play these games. While it's safe to say that I've had quite a few beers up to this point, I would also like to point out that I stand behind Battlefront 4 ever. I bought Shock Force when it first came out, even though I was deployed and couldn't play it for a few months, I just wanted to contribute to initial sales. I've purchased BO probably 5-6 times to replace lost/broken discs, I have 2 copies of BB and AK and I've even had to buy SF a 2nd time. There are very few developers that I can say have earned multiple purchases from me. Just keep it up, do what you do.

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    U.S and British Troops to Issue New Uniforms

    in Combat Mission Shock Force 1

    Posted

    Which is why I'd give a bit of my reproductive system for a set of UCP-Delta. It's so bad it's hard to imagine it will be adopted, and that means the ones in the field now (and in storage) will likely be the only ones ever. That makes my spidey senses tingle :D

    Steve

    I don't have access to Clothing and Sales anymore, I think, unless my VA card lets me in, but I can look around. General Jackson may have some. Maybe.

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