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http://www.armytimes.com/story.php?f=1-292925-2101900.php
Plan to shift tanks to Benning from Knox unveiled
By Matthew Cox
Staff writer
FORT BENNING, Ga. — Senior leaders here unveiled plans for making room at the home of the Infantry for Army tankers.
“This will be one of our biggest challenges as we put the spotlight on Fort Benning,” Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Richard Cody told soldiers at the Infantry Warfighting Conference yesterday . Cody was one of several Army generals who discussed how the Army plans to move the Armor Center and School from Fort Knox, Ky., to Benning over the next six years to create a “maneuver training center of excellence.”
The $1.3 billion effort is among the wave of sweeping changes announced last year during the Base Realignment and Closure process.
It promises to transform the face and terrain here with massive military construction that’s required to support the influx of vehicles the Armor Center needs to train tank and cavalry forces.
Maj. Gen. Robert Williams, the chief of armor at Knox, plans to relocate 934 vehicles, including 247 M1 tanks and 154 Bradley fighting vehicles used for cavalry scout training.
“That’s a 238 percent increase in the number of vehicles that have to be taken care of here at Fort Benning,” he said during his speech at the conference. That means new ranges, wash rack facilities, maintenance centers and motor pools that must be built here in addition to new housing and barracks .
The environmental impact study is scheduled to be complete by October 2007 and the “majority” of construction should be finished by 2010, Williams said.
Benning has already started making changes to its courses of instruction to prepare for the change, said Maj. Gen. Walter Wojdakowski, chief of infantry here.
The captains career courses taught at Benning and Knox now have become the Maneuver Captains Career Course, Wojdakowski said, describing how half of Benning’s students go to Knox and half of Knox’s students come here for the course. In addition, the Advanced Noncommissioned Officer Course just started following a similar path here and at Knox, he said.
Despite the new changes facing each training center, Williams said it is crucial that both cultures remain “very mindful of each other’s identity.
“It’s important that the infantry remain the infantry and the armor remain the armor,” he said. “We are going to be a better force when we get the armor and the U.S. cavalry and the infantry here together.”
Plan to shift tanks to Benning from Knox unveiled
By Matthew Cox
Staff writer
FORT BENNING, Ga. — Senior leaders here unveiled plans for making room at the home of the Infantry for Army tankers.
“This will be one of our biggest challenges as we put the spotlight on Fort Benning,” Vice Chief of Staff Gen. Richard Cody told soldiers at the Infantry Warfighting Conference yesterday . Cody was one of several Army generals who discussed how the Army plans to move the Armor Center and School from Fort Knox, Ky., to Benning over the next six years to create a “maneuver training center of excellence.”
The $1.3 billion effort is among the wave of sweeping changes announced last year during the Base Realignment and Closure process.
It promises to transform the face and terrain here with massive military construction that’s required to support the influx of vehicles the Armor Center needs to train tank and cavalry forces.
Maj. Gen. Robert Williams, the chief of armor at Knox, plans to relocate 934 vehicles, including 247 M1 tanks and 154 Bradley fighting vehicles used for cavalry scout training.
“That’s a 238 percent increase in the number of vehicles that have to be taken care of here at Fort Benning,” he said during his speech at the conference. That means new ranges, wash rack facilities, maintenance centers and motor pools that must be built here in addition to new housing and barracks .
The environmental impact study is scheduled to be complete by October 2007 and the “majority” of construction should be finished by 2010, Williams said.
Benning has already started making changes to its courses of instruction to prepare for the change, said Maj. Gen. Walter Wojdakowski, chief of infantry here.
The captains career courses taught at Benning and Knox now have become the Maneuver Captains Career Course, Wojdakowski said, describing how half of Benning’s students go to Knox and half of Knox’s students come here for the course. In addition, the Advanced Noncommissioned Officer Course just started following a similar path here and at Knox, he said.
Despite the new changes facing each training center, Williams said it is crucial that both cultures remain “very mindful of each other’s identity.
“It’s important that the infantry remain the infantry and the armor remain the armor,” he said. “We are going to be a better force when we get the armor and the U.S. cavalry and the infantry here together.”
