I enlisted as 11H (TOW gunner) back in '95, but it appears it is no longer a job classification.  When and why was it eliminated?  

Thanks.

They did the same thing the 11M MOS. Back around 2002 or 2003 the Army decided to just throw everyone into one MOS as 11B's and got rid of the 11M's and 11H's. Now everyone is just a 11B from leg's to AA and ABRN unit's. It was funny though taking guy's that had been light fighters and throwing them in a mech unit with Bradley's and watching them try to learn the system and shoot gunneries. Then you take the mech guy's that had been doing if forever and throw them into light unit's they were not used to being with out their Bradley's. Most of those guy's ended up going to anti armor companies in the light BN's. As far ARBN and AA guys well it sucked to be them as they either stayed or tried to stay where they were if they couldn't and got sent to a mech unit they hated life.

Yup.
I started out as an 11H1E9
It was a mistake to consolidate 11H into 11B IMHO

Because it's pointless when you could just take a 11B and spend an extra week (if that) teaching him the fine art of steering a missile or driving a Bradley, and give him an ASI or SQI which identifies him as having a special skill that's not really justifiable as an entirely new MOS. The Armor CMF teaches every Cav Scout how to both drive a Bradley AND utilize TOW and Javelin missiles in the span of their OSUT regardless or wether or not the trooper ends up in a light, airborne, air assault, wheeled, or mechanized unit. Infantry does the same since neither are that colossal of a task. This way, Infantry only has to worry about recruiting, and training 2 MOS's instead of 5 or 6, and then filling 6 MTO&E tables. Wether one agrees with it or not, its much more streamlined.

Do you really think that the only difference between the Bradley guys or in the old days the 11HE9 guys with our 901s and the 11B guys was "learning to steer a Bradley/ 901"?
The AIT length might have been only a difference of a week or so eve back in the 90s, but having been in a Delta company, there was a lot more to it than simply driving the appropriate piece of metal around for whatever generation of guys you hail from.......

You can send somebody to a 40 hour course and teach them how to shoot TOWs.  If not, they are too dumb to be put in that position, and move on to the next on the OML.  11M is a little different, but a bradley is pretty damn easy to learn.  Plus the crews generally maintain integrity, while the rotating dismounts usually don't learn shit about the vic period, except how to get in and out.

I learned how to run a Bradley pretty damn well as a 19K in a couple weeks in Iraq.  A 20 minute tutorial got me qualified to sit in the turret on OP's.

I'm not talking the basic mechanics of shooting a TOW

Right, and I learned how to fully crew a Bradley in no time with just OJT.  It doesn't need its own MOS and branch tracking.

The Marines had that same position that we need to reduce MOSs in the late 90s but reverted to there needed to be separate MOSs because of the lack of prepotency and the stunt development of TTP when you had less MOSs.

If you are an 11M, you aren't going to learn much in a week or two of additional training at the 29th.  It's almost all OJT at the unit anyway, the same way 11B Bradley crew do it now.  not having the dedicated MOS just opens you up to other things down the road.

My first unit assignment was with an 11H unit (E Co. 2/7th Inf. 24th ID); we had M901A1 ITVs back then. Back in the early 90s, when I was with the unit. Bubba Clinton was with the whole BRAC thing and trying to streamline the services, so dedicated anti-armor units seemed liken oxymoron.





So the M901s we used to have were decommissioned and chucked over the side of barges into the Atlantic to make artificial reefs.

At least we got one of ours back as a static display in front of the armory