'A beautiful range.' Camp James A. Garfield opens new machine gun facility

Training opportunities at Camp James A. Garfield Joint Military Training Center expanded with last week's opening of a new Multipurpose Machine Gun Range.

"We're just thrilled to have this range. It's really a beautiful range," said Lt. Col. Shaun Robinson, garrison commander at Camp Garfield. "It's a great asset, a great addition. It really boosts our capabilities, what we can do on this post."

A ceremony May 7 at the site in eastern Portage and western Trumbull counties opened the facility for use. Brig. Gen. Matthew S. Woodruff, Ohio assistant adjutant general for the Army, presided over the event.

Robinson said the National Guard Bureau had the "good faith" to invest $7.6 million to provide training for soldiers in the use of crew-served weapons, which require at least two people to operate, instead of only having access to individual firearms.

Among the new weapons are .50-caliber machine guns, M240 Bravo machine guns firing a 7.62 mm round, Mark 19 grenade launchers firing 40 mm grenade rounds, 5.56 mm squad automatic weapons or SAWs, and the .300 Winchester Magnum, a sniper rifle.

The range is on 10-plus acres resembling a section of a golf course, said Robinson. Targets are silhouettes of armored vehicles and, for those training with weapons firing smaller than .50-caliber rounds, people. Robinson said the range's large size allows for soldiers to fire at targets from 200 to 1,400 meters away, as opposed to just 50 to 300 meters when smaller, individual weapons are used.

Its size, said Robinson, makes it "conceivable" that an entire battalion of 400 to 600 soldiers could be trained over a weekend.

Why it was needed

Robinson said that prior to Camp Garfield's machine gun range, Ohio Army National Guard soldiers had to travel to out-of-state facilities in such places as Michigan, Indiana or Pennsylvania to train. Furthermore, for convenience, soldiers often would complete training there that they could do at Camp Garfield.

"I've been in Ohio National Guard 38 years and most of my training has been outside Ohio," he said. "We would travel to other places and it would take a long time and then you're spending a lot of money on fuel and transportation in order to get somewhere to do the training and then get back."

Robinson said a secondary consideration is that guard soldiers from states without machine gun ranges, such as New York and West Virginia, now can train in Ohio.

"We have great hopes that this is going to increase our throughput," said Robinson. "And the more throughput we have, the more funding we get. The more funding we get, the more things we can, you know, more capabilities we can add. That again, in turn makes us more attractive to customers and brings them over."

What local residents can expect

Camp Garfield provides training all year, although the summer months, June to September, tend to see the heaviest activity. Much of this involves firearms, explosives and grenades that can be heard by area residents.

"Normally, when we're doing that training, we've already got a system in place where we notify local authorities − the state highway patrol, sheriff's departments, city police departments − and they do a good job of getting the word out," said Robinson.

Robinson said area residents shouldn't hear significantly more noise because the new range is in the middle of the approximately-21,000-acre training center and surrounded by heavy woods that should mitigate much of the noise.

"We've done a lot of noise reduction, noise analysis," said Robinson. "None of our data is saying it's going to be any worse than the live demo and live hand grenades we've already been using."

Robinson said Tuesday afternoon that a few rounds had been fired Monday at the range to test weapons, and about 400 rounds were fired during the event that morning. He said the event didn't create the usual phone calls from area residents startled by explosive noises.

"So that's one day's worth of data, but there were no no complaints for today," said Robinson.

Robinson said residents might notice a greater volume of vehicle traffic from convoys to and from the camp. He said local residents should be aware that the increase in traffic should not cause concerns that the National Guard is mobilizing for a deployment.

What they should note, though, is this influx of soldiers could be a boon for the local economy.

"We really think in this is going to be a windfall for some of the surrounding communities," he said. "You're going to see more training occurring on our post and therefore, you know, they're going to use more gas stations, more hotels, more things around in the community. But only time will tell and only if we execute properly."

Reporter Jeff Saunders can be reached at jsaunders@recordpub.com.

This article originally appeared on Record-Courier: Camp Garfield Joint Military Training Center opens machine gun range