Range 301 – a summer night in 1988 and the Blackhorse

Range 301 – Combined arms range; largest in Western Europe

In the above art piece, an M1 tank unit and a fire support team are shooting at Range 301 on the northwestern side of Grafenwoehr Training Area in southern Germany. Sometimes this range can be too realistic, as it was the rainy summer night of August 29th-30th 1988. Shortly before midnight, an M1 tank crew mistaken engaged and destroyed two M3 Bradley Cavalry Fighting Vehicles, killing one Soldier and wounded four more. This is the story of what happened that night.

Range 301 is a giant complex where company teams and cavalry troops can shoot and maneuver in a very realistic environment. An extensive array of computerized targets – both vehicle and infantry – portrays many sorts of enemy threats to train and sharpen tank and Bradley crew skills. Almost any combat situation can be simulated on 301, closely replicating actual battle conditions.

The standardized plywood targets are heated to show up on thermal night viewers. They rise and fall under the computer’s control, and drop automatically in one of two situations: when the firing vehicle scores a hit, or if time elapses with no hits.

In addition to gunnery skills, combat teams also employ tactical movement, indirect fire support, and reporting on 301. Map graphics give platoons and section a battlefield reference to practice and develop tactical procedures. Nothing can accurately portray the stress and hazards of actual battle. Nevertheless, units on this range are able to execute realistic and accurate scenarios.

This reconstruction is based on two sources: 1) information I learned over the following days from our unit leaders and the regiment’s NCO channel, and 2) the redacted accident report that I obtained via an FOIA request from the U.S. Army Combat Readiness Center, Fort Rucker, Ala. Also, I spoke or corresponded via e-mail with several Soldiers who were either involved or present on range 301 with this tragedy occurred

I spent four years serving as a cavalry scout with the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment (the Blackhorse) between 1985-89. Our training year was built around our two yearly gunnery rotations to Graf. We shot in the spring as individual crews at Level I Gunnery and in late summer, worked together during Level II Gunnery in sections and platoons.

Fight as a team, train as you fight

Our line troops and tank companies in the the Blackhorse were cycling through Range 301 that August before our annual autumn field exercises. The concept was this; two-tank M1 sections provided fire support to scout sections of three Bradley Fighting Vehicles.

My troop had completed firing the exercise earlier that night with outstanding tactics and gunnery. Afterward, we set up at Hopfenohe Church, an assembly area for company teams/cavalry troops using the facility. We heard the incident on our radios, but did not know at the time exactly what had happened. From a distance, we could see the fire on the range and watched as our medics responded with their ambulance track up to the firing line. Finally, we saw the Dustoff chopper come and go carrying the wounded.

Working together, scouts and tankers were supposed to maneuver forward and back using overwatch techniques while covering their assigned engagement areas. We did this type of movement all the time during field maneuvers. But this was the first time we had ever done it on the range with live ammunition.

The time about 11:25 p.m., with broken clouds, scattered showers, and unrestricted visibility. The tanks were set up on the left side of the range at what we called the dot 2 position. The scouts were all the way forward in the dot 3 position on the center of the range.

There were no friendly vehicles directly in front of the tanks. The engagement areas were clearly identified with gigantic orange markers that glowed brightly on thermal sights. The accident report estimated the range between the tanks and Bradleys at 1,100 meters. Using Google Earth’s measurement tool, I determined the range to be 1,193 meters.

As the scout section started to back out of their battle position, one of the tank crews became confused about their sector of fire, which they had not clearly identified. As part of the next engagement, the tank platoon leader sent out a radio alert that enemy armor was moving into the tank’s sector of fire. The tank crew traversed too far to the right, and beyond their right sector limit. The tank gunner saw the Bradleys through his thermal night sight, mistaking them for heated plywood targets.

Once you pull the triggers, you can’t take that round back

Over the intercom, the gunner reported that he had targets in sector. The tank commander broadcast his callsign along with a standard contact report. Hearing this, the gunner laid his thermal sight on the first Bradley. Activating his laser rangefinder, he announced, “on the way,” and fired the main gun.

Moving at nearly a mile per second, the 105mm training sabot round hit the first Bradley (BFV #1) on the left hull side behind the driver’s hatch. It penetrated the hull armor and went through the driver, Pfc. Jerry Westmoreland, killing him instantly. This round continued through the engine and stopped in the transmission. The tank gunner later told an accident investigator that he thought he saw the target go down.

One of the scouts screamed on the radio: “We’re taking fire!” The tank crew didn’t hear this transmission since they were on a different radio frequency than the Bradleys. Observers saw the tracer of the first round arcing out of the tanks’ designated firing zone, but they too were operating on different radio nets. Events took on a life of their own as the disaster unfolded. The tower crew urgently called, “cease fire, freeze,” on the range frequency, but it was too late.

The tank crew fired twice at the second Bradley (BFV #2.) One round penetrated the left side hull armor into the crew compartment. The tank gunner thought he had missed his plywood target and re-engaged with a second round. Inside the Bradley, 25mm ammunition was stored in hull stowage racks. The tank round punched through this ammo, igniting a catastrophic fire. Accident investigators later found only one clearly identifiable penetration point since this Bradley burned and melted.

Also on the center range with the scouts was their troop commander. He controlled and coordinated their movement from his command jeep. When the first round hit, and and his driver dove for cover into a drainage ditch. Thank God the tank crew stopped their fire before engaging the jeep. In addition to Pfc. Westmoreland’s death, four other Soldiers – all cavalry scouts – were wounded in the incident, some burned severely enough to require months in hospital.

Stop the fire, save the crew

Tracked combat vehicles such as the Bradley and M1 tank were equipped with an internal halon fire suppression system (AFSS.) An accident investigator inspected BFV #1 afterward and noted the crew had set the AFSS in manual mode instead of automatic. Since this track did not burn seriously, it was of no consequence. (1)

The driver of BFV #2 later stated that his AFSS had been set in automatic mode, but none of the crew heard the system activate. Army inspectors later found that one of the two crew compartments halon bottles had discharged. The wiring to the other bottle was severed, possibly by the penetrating tank round, or by debris flying in the crew compartment. It would not have mattered since the system was not designed to combat an ammunition fire.

A lesson hard as steel

A couple of days after the accident, we drove past the hardstand where the two knocked out Bradleys had been taken. Seeing them was one of the most sobering experiences of my life. Both tracks were destroyed and we could hardly believe what we were looking at. BFV #2 left an especially sobering and stark impression on my battle buddies and me. It was something I’ve never forgotten.

It was near on impossible to imagine that our sturdy and tough Bradley could so easily be turned into a pile of congealed slag. For me, this was the first, but not the last, time that I witnessed the destructive power of our weapons against our own armored vehicles. When my unit deployed to war several years later, I had no illusions about what could happen to us. I had already seen it.

The war we never fought

You might be thinking about how horrible it was that we could kill our own guy in peacetime. I agree with you. It was horrible. But you should consider our reality back then. We trained to fight and win against an armored enemy force much bigger than ours.

Our cavalry troops were tasked to defeat a Soviet armored battalion. Our squadron trained to smash Warsaw Pact regiments. And the Blackhorse regiment stood ready to stop multiple first echelon Soviet divisional attacks. We didn’t have to try and imagine the ground we would fight on when they came across the border. We knew that terrain like the backs of our hands and trained there all the time.

Armored combat is unforgiving. We drilled it into our brains: you’re either fast and stay alive, or die if you’re too slow. Identify the target in a split second, and engage it as fast as possible. Ten seconds for a single target was the standard, twenty for two targets.

We learned that in an armored fight, whoever got the first round off had the best chance of surviving. If they see you, they can kill you. If they kill you, your wingman is next. If they can kill your wingman, your platoon is finished. All that’s left then are the funeral pyres.

If you were alive then, you thought of that day as Doom’s Day, the End of the World, World War III. But in the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, we called that unthinkable day, “the way we go to sleep on Sunday night is how we go to war on Monday morning.” We had everything figured out, even a codeword for our part in World War III.

The phone rang at 0-dark-hundred, waking you out of a dead sleep. The tired voice of your buddy on the other end spoke the two words we heard every time we had a practice alert, but hoped to God never to hear for real.

“Lariat advance.”

You’d call the next guy, give the codeword, then say goodbye to your wife and kids. That was it. Grab your gear, load the tracks and move out for the assembly area. In our reality, it wasn’t even unthinkable. We practiced for that day all the time.

The closest Soviet armored regiment was based less than fifty miles from our home station. Our families lived within effective range of their tactical rockets. To keep that war from happening was the entire reason we were stationed in Germany until the end of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact.

I’m not saying that any of this justifies Jerry Westmoreland’s death. I’m not even sure that I understand it on a rational level. But I know what we in the Blackhorse were about during the Cold War.

None of this excuses the mistakes and fuck-ups that led to Jerry’s death, not to mention two destroyed combat vehicles. In the Army, accountability is everything, or at least it’s supposed to be. A lot went wrong that night. Too much. A cascading chain of failures happened that led to a tank commander giving the order to fire when he should not have.

One result, many causes

Armored vehicle identification was (and probably still is) like breathing for tankers and scouts. That TC and his gunner lost situational awareness that night. They couldn’t tell the difference between a heated plywood target and two actual Bradleys. The results were catastrophic.

But ownership went higher for what happened that night. Whoever planned that range, the guy that signed off on it at regiment, and even range control at Graf – they all owned a piece in creating the situation that tank commander faced when he allowed his gunner to fire at the wrong targets. Combat training is inherently dangerous. There are always risks involved, yet every training accident is preventable on some level. Contrary to what most people believe, shit doesn’t just happen.

With hindsight, some of the contributing factors are mind-boggling. Based on my own experience as a retired Soldier and armor leader, here are just a few in addition to what I’ve already mentioned:

• By my estimate, the exercise was conducted with at least five separate radio nets, and the scouts and tankers couldn’t directly talk to each other. When the tower crew ordered the emergency cease fire on the range frequency, the order had to be relayed through an intermediate echelon to the section command tank (platoon leader), which then broadcast it to the firing tank. (4)
• The tower crew had an M60A3 Tank Thermal Sight to observe the range, but ground safety personnel and observer/controllers were mounted in light wheeled vehicles without thermal sights. Considering the long distances on armor ranges, it was impossible for safeties and O/C’s to effectively see downrange with passive night vision goggles. In some cases, they could not observe the the range ahead because of blocking terrain. They did not have the radio equipment to work on multiple nets.
• The firing tank’s chain of command did not clarify with the crew that scouts were operating ahead. The tank gunner later told an Army investigator he did not know that friendlies were operating forward of his position.
• Other tanks on the range had functioning thermals, but intervening terrain blocked their line of sight to the downrange area.
• The firing tank commander did not verify the range fans markers in 3- and 10-power on his thermal imagining system. He also failed to ensure that his gunner was clear on the crew’s sector of fire.
• The firing tank commander did not use his tank’s thermal sight during the engagement. Instead, he was looking through the vision blocks on his cupola, making him effectively blind under night conditions. He later told an accident investigator this was because he wore glasses and could not adjust the eyebrow pad on his TC sight extension.
• The TC did not recognize the signature of a 105mm round striking an actual vehicle when the first round hit. This should have been plainly evident to the naked eye. He allowed the gunner to continue firing until the cease fire was relayed to him on the platoon internal net.
• The command tank’s thermal went out intermittently during scenario, and quit just before the engagement started. Although his thermals were non-functional, the TC (platoon leader) should, with his eyes, have recognized the signature of a tank round striking an actual vehicle instead of a plywood target. He did not order a cease fire on the tank platoon net until the order was relayed to him.

A long time ago, but just yesterday for some 

The Cold War is mostly ancient history today, especially for younger people who didn’t experience it. Generations of veterans have come and gone since Jerry Westmoreland died. But he had a family that still loves him, and battle buddies who have told me they would change places with him in a heartbeat if they could. Some still see his face when they close their eyes at night. When they wake up, I’ll bet for some of them, he’s the first thing that pops in their minds. None of that will ever change, so long as Jerry’s family and battle buddies are still among the living.

The 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment owns a set of colors that represents what the unit stands for. Colorful streamers fly from the top of the flag pole, displaying the campaigns and expeditions that Blackhorse troopers have served in during the regiment’s long history.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young, Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow. They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted; They fell with their faces to the foe. They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:  Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them. Stanzas three and four of For the Fallen, By Laurence Binyon

There isn’t a streamer for our service in Germany because we were there in peacetime, preparing for a war that, thank goodness, never came. But Jerry owns a piece of the colors themselves, and he always will. So does every trooper who died with his boots on in the Blackhorse.

Although I never knew Jerry personally, I mourn his passing and the promise of a young life cut short. He was a Blackhorse cavalryman, and in the final run, it could have been any of us. We owe at least this to one among us who died with his boots on; that we honor and keep him in our hearts.

I hope this story stands as a record of the facts and a tribute to the memory of our fallen brother. Also, perhaps modern armor leaders can glean and use the lessons learned in this catastrophic accident to prevent it from ever happening again.

In the cavalry, there’s an old legend that when a trooper dies, he’ll meet his dead buddies at the remount point on Fiddler’s Green. So many of our brother troopers – including Pfc. Jerry Westmoreland – are on the green right now holding our horses as they wait for us. We’ll all join them someday. But until that day…

We never forget,

Mark Flowers
Echo Troop, 2nd Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment
1985-89

Notes

1. It’s beyond the scope of this story, but the internal sensors were extremely sensitive and we typically set the mode switch to manual for live fire gunnery on the Bradleys. I knew of several crews (including mine) that experienced automatic activations on gun runs. This filled the crew compartment with halon, forcing us to halt the run, safe our weapons, and evacuate the track until the fumes cleared.
2. Pfc. Jerry L. Westmoreland’s obituary was published on page twelve of the  September 6th, 1988 issue of The McComb Enterprise-Journal.
3. The original artwork by Staff Sgt. Price is named “On line” and is in the U.S. Army Art Collection.
4. Radio nets: Range frequency, which was also the squadron command net. Tank company frequency. Tank platoon internal net. Scout troop frequency. Scout platoon frequency.
5. I would like to thank my Blackhorse brothers Don Snedeker and Glenn Snodgrass for helping me with the photograph of our regimental memorial at OP Alpha.
6. In October 1989, Mark Thompson, who now works with the Project on Government Oversight, wrote a detailed article for Knight-Ridder Newspapers on the incident that killed Jerry Westmoreland. The title was “Death by Friendly Fire Spotlights Shortcomings.” Thanks to the Orlando Sentinel, the article is still available online. TRIGGER WARNING: The article in the Orlando Sentinel is a hard-hitting expose that provides specific details into what happened that night, including names of the tank crew. To me as a retired Blackhorse trooper, this is an important document. I want to add one caveat: if you were one of the involved troopers or knew them, please know that the article contains graphic details and specific information that you may never before have learned.