 My name is First Lieutenant Rob Hepburn. I'm a platoon leader with Bull Troop, First Squadron, Second Cavalry Regiment. The objective of this training is to familiarize our squads with firing with live rounds. The objective of this support by fire was to provide suppression on this village so that the decisive operation could move into the village and clear it. Getting online quickly, especially when dismounting from the vehicles, is extraordinarily important because the enemy can hear the vehicles approaching from a considerable distance. So especially when you have a vehicle drop off, the enemy is either already firing upon you or very quickly preparing to do so. So getting out of the vehicles and immediately engaging and providing that suppression to get their heads down is the only way that you can stay safe in an actual mission. Communication between the gunner and the assistant gunner is key. The gunner is there to shoot the targets, but the assistant gunner is there to help them controlling rates of fire and taking directions from the squad leader. So keeping that assistant gunner close and or preferably on top of the gunner allows them to communicate even while an M-240 Bravo or Lima is shooting. They get loud, so keeping those communications efficient, quick and precise in order to close with and destroy the enemy. So the communication between the two gun teams to talk the guns is how we ensure we don't spend all of our ammo immediately. Sustained firefights can last some time and we don't bring a million rounds. So in order to use just a single UBL in an iteration, the squad leader is working to establish rates of fire and he's telling the two guns to switch off. So you know that the guns are doing well when they both run out of ammo at about the same time. That means they're maintaining a similar rate of fire and hopefully it's the rate of fire that the squad leader was asking them to produce. So with 2nd Calvary Regiment being Stryker Infantry, especially Stryker Infantry equipped with the ICVD, the Dragoon. We bring a lot more to the fight with our weapons squad than you would in a light infantry. The Strykers have 50 Cal, they have Javelins, they have another 240 and the main cannon on the Dragoon which is a 30mm cannon. So instead of the weapons squad coming there and just using two 240s plus some AT-4s and some Javelins, they were able to use a third 240 along with an M2 50 caliber machine gun. And they would be able to use the main cannon on the Dragoon which gives them significantly more suppression and the ability to take down many more and much stronger vehicles. All in all it's been a great training and everyone's learned a lot. And hopefully we are a more lethal and more decisive unit in the future.