Hohenfels 1978-79... ARTEP (page 3)
Tankers will weave their way through terrain, attempting to make the most of cover and concealment. Here an M-60a1 tries to find concealment behind a lone tree, while another is positioned in the woods behind. This photo clearly illustrates the difference between "cover" and "concealment." The former is actual protection against hostile fire, while the latter is merely a means to keep from being seen, while not providing any cover. Typically when using the terms, cover can be concealment as well, but concealment is never the same as cover. Note that this was one of the few "dry" areas found.
Hohenfels is one churned up morass. It never fails that the few dry areas around are never used for maneuver. There are also a series of tank trails in the area (such as the one on the right) which are so over used that permanent trenches and sink holes have appeared. One night while moving through an area, we noticed faint light refecting off hundreds of "mirrors" on the ground. These "mirrors" turned out to be water and mud holes... hundreds of them. Our first comments was "we have tanks, not submarines!" Needless to say, a number of us got mired and had to be pulled out by other tanks. In the past, such a recovery procedure was frowned upon, since WW II era tanks didn't have the horsepower or torque to pull other tanks without damaging themselves. This is not the case today. In the photo at right, if you look carefully down the road, you can see a blasted village.
As mentioned before, there are numerous instances of old villages at Hohenfels which were bombed out during WW II and never rebuilt. This is one such example. The villages were usually avoided, even by the infantry, since the conditions within were unsafe. Occasionally a tank crew would push over a wall, or the infantry would set up a strongpoint for training. However, if the infantry wanted to get any urban combat training, they either went to the Hammelburg Lager (a formerWW II POW camp actually called Luftstalag XIII... if you know the old TV sitcom "Hogan's Heroes" you will understand the humor!), or they went to the urban training center in West Berlin.
These blasted wrecks served as a terrible reminder of the cost of war, and why our mission of deterrence in Europe was so vital.
Another Hohenfels ARTEP comes to an end. The tanks are rail loaded at Parsberg (watch out for those electrical wires above the flat cars!), and then pulled back to the home kaserne for maintenance and rest (always in that order... intense maintenance FIRST, then rest!).
Once the vehicles are brought up to readiness, plans are laid to do it all again.
