 We came out today to sustain some explosive obstacle reduction or obstacle breaching as part of our Mew workup and for the Marines to get some more hands-on with the anti-personnel obstacle breaching system or APOBS to employ it in support of their infantry counterparts on the Mew. The overall objective of today was for the Marines to sustain and maintain proficiency with the APOBS and for them to get another rep at employing it as part of an explosive breach as part of the breach force. This training is important because our Marines have to come out to the field and get the reps and the sets to make sure that when they attach to their infantry counterparts that they're actually enabling the force and that they are a force multiplier performing various engineer tasks in support of the infantry. This skill set makes second Marine Division and specifically BLT-26 more lethal and capable because every tool that our Marines have that they can effectively employ in an expedient manner in a safe manner and in a manner that has the greatest effect on the battlefield This is one more thing that engineers bring to the fight. The anti-personnel obstacle breaching system or APOBS is a two-pack man-portable system that enables a team of engineers or infantry to explosively reduce anti-personnel mines and wire obstacles. Post-blast it gives you a lane that's about one meter wide and 45 meters in length. The charge itself is a linear demolition charge consisting of 108 grenades connected together with explosive detonating cord and it's employed with a rocket. The rocket drags the line charge out of the two packs, stretches it out in a straight line, it has two means of initiation. You can either use the factory installed initiator which is a 15 second time delay or you can use a command initiated shock tube that instantaneously fires the rocket on command of the breach team and regardless of the initiation method eight seconds after the rocket is deployed and the charge is stretched out the line charge will detonate in a single impulse reducing the anti-personnel mines and clearing that lane through a wire obstacle. Out of the four types of reduction methods that we use being mechanical, physical, explosive or just other means this is one of the more ideal types of breaches or types of reduction because it gives standoff from the obstacle between that obstacle and the reduction team. They don't have to physically get directly on top of that minefield or directly on top of the obstacle to place something like a Bangalore or to use bolt cutters to mechanically breach that wire so this gives standoff and it also reduces time on target and the weight of the reduction asset. This one Apobs is the same as 17 or 18 Bangalore torpedoes drastically lighter, drastically reduces time on target. Today from the time they stepped off on their assault till the time detonation happened was a minute and 35 seconds. Out here we're practicing some explosive breaching. The commanding general came out, learned a little bit about the Apobs. It's another explosive breaching asset that we have that we can employ for our supported rifle battalion. The overall objective is for one for our Marines to get another rep at executing an explosive breach especially with the Apobs. It's not something we get to shoot very often but it's a huge capability that we can bring to the table and then also so the commanding general can get some situational awareness on what it does what its capabilities and limitations are and then how we can employ in the future. So this system makes Second Marine Division more lethal by again just bringing another asset and another capability to the table when we talk about breaching especially if we're in a near peer environment when they're in a deliberate defense and with a you know elaborate obstacle plan being able to breach your obstacles and you know assault the objective is vastly important especially for our Apex battalions going out the door. So it's two packs, one's around 50 pounds, one's 60 pounds. You lay it down there's grenades and what looks like a tube sock and there's a rocket, the rocket shoots 35 meters away, there's an obstacle, it lays over the obstacle and all those grenades detonate with the pack and cuts the C wire or whatever obstacle minefield that it encounters. I think the most important thing we talk about when we breach is time on target. Getting time on target down when we mechanically breach it takes a while to cut through wire right here when you can in place the APOBS. It was under two minutes and then you know detonation takes maximum 23 seconds. So that time on target being so low allows you to keep the tempo, keep the momentum as you're maneuvering and assaulting objectives. The training is important because anytime we can get reps doing live explosive breaching is something that we have to take a hold of and run with because again it's kind of hard to do demo around here but when we can do explosive breaching it's always a good rep to get in especially when we have a team going out the door supporting Golf Company 26.