Airborne Combat Engineer

27th Engineer Battalion returns

The Fort Bragg combat engineers took their backhoes and bulldozers into al-Qaida strongholds in northeast Afghanistan and cleared a route for Marines.

The soldiers built Afghanistan’s longest Bailey bridge — what one engineer describes as “an Erector set of a bridge” — while under attack.

They built more than 100 miles of roads over some of the most difficult terrain in Afghanistan and cleared thousands of miles of roads and conducted combat patrols.

The soldiers turned over their duties to the 70th Engineer Battalion on March 28 and returned to Fort Bragg by April6.

But this month, every member of the 27th Engineer Battalion came back alive from a year in Afghanistan.

[HC, Fayetteville Observer]

Engineer river patrol

Soldiers from the 502nd Engineer Company, 130th Engineer Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division, patrol the Tigris River near Tikrit, Iraq on 29 NOV 2004

0630Z THU 16DEC04. StrategyPage.

Removing a bridge

Soldiers with the 502nd Engineer Company position their bridge erection boats against the current as they remove an assault float-bridge from the Euphrates River near Al Qaim, Iraq.
(U.S. Air Force photo by Tech. Sgt. Lee Harshman)

These specialized bridge units can do amazing feats -- fast!  My only direct experience was building a Bailey Bridge, which is like working with a large erector set, using manual labor. A platoon can construct a bridge in a matter of hours.

This page describes the Bailey Bridge and its knighted creator, and contains a drawing showing the components.

Things can get rocky for Combat Engineers

1230Z SAT 16OCT04. CentCom.

Combat Engineers with Weapons Company, 3rd Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, come across an obstacle while patroling through the region in search of caves in Khowst, Afghanistan. The battalion is currently conducting vehicle checkpoints and village assessments while maintaining an offensive presence throughout the region in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. (photo by U.S. Marine Corps. Lance Cpl. Justin M. Mason)

Engineers still clear the way

1420Z SUN 10OCT04. Centcom.

Lance Cpl. Scottie Carter, with 1st Combat Engineers Battalion, Bravo Company, 1st Marine Division, sweeps across the rocky terrain north of Al Karma, Iraq, with a metal detector. Carter is making sure its safe for marines to walk on and also searching for any weapons or ammunition that has been buried.

U.S. Marine Corps photo by Lance Cpl. Thomas D. Hudzinski

Corps of Engineers recruiting for Iraq

2000Z WED 18AUG04. Strategy Page.

The largest paramilitary organization in the United States, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, is recruiting more people for it’s operations in Iraq. With a staff of 35,000, and only about two percent of them military, the mostly civilian Corps of Engineers has long been responsible for:

* Planning, designing, building and operating water resources and other civil works projects (Navigation, Flood Control, Environmental Protection, Disaster Response, etc.)

* Designing and managing the construction of military facilities for the Army and Air Force. (Military Construction)

* Providing design and construction management support for other Defense and federal agencies. (Interagency and International Services)

There are some 300 Corps of Engineers people in Afghanistan and Iraq, and they want to double that number by the end of the year. About 16 percent of those over there now are military, but nearly all the additional ones will be civilians. If you’re an engineer and interested is that kind of work, contact the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Human Resources Office by e-mail at CEHEC-CP@hq02.usace.army.mil or call (202) 761-1885.

CoE site

StrategyPage provides a little history about the CoE in the continuation

Engineers help rebuild Iraq

1150Z TUE 17AUG04. CentCom (hi-res image of small image below)

The 133rd Soldiers are renovating a border fort near Rabiyah Gate, a main border crossing between Iraq and Syria, to improve security at the borders between the two countries.

Sgt. Shawn Coffin, from West Paris, Maine, a Soldier in Company C, 133rd Engineer Battalion, headquartered in Belfast, Maine, measures lumber to be used in a reconstruction project on a border fort near Rabiyah, Iraq.

Mines still cleared the old fashioned way sometimes

1130Z THU 15JUL04. CentCom.

One of the jobs of the Engineers is clearing mines. Various mechanized, explosive, and other high-tech ways of doing the job have been developed, but it sometimes still comes down to manually probing the ground, with the risk of setting off the mine or a booby trap.

Sgt. 1st Class Richard W. DeMarco, an infantryman with the 1st Battalion, 21st Infantry, practices probing for mines at FOB Danger during training.

Photo by Spc. Sherree Casper, 196th MPAD

Some good Engineer/Sapper sites

If you love learning more about the Engineers (also known as "Sappers" on the battlefield), check out these sites (as well as others in the left sidebar):

Army Sappers Forward! site, which has lots of good links, and photos of M113s in various configurations (by Mike, a proponent of increased M113 use)

Sappers in the Web (use the pull-down menu)

More will be added later

*****

sap.per \'sap-*r\ n 1: a military engineer who does field fortification
work (as sapping) 2: an engineer who lays, detects, and disarms mines