Desert Phase Question

AngryPistols · Post by **AngryPistols** » April 1st, 2004, 6:43 am

I am curious as to why is the Desert phase closed(according to the RTB website) and what was taught there?

Angry

BadMuther · Post by **BadMuther** » April 1st, 2004, 8:37 am

sobersides wrote:Desert Phase closed about 10 years ago (I don't remember the exact date) for a variety of reasons, but I think the major one was financial - it costs a hell of a lot of $ to fly each class out there and back, and it also costs a lot of $ to support a camp out there.

Desert Phase primarily focused on platoon patrolling and also taught basic desert survival skills.

No offense, but I don't remember any basic desert survival skills being taught there in 10-92.....punk bunk during the day and patrolling at night...mostly ambushes vs. raids.

AngryPistols · Post by **AngryPistols** » April 1st, 2004, 8:37 am

Ranger Sobersides,

Thanks for the info.

Angry

RRDTm3 · Post by **RRDTm3** » April 2nd, 2004, 11:48 am

i thought Dugway Utah was the best place i have ever been to.

no bs either

Silverback · Post by **Silverback** » April 6th, 2004, 2:57 pm

Dugway Utah...Let's see where do I start? I can bitch about getting "Desert Training" in a place where it only got above zero once while we were there! I could whine about having my meal of the day being a Ham and Chicken loaf popsicle. I could lament (not fondly) on the fact that we had all that flat desert to train in after coming out of mountains, of course our first movement was from our planning area (GP mediums) to a horrendus ridge line about 20-30 Ks away.

For my era (2-87) the cadre from the mountains acted as cadre for the desert. I think they drew straws and whoever lost got stuck going to Dugway. The cadre seemed almost as miserable as we were!

Oh yeah in Dugway I was diagnosed with a hernia...I Still made it straight through! All in all Dugway was my least favorite place during my least favorite time in my entire life! But that's what makes Ranger school the awesome experience it is!

rangerrich · Post by **rangerrich** » April 17th, 2004, 8:02 pm

personally I think one or RTBs biggest mistakes was DXing desert phase. I'm not sure if they added days to the other phases or shortened Ranger school, but almost all of our real world missions since that change was in a desert environment. How many real world missions occur chest deep in environments like the everglades?

Farmer40 · Post by **Farmer40** » May 29th, 2004, 9:18 am

Never having been to Dugway, Utah, I can't comment on the training but I can comment on desert weather. Spent a little time in the Iranian desert just south of Tehran in '78 and over on the Turkish border in '79. Nights were cold, around freezing in the south and around zero over on the border. Snow in both places. The days were cold as well. So nasty weather in the desert is just good training. High desert is just frozen sand.

Ranger2 · Post by **Ranger2** » May 29th, 2004, 10:49 am

Desert phase while freezing almost every night and not very warm during the day either was better than mountains. Texas was around zero every night and about 50 during the day. But that 50 degree temp difference sucked. I remember feeling that cold sand all the way through your sleeping bag which they only let us use if it got 10 degrees or below or some bullshit rule or something. Yucca fires didn't even seem to warm you up.

I think it was a huge mistake to eliminate it. Just to get used to the terrain and moving in the desert. Until you move in the desert and get used to the distances it is hard to imagine.

I am pretty sure Desert Sloth remembers walking acrossed the desert in Nevada in a place we weren't offically at and walking towards a light tower and it never got any closer for a day. Just a blinking light in the distance. It seemed like we heard "just over that hill" forever.

Ranger2

Andy · Post by **Andy** » June 1st, 2004, 10:24 pm

Mogie Dugway is an awesome place. Most all of my family vacations have been there. Were you Rangers down below, or up top?Beautiful place, but im guessing Ranger school sucks the beauty out of everything.

andy

Silverback · Post by **Silverback** » June 3rd, 2004, 4:46 am

Andy,
We were not discussing the scenic pleasure of Dugway. As far as I am concerned, dugway is the place God is going to send Satan if he fucks up real bad!

RRDTm3 · Post by **RRDTm3** » June 18th, 2004, 9:11 pm

rangerrich wrote:but almost all of our real world missions since that change was in a desert environment. How many real world missions occur chest deep in environments like the everglades?

sos anyway, i was fucking this chick once down in the everglades....................