Principle 2: Decontaminate only when necessary.
You have 2 hours to complete this and be at the next position ready to fire.
Your alternate position is a 20-minute road march away, with the
decontamination site en route, 10 minutes away.
Principle 3: Decontaminate as far forward as possible.
You immediately send an advance party to the Operational Decontamination
Site. They meet the battalion decontamination crew with the PDDE and set up
the site. The PDDE crew sets up and runs the Vehicle Washdown Area and the
PDDE. The advance party assists the PDDE Crew and prepares the MOPP Gear
Exchange area.
A battery supply vehicle meets the advance party at the
decontamination site.
You rotate one firing platoon at a time through the decontamination site so
that most of the battery can maintain fire support. The guns are the first
vehicles to be washed down and their crews are the first to go through the
MOPP Gear Exchange because they are the most important elements in the
battery.
Principle 4: Decontaminate by priority.
You finish Operational Decontamination and are in position ready to fire
within the directed times. Your soldiers are still masked because there is
still a vapor hazard from the contamination left on the guns and vehicles.
The advance party has checked the new position and found it free of
contamination. As you move into the position, you receive orders from the
battalion to conduct ammunition resupply.
Your sections begin improving
their positions.
You direct gun crews one and two to leave only one soldier on each gun and
send the rest of the crews 20 meters upwind of the guns.
This area is
checked again and found clear of contamination. The senior soldier directs
the two crews to remove their masks, but tells them to watch for agent
poisoning signs. The two gun crews can now eat and get relief from the mask
for a short period of time.
The senior soldier ensures that the wind
direction is constantly checked so that the unmasked soldiers remain upwind
of their "vapor dirty" guns and equipment.
Soldiers remaining on the guns and in the vehicles stay masked
because the
equipment is still contaminated and poses a vapor hazard. The
soldiers in
sections one and two remask when they return to the guns. The
soldiers in
the other sections are rotated through the temporary relief area
in the same
way, Ammunition resupply and position improvement can continue.
1-13
CM2300
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