Or...
...the torture device known as the M4T6...
Many a finger belonging to the members of the 1138th Engineer Battalion (Combat) of the Missouri Army National Guard was pinched, fractured, or (in three cases) amputated when trying to assemble the school and versions of one of these. Lazy, out-of-shape National Guard infantrymen converted to combat engineers do not make people willing to listen to instructions.
The unit, formerly the historic 138th Infantry Regiment of World War I Meuse Argonne fame, was converted to a engineer battalion when manning levels dropped off as the six year enlistments of the draft dodgers were ending in the early 1970's. I joined in 1973 in order to get off of work at the VA during the summer, and (as an experienced, prior "real" service NCO) inherited the mechanized scout platoon of the D Company.
We had heard of other units (primarily the Air Guard) that had been converted as manning levels dropped, but we were completely surprised when we were assembled in the bleacher amphitheater at our Weldon Springs training ground, the entire attenuated battalion at once. Once there, a full bird colonel stood up (we never saw much above a captain normally) and proceeded to lecture us about the great things that were going to flow from the upcoming conversion.
In the stands was a mix of the last of the draft dodgers, about the same number of young black kids who were there in order to have some employment, and the veneer of prior service people like me. We sat and listened as Colonel Blimp (a typical, no active duty, always an officer in the Guard) went on and on about how great this was going to be. We were going to be doing good for the community, we were going to learn construction trades, and on and on. To hear him tell it, we would all be getting construction management jobs within a year or so.
Some wise-ass in the back row (it may have been me) had the temerity to put his hand up and ask if the units were going to transfer directly; i.e., D Company of the infantry battalion would become D Company of the engineer battalion - he replied that the conversion had already begun and that yes, we would be in the new D Company in the engineer battalion. I then asked, all innocent like, if combat engineer battalions still had the D Company tasked as the heavy bridge element, and he (somewhat surprised) replied that he thought it was still the case.
After our little love-fest, I sought out my good friend SFC Andre, first sergeant of D Company and told him that I would be leaving his happy family when my current hitch was up. (I was on a year-to-year system, not having any active duty commitment any longer.) After some cajoling on his part, plus the promise of a pay grade bump if I stayed on, I pushed that to a year and a half.
The "conversion" was accomplished at Fort Leonard Wood over the next two week summer camp. In effect, we went through an accelerated version of Advanced Individual Training, minus the military training and the physical training components. The elements were broken up into two weeks general construction training, a week on the Bailey bridge, and a week on the others, including the abomination that is/was the M4T6.
The general construction training was pretty pointless for me (I'm a union bricklayer and stonemason, and have worked in and around construction stuff all of my life), but the bridging stuff was at least interesting.
I had, of course, crossed many a Bailey span in RVN, where they were used to upgrade the ancient French-built highway system to bear the weight of our tanks and personnel carriers. And, I had "experienced" the use of the M4T6 as part of the training sessions covered by my AIT cycles down at Knox during my DI days.
But, it's quite a different matter to actually have to assemble the things. Prefabricated structures that pin and bolt together in a hurry to support huge amounts of weight, military bridges are well-designed structures. And, they are designed, at least for combat engineer battalions, to be assembled by hand. As might be imagined, a portable bridge capable of spanning a fifty foot river and allowing fifty-two ton tanks to cross has a lot of heavy components.
Both the Bailey (which had no military "M" designation) and the M4T6 are composed of massive metal frames and panels and baulks and ribbans and all sechlike. With the exception of the pins used to hold them together, there is not a part that calls for a one-man carry in either of them. A typical item, a bridge panel for the Bailey, was a six-man carry, with each pair using a pole inserted through the panel to shuffle along with the cumbersome burden. The flooring for the bridges was made of massive metal beams (aluminum or steel, I don't recall) that were also four or six man carries. Heavy, heavy stuff.
(Still, it was man portable, and during the training (with active duty Committee Group supervisors there to keep things going, and the threat of the stockade should troops not comply) things went smoothly enough. Once back at the unit, the slackers still refused to do any work, and there weren't enough prior service and "new guys" to make the lifts. Not a good thing...)
But, the piece de resistance, in more ways than one, was the so-called "saddle" piece of the M4T6. This was a huge aluminum "spider" that rested atop the rubber boat that supported a section of the bridge or raft. (It could be used for both purposes; very adaptable item.) The saddle pinned to the top of the rubber raft in four places, with a substantial steel pin and Cotter key assembly to hold it in place. The problem was (and is, for all I know) was with rubber boats used as the pontoon component of the bridge.
(Incidentally, the pontoon word is (for some reason) pronounced as "ponton", not "pontoon" by the staff at Leonard Wood. Why, no one knows. Similarly, the side of the roadway of the Bailey bridge is called the "riband", rather than the same term used here in the US for such items, "ribbon". I blamed the British Army for that one, and for the fact that all of the Bailey components I ever saw (in RVN, in the MOANG, and over in New Orleans, where there's a lot of Bailey in use to replace damaged highway spans) are painted grey, instead of the otherwise standard olive drab. Go figure...)
The saddle is a massive structure, made of very heavy gauge aluminum square-section tubing, perhaps 10" or 12" through. It stretches over a sprawling ten or twelve foot square, with arms and frames above the base that extend further out from the square.
The clevises that the pins fit through are mounted on top of the sides of the rubber raft. They pass through the clevis arms, and through a square section "pin" welded to the bottom of the base framework. Each pin weighs a couple of pounds, and is a precision fit through both the "pin" and the two sides of the clevis.
In order to mount the stupid thing on the raft, you pick up the saddle (well, you and about fifteen of your close friends), carry it over the raft, carefully lower it into the clevises, and insert the pins and Cotter them in place. Then, that boat is ready to be assembled into the rest of the raft or bridge. Simple as pie.
...except that the rubber boats were never fully inflated, and were thus as floppy as a half-inflated Macy's parade balloon. So, there we stood, twenty folks trying to lift the stupid saddle up and carry it over the foot and a half high boat, and then lower it (carefully - gotta protect the relatively frail rubber boat) into the clevises so that the pins could be slipped into place and locked up tight.
The job to avoid was that of pin inserter, and it was hard as hell to get anyone to do it once the first finger got nipped off. Fingers were caught in the clevises, and between the frame and the structure around the clevis location. Nasty, nasty stuff.
We suggested that the boats could be deflated, the saddles installed, and then the boats blown up again, but that was nixed as it was not the way "it was done". To be fair, it appeared that the impact of a dropped saddle might puncturing the bottom of the boat under the clevis mounts. Still, better a patched boat than a lost finger, at least in my eyes.
Once we got back from the initial summer camp, we received all of our combat engineer kit, most of it chucked into the back of five ton tactical dump trucks. Thereafter, the weekly drills consisted of throwing up a bridge, driving a ceremonial Jeep across it, and then taking it down the next day after a big barbecue lunch.
Right before I finished up the extra year I promised SFC Andre, we did get to do something that was worthwhile. Our company volunteered (to get away from monthly bridge duty) to build a huge fenced enclosure at a local nature park, which ultimately was to house breeding pairs of wolves.
Using the handy Engineer's Field Manual, a wonderful publication that I caused to have issued to all of my OSHA staff, we put up the fencing over a three month period. I was the only person in the company who had ever worked with concrete on a meaningful basis, so I supervised the mixer (using a nifty little one yard mixer on a trailer) and the placement, while the rest of the mob followed up the next week with the Cyclone fabric. We did a nice job - I even had the guys troweling off the top of the fence post pours - but when the plaque commemorating all of the "donors" to the project, conspicuous by its absence was any mention of Company D, 1138th Engineer Battalion (Combat), MOANG. Some people have no gratitude.
These days, combat engineer battalions have all sorts of on-vehicle mounted handling equipment on their huge HETT trucks for stuff like Bailey bridge panels. (It certainly beats trying to manually load one on a five ton dump truck where the lip of the dump bed is about six feet above ground level.) Even with gear like that, I'd not join up with the combat engineers on a bet.
I went to then-CSM Andre's retirement back in the late 1980's, but haven't visited the old unit since. I imagine that it's been dropped down to a signal company by now.
