On a dirt field at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., last week, Matthew Joy was a true ground-pounder.
The U.S. Army Reserve private with the Pine Bluff-based 364th Engineer Platoon sat in the soundproof, padded cab of the Army's newest minesweeper Thursday and flailed away at the ground with dozens of fist-sized hammers.
Sgt. 1st Class Michel Sauret, spokesman for the 416th Theater Engineer Command, sat beside Joy. The cab, he said, vibrated as Joy dropped what resembled a large motor tiller to the ground and switched it on.
When the machine's flail -- a rotating arm with 70 chains and hammers attached -- started spinning at 3,500 revolutions per minute, Sauret said the hammers crashed into the ground, digging deep into the dirt to find and destroy buried mines.
Sauret and other members of the 416th were present Thursday as Joy and the rest of the 364th practiced operating the Army's new M1271 Medium Flail Mine Clearing Vehicle, or MCV.
A large cloud of dirt and debris surrounded the cab, which is designed to absorb the force of a mine explosion, protected by a shield of armored steel, said Ronnie King, construction engineer branch chief at Fort Leonard Wood.
When a mine simulation detonated, the blast stopped one of the engines. A new part of the training, what to do when they're stranded in the middle of a minefield, began.
Joy said he shut down the affected engine and raised the flail. Other members of Joy's unit, designated "minesweepers," used hand-held metal detectors to find a path from the edge of the range to the mine-clearing vehicle. They got him out and back to the safe zone.
"It's good real-world practice," Joy said after that portion of training was complete. "It's good to get to know the equipment you're using and figure out how it can help you."
The 364th Engineer Platoon was the first Army unit to train on the new MCV. After Joy and 21 other Arkansas Army reservists spent five days training on the vehicle, the unit brought two MCVs back to Pine Bluff on Friday.
Although the flail technology is not new -- U.S. troops have used the method since World War II to clear minefields -- the new MCV is quicker and is the first to be designed specifically for Army use, King said.
Before the development of the M1271, the Army's MCVs were the same vehicles bought commercially by other groups around the world to use for mine clearance. King said these vehicles didn't meet all of the requirements the Army wanted, such as protection against small arms fire.
"Normally a contractor from another organization wouldn't have to worry about that," King said. "If a group in West Africa were to buy these to do mine clearing, they wouldn't have to worry about people shooting at them."
Sauret said the new piece of equipment would "keep soldiers much safer by putting them in an armored vehicle with more protection."
In addition to creating the new MCV, the Army has activated and commissioned 15 new platoons to be used specifically for mine clearance, King said, something the Army has never had before. When commanders needed fields cleared in the past, they called either on random soldiers or on people contracted for the job, he said.
Twelve of the new platoons, including the 364th, are part of the Army Reserve, and the other three are Army National Guard. Now that the 364th is trained, the 416th Theater Engineer Command will train 14 other units one at a time throughout the next 14 to 16 months, King said.
Capt. Justin Warrick is commander of the 806th Engineer Company in Conway, which presides over the 364th Engineer Platoon. He arrived at Fort Leonard Wood on Thursday to watch the unit finish up training and said it is "an honor" for the 364th to be the first unit to receive MCVs.
"It helps us twofold," Warrick said. "If we were actually clearing a minefield in combat, it allows us to move through it quicker and helps reduce the danger to my combat engineers when they're doing that. In the forward operating bases, we can actually clear our own area now instead of relying on contractors to clear before we build a structure."
The units work in teams, with five people working as operators and eight others as "spotters." The spotters, in Humvees, are stationed in a safe zone to communicate with drivers via radio from a distance.
Because the MCV is surrounded by a cloud of dirt and debris, the spotters help guide the operators in a straight line, making sure no land goes uncleared.
"The Army as a whole, we are a team," said Sgt. Jaccorian Spears of Pine Bluff, a spotter with the 364th. "They're kicking up so much debris it's hard to keep them on track. We don't want to have gaps because when we turn over the land to whoever we're turning it over to, that one gap could have a mine in it."
A few other members of the unit are trained on bulldozers, which can go in and tow an MCV if it got stuck. The rest of the 22-person platoon works as minesweepers.
"At minimum, it's a two-man job," King said. "But it could take the whole platoon, based on the mission."
King said the Army decided in 2007 that it needed its own MCVs and platoons to operate them.
The Army cleared mines in the Balkans starting in 1995 in order to build base camps on the mine-strewn land, King said.
As the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan -- parts of which are also mine-riddled -- increased over the next decade, there became a heightened demand for mine clearance.
Army officials realized the need to invest in their own MCVs for long-term use, he continued. During the past seven years, the Army established the new platoons and developed the M1271, which is designed to clear mines that are intended to injure humans, as well as those used to damage or destroy tanks.
A prototype was built and tested. The last step, beginning now with the 364th, is training the platoons and giving them the vehicles.
"It feels good knowing that we're some of the ones paving the way for the Army and being the first ones to use this equipment," Joy said.
Though the United States put a formal end to its mission in Iraq at the end of 2011, recent events may put more "boots on the ground," which may call for mine clearance, King said.
President Obama announced in August that troops would be conducting airstrikes against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. Advisers have been sent to help Iraqi forces, but Obama has repeatedly promised since August to not send in combat troops to Iraq or Syria.
However, King said if it does happen, the MCV platoons will be needed before bases can be built.
"If you take a look around the world, we're going back to areas we said we wouldn't go back to," King said.
"We're going back into Iraq, and anywhere that we need base camps is a potential mission. Everybody said we weren't going back and there would be no boots on the ground, but here we are."
Metro on 11/03/2014