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Wednesday, February 8, 2006
CROWS nest: Safe, armed
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Tallil Air Base, Iraq — This was when hours of practice on an Xbox might have come in handy.
Sgt. Ernest Lawson sat behind the driver in a Humvee, eyes fixed on a computer screen mounted in front of him, his right hand on a joystick.
He looked as though he were playing a video game. But amusement this most certainly was not.
Lawson used to stand between the two back seats of the Humvee, his upper body extending out of the gunner’s turret, exposed to a possible sniper’s bullet or bombs planted in the roads.
But thanks to new military technology, Lawson, who serves with the Georgia National Guard’s 48th Brigade Combat Team, now sits protected inside the armored Humvee operating a .50 caliber machine gun with the help of a computer.
“I like that I am not standing up there,” said Lawson, his eyes glued to the screen for the whole eight-hour ride from southern Iraq to Baghdad.
The U.S. military calls it the CROWS, Common Remotely Operated Weapon Station. It’s mounted on top of a Humvee and controlled from a computerized command center within the truck. The system can handle the heavy .50 caliber, the 7.622mm medium machine gun, a 40 mm automatic grenade launcher and the smaller squad automatic weapon.
According to the Army, CROWS was originally developed for military police, but other soldiers in Iraq are now using the system for additional protection.
Those who have used the system say it also helps them hit targets with more accuracy and gives them the ability to scan an area from great distances.
If the system fails, gunners can manually open the turret and take charge of the mounted weapon.
Lawson, who serves in the 2nd Battalion, 121st Infantry Regiment’s Alpha Company from Valdosta, is one of a few Georgia gunners to have used of the new system. Most gunners still stand in the turret. But the Army hopes to have several hundred CROW stations in place by the middle of this year.
The soldiers love it for the obvious safety reasons, but sometimes the system can be a hindrance.
Sgt. Scott Davis said Alpha Company soldiers often need to fire warning shots at suspect Iraqis or vehicles that approach too closely when they are on the highways escorting supply trucks from southern Iraq into the Baghdad area.
Without a gunner up in the turret, warning shots are impossible.
“It’s not good for what we’re doing,” said Sgt. Scott Davis, a firefighter from Savannah. “We can’t fire any warning shots. There’s no gunner up there with an M-16.”
