Saw a train going south through Goldthwaite yesterday that was full of flat cars carrying M1 Abrams tanks, Bradleys, trucks, recovery vehicles, ambulances, etc. Any idea as to where they came from and where they'd be heading?

I was the OIC of rail loading a Heavy Brigade Combat Team as a new 2LT. It was a thankless job and was blamed for what went wrong despite the fact the onus of the execution was at the company and battalion levels. I was the fall guy.

CT'97 said:

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Probably returning to Ft. Hood from an NTC rotation at Ft. Irwin, CA.

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Ft. Irwin and the Marine Corp logistics and storage base around Barstow out that way are interesting to drive by.

I do find it interesting that they seem to have changed over to units bringing their own vehicles to NTC.

Back in the Cold War, and at least until 2003 and possibly further, the norm was for visiting units to fall in on an equipment set that lived at Fort Irwin. That was to train units that would be flying to Germany and using equipment sets stored at POMCUS sites there.

Smeghead4761 said:

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I do find it interesting that they seem to have changed over to units bringing their own vehicles to NTC.

Back in the Cold War, and at least until 2003 and possibly further, the norm was for visiting units to fall in on an equipment set that lived at Fort Irwin. That was to train units that would be flying to Germany and using equipment sets stored at POMCUS sites there.

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Falling in on equipment that was already at Ft Irwin mught have been the norm for smaller units, but not for larger units. My first duty station was Ft Stewart: 3ID.My first trip to NTC was in 2000, and we used our equipment from Ft Stewart that we had loaded on the rail cars and shipped to Ft Irwin

Same with 2ID out of Lewis when we went to JRTC. Railheaded our rolling stock there, but the en again it was all heading to Iraq immediately after. We did fall on in M1151s that were in house.

I retired in 1990 as the Aviation Brigade S-3 in the 24th ID, Hunter AAF. We flew and railed all of our stuff. So did whatever infantry brigade and support units that were going. In fact when the 1st Gulf War started the Avn Bde was just back from an NTC deployment, all they had when they got locked on post was their helicopters, everything else was on rail cars and Sea Land vans heading to Savannah from the NTC.

The loaner fleet at NTC was a cost-saving measure.

The Army has since decided that the value of units shipping and training on their own vehicles outweighs the cost.

It is effectively a rehearsal for the routine operational deployments to Kuwait, Europe, and Korea that have become the mechanism for maintaining a forward presence since the dramatic reduction of overseas basing in the 2012-2014 timeframe.