CAMP WILLIAMS — Artillerists of the Utah National Guard 222nd Field Artillery are firing at distant targets with their huge 155 mm cannons, the blasts of the live ammunition tearing across the desert.
"We try to add more and more realism and rigor every day," said the commander, Lt. Col. Larsen, from Ephraim. Like most others interviewed Monday in the 500-member Utah National Guard unit, for security reasons he wished to be identified by rank and last name but not first name.
"It's important that we anticipate anything that might happen to us."
The "triple deuce" is based in Cedar City. Any day now, it expects to be sent overseas, possibly to Iraq, along with its self-propelled howitzers, the huge ammunition trucks, tents, and personnel carriers.
Staying aware of the battles that are raging in Iraq helps the 222nd "take our job seriously here," Larsen added. "The better job we do here, the more rigorous we are here, the more of these guys will survive and come home."
At a field command post of tents and Humvees and an ambulance, two soldiers talk about their feelings.
"You train for this over and over," said Spec. James Green, Provo. "Every time we go to drill, this is what we do."
But it feels different now.
"Boring most of the time, and then you get anxiety at the same time. Then you get excited. You feel kind of everything," he said. "It's not just one feeling. Mostly, I'm surprised we don't feel much fear. Feel like we're pretty much prepared for it."
Sgt. Jeff McKinney, from North Carolina but now living in Cedar City, said morale is improving now that the weather is nicer. "We're working a lot better as a team and we feel pretty confident about it," he said.
A couple of miles from the command post, three howitzers of B Battery are arranged in a long arc, two ammunition trucks parked behind them. When a howitzer is about to fire, its engine revs, diesel smoke billows briefly and the barrel lifts from the cradle support. The tube shifts, taking aim.
"Standby!" yells a soldier who has been communicating by radio with the men inside the howitzer. A second later the gun fires, and reporters with earplugs hear the concussion as a boom. On tape, it is a powerful, echoing blast. Simultaneously, an orange flame leaps from the muzzle and for an instant something dark seems to whiz through the air.
The barrel recoils, the impact of the air pressure is like a light punch on the body, gray smoke puffs from the cannon, and then silence reigns. About 19 second later, black smoke and gray dust spring from a far away hillside. In another 13 seconds, the boom of the exploding shell reaches observers.
Back at Battery B, Sgt. Allred was talking on a field telephone at the door of a Humvee. He paused long enough to explain that in this exercise, the artillerists were "making sure that he's firing exactly where his computer says it is."
With the type of ammunition usually employed, said Staff Sgt. Schurtz, in charge of the center gun, rounds can reach more than 11 miles.
The weapon's computer system "will calculate its own fire mission," he said. "It'll determine from where it sits, to hit the target, where the tube needs to be positioned. . . .
"Once that tube is laid on target, it needs to be manually loaded and manually fired from inside the gun."
Don't call the self-propelled howitzer a tank. "This is actually a field artillery piece. It's a cannon, different from tanks because the tanks are armored vehicles," he said.
The howitzers are big cans of hardened aluminum, usually giving indirect fire. The artillerists may not even see the targets as they define the battlefield, laying down shells before infantrymen and tanks advance.
The vehicle has a maximum speed of 38 mph. It weighs 56,000 pounds empty and 64,000 pounds loaded with ammunition and fuel.
"It has a 133-gallon tank, with a cruising range of 186 (miles)," he said.
Master Sgt. Dodds, a trainer from the 91st Division in Fort Carson who watched the exercise, said the gun is a versatile weapon that can "do a lot of damage."
From inside the gun you can look through the barrel and see its rifling. Shells are racked around the small interior, an oval maybe 7 feet by 8 feet. A computer screen with yellow lettering on black background is mounted above a small chair where the gunner will sit. The huge barrel may recoil several feet into this compartment after it fires a shot.
"As a gunner, I take care of the gunpowder, setting the fuse times, setting the shell-fuse combinations," said Staff Sgt. Haggerty.
Bags of gunpowder are color-coded. "Right now we're shooting white bag," he said.
"There's green bag, white bag, red bag (for) different distances." The computer will calculate the distance, tell which gunpowder increments to use and aim the weapon.
Inside the howitzer, he said, "there's almost no noise." The helmets that the soldiers wear helps that way, but it's intrinsically much louder outside.
What's hardest about the job? "Everything but firing," he said. "Putting bullets downrange is the fun part, the easy part."
The hard part includes tasks like defending the perimeter and protecting against nuclear, biological and chemical attack.
Pfc. Johnson, who loads the gun, puts in the primer and yanks the lanyard cord to fire it, says he is looking forward to going overseas "'cause I'm ready — but it's a long time to be away."
E-MAIL: bau@desnews.com