Warriors in Peace Operations - Strategic Studies Institute - U.S. Army

The 127th ASB is a Combat Service Support (CSS) unit
consisting of three companies—a headquarters company,
ground maintenance company, and aviation intermediate
maintenance company. The unit personnel authorization is
518 soldiers who are responsible for over 100 pieces of
rolling stock—six 5,000 gallon fuel tankers, one tank
recovery track vehicle, 35 5-ton tractors, and over 30 vans
and flatbed trailers.
The ASB’s structure provides maximum flexibility to the
overall Division Support Command (DISCOM) and
Aviation Brigade commanders, based on mission, enemy,
terrain, troops, and time available (METT-T). The battalion
actually works for the DISCOM commander. However, in
real-world deployments such as Bosnia, the ASB is
colocated with the aviation brigade and task-organized as
required. The mission of the ASB is to provide direct
logistical support to the aviation brigade in concert with the
overall Division Support Command’s support plan. This
logistical support achieves the tactical logistics functions of
manning, arming, fueling, fixing, moving the force, and
sustaining soldiers and their systems.
PRE-DEPLOYMENT TRAINING
The battalion started the initial train-up at Grafenwoehr,
Germany, on May 1, 1993. This was the 1AD’s
scheduled semiannual gunnery exercise for individual and
crew-served weapons training and qualification. The
battalion conducted weapons and qualification training as
well as logistical support for both the 4th Aviation Brigade
and 1-1 Cav for the entire month of May. The battalion
gunnery exercise continued for 1 week, with emphasis on
weapons maintenance, battle sight zero of weapons, and
qualification on basic weapons. The support operations
lasted 3 weeks and included maintenance, refuel and
arming, supply, and movement of supplies in support of M-1
Abrams tanks, M2 Cavalry Fighting vehicles, and AH-1
Cobra and AH-64 attack helicopters. The unit also
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