CAMP DODGE JOHNSTON, Iowa - Three Iowa Guard Soldiers with the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry Division, were recognized during the U.S. Army's greatest inventions competition after a panel of combat veteran Soldiers voted them part of the most innovative advances in Army technology.
Army Staff Sgt. J. Winkowski along with Mark 48 machine gunners Army Spc. Aaron McNew and Army Spc. Derick Morgan - all with the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 133rd Infantry - created their own prototype design for the "Ironman Pack Ammunition Pack System for Small Dismounted Team" during a recent year-long deployment to Afghanistan.
This high-capacity ammunition carriage system enables a machine gunner to carry and fire up to 500 rounds of linked ammunition from a rucksack-like carrier.
"When we first arrived in-theater (Afghanistan) in late October (2010), we were issued the Mk 48, 7.62 mm machine guns," Winkowski said. "This was a new piece of equipment for us, and we struggled to come up with a solution for carrying and employing ammunition for it due to our small team size and the inability to have a designated ammo bearer, as is common doctrine with the standard M-240B machine gun."
Winkowski wondered aloud how a single gunner could carry a combat load of ammo. In a circumstance of life imitating art, reference was made to actor Jesse Ventura's character in the movie "Predator," who carried an M-134 Mini-gun fed by an ammo box on his back.
Perhaps it was more a case of necessity being the mother of invention, because that's when the light bulb popped on.
Winkowski scrounged an old ALICE (All-purpose Lightweight Individual Carrying Equipment) pack frame, welded two ammunition cans together - one atop the other after cutting the bottom out of the top can - and strapped the fused cans to the frame. To that he added a MOLLE (Modular, Lightweight Load-carrying Equipment) pouch to carry other equipment and the Ironman Pack was born.
"After some initial testing on the live-fire range with my two Mk48 Machine gunners - Spc. McNew and Spc. Morgan - we took it into combat," Winkowski said. "The prototype pack worked just like we wanted it to and we knew right then we really had something.
"We then set out to make another one, to make them even better, and to make it available to as many soldiers as we could," he said.
The original prototype has since been retooled by the Army's Natick (Mass.) Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center (NSRDEC), and is now being used in the field. According to Dave Roy, an operations analyst at NSRDEC.
"It's gotten quite a bit of high-profile visibility and positive feedback that this is a good idea," he said. "I believe we've been able to meet the objectives laid out by that unit."
The Iowans were presented their award by Army Gen. Ann Dunwoody, Commanding General, Army Materiel Command, during the recent Association of the U.S. Army annual meeting in Washington, D.C.