GULFPORT, Miss. -- Under the gloomy skies with no wind blowing on the calm sea, light-armor Assault Amphibious Vehicles full of infantry Marines launch off a naval ship and drop underwater briefly. They quickly resurface on the turquoise sea and begin their three mile trip to the beach for an assault. Under the cover of smoke coming from smoke generators and with the firepower of Mk-19 automatic grenade launchers and M2 .50 caliber machine guns, the AAVs emerge from the surf onto the sand and unleash waves of Marines to assault the beach.
Amphibious operations are what trackers train for, but the Marines from 3rd Platoon, Company A, 4th Assault Amphibian Battalion, 4th Marine Division didn’t face any real danger when they refreshed their skills with water recovery operations in the Gulf of Mexico and a beach landing with AAVs on Cat Island, Miss. April 10.
3rd Platoon was getting back to the basics of amphibious warfare, having last used AAVs in 2005 during Operation Iraqi Freedom.
“As an amtrack community, we have in the past three years gotten away from being amtrackers,” said Master Sgt. Thomas T. Rauch, platoon sergeant for 3rd Platoon. “We’ve been doing missions in Iraq and Afghanistan as provisional rifle companies, so this is back to the basics [of] amphibious operations that is key to our Corps’ mission.”
Beginning their training at the Gulfport beach, four AAVs rode roughly 700 meters into the gulf to perform water recovery operations. A crewman would throw a towing rope, 50 feet long and six inches in diameter, to a crewman on another vehicle. They would connect the rope to the mooring cleats of both vehicles and practice towing each other.
After the AAVs returned to the Gulfport beach, they prepared for a beach landing on Cat Island. Five AAVs, with three crewmembers and a technician on each vehicle, launched into the gulf once again, and cruised at approximately nine miles per hour on a 6.2 nautical mile journey to the island.
In the 60 degree, murky waters of the gulf, the only visible clue of a beach landing was crewmembers’ helmets sticking out of the gunner’s turret and the two opened hatches on the top part of the vehicles. With three-fourths of the vehicle submerged under the surface of the water, Marines inside were forced to scream over the loud engine noise to communicate. They wore combat vehicle crewman suits that reduced water penetration as waves of water sometimes flew into the openings on top of the vehicles and trickled down the roof inside the AAVs.
The Marines, constantly being shifted out of position as the waves rocked the AAVs back and forth, found it difficult to locate loosely secured gear that plummeted onto the floor and rolled around inside the dark vehicles as their only source of light was the sunshine coming through the exposed hatches.
After an hour-and-a-half of surfing through the gulf, the vehicles landed on the shore of Cat Island. Though they did not land under the cover of smoke and assault the beach with AAVs full of infantry Marines, the focus of the training was fortifying the original trade that the Marines learned in tracker school.
“It not only brings the new guys into the platoon and integrates them with the veterans but it also refreshes the veterans’ skills,” said Rauch.
Nearly five years have passed since 3rd Platoon utilized the training they received in school. After being used as a provisional rifle company in Iraq, the Marines are getting back to being trackers and training in the water again.