Fort Bliss opened its gates Tuesday for a special event spotlighting the 5th Armored Brigade's firepower, giving attendees a rare look at the heavy-armored training that normally plays out far from public view. The showcase centered on the brigade's so-called Super Surge, an exercise built to capture dynamic, front-line imagery and audio of armored units in action.
According to KFOX, the event gave attendees an opportunity to see military capabilities on display at the El Paso brigade. The Super Surge itself includes an exercise designed to capture imagery and audio of heavy-armored forces conducting realistic mobilization training, the station reported.
What the Super Surge Is Built to Capture
The goal, per the same KFOX report, is footage and sound that feel immediate and unscripted — what the brigade describes as dynamic, front-line imagery and audio rather than polished promotional material. That emphasis on realism tracks with the 5th Armored Brigade's broader mission at Fort Bliss, which centers on preparing other units for the demands of actual deployment rather than performing for cameras alone.
That mission showed up elsewhere on post in recent weeks. On Sept. 3, a U.S. Army captain assigned to the 5th Armored Brigade took part in a diagnostic Combat Fitness Test at Fort Bliss, according to DVIDS. That training event was intended to ensure personnel meet the physical demands required to prepare deploying units across the total force, the same material states.
A Brigade Built Around Training Other Units
The 5th Armored Brigade's day-to-day work leans heavily on evaluation and mentorship rather than combat deployment itself. First Army has described its Observer Controller/Trainers as experienced leaders and warfighters who coach and mentor the units passing through, per DVIDS's unit page for the brigade. Last year, Observer Controller/Trainers with the brigade's 1st Battalion, 338th Training Support Battalion led an After Action Review at McGregor Range in July 2025, a process the same source says is meant to analyze past training events to identify areas for improvement.
The brigade has also built a reputation around a specific technical niche: countering small drones. Soldiers from the 5th Armored Brigade trained the 1st Battalion, 178th Infantry Regiment in counter-unmanned-aircraft systems in June 2019 ahead of that battalion's deployment to Afghanistan, DVIDS reported at the time. During a 10-day culminating exercise, that battalion detected, engaged and defeated more than 80 percent of the unmanned aircraft it faced, according to the same DVIDS account. The brigade built its approach around layered active and passive defenses running from the battalion level down to individual soldiers, DVIDS noted, at a time when the Army, by its own account, had no doctrinal solution or single program of record for defeating small drones.
Fort Bliss's Busy October on Display
The firepower showcase wasn't the only large-scale military spectacle at Fort Bliss this month. Just three days earlier, the Amigo Airsho brought crowds to Biggs Army Airfield on post, featuring an AH-64 Apache and UH-60 Blackhawk flyover alongside U.S. Navy Blue Angels aerial demonstrations, according to DVIDS. Those helicopters were assigned to the 1st Combat Aviation Brigade, 1st Armored Division, and the event also displayed aircraft and military vehicles from that division, the same report states.
Together, the two events gave El Paso residents an unusually concentrated stretch of access to the hardware and training that normally unfolds behind Fort Bliss's fences. KFOX's coverage of Tuesday's event was captured behind the scenes by photojournalist Oscar Gonzales, with the station noting the broader role Observer Coach/Trainers play in preparing National Guard and Reserve formations for deployments around the world.
