Crew from 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment at Fort Moore to compete for Sullivan Cup

Spc. Noah Eddings, Staff. Sgt. David Riddick, Sgt. Joshua Owen, and Spc. Seth Carter, assigned to the 278th Armored Cavalry Regiment, of the Tennessee Army National Guard at Knoxville, will compete in the 2024 Sullivan Cup competition starting Monday at Fort Moore, Ga. The Sullivan Cup, part of Armor Week, is a competition showcasing tank and Bradley crews across the U.S. and partner nations through a series of challenges designed to determine the world’s best crews in the Armor branch.

The Sullivan Cup is a biennial competition held at Fort Benning, GA, to evaluate the performance of the best tank crews from across the Armor Branch, the U.S. Marine Corps and international partner militaries.

Every year, Armor Week highlights the importance of armor troopers mastering the fundamentals and leveraging mounted warfare skills to claim the trophy and title of best crew. This year’s Armor Week consists of the Sullivan Cup, a biennial competition named in honor of Gen. Gordon R. Sullivan, an Armor officer for 36 years who culminated his service as the 32nd U.S. Army Chief of Staff. The competition rigorously tests and evaluates the best crews of the Abrams tank and Bradley Fighting Vehicle.

The competition requires mastery of individual tasks, technical and tactical competence, and the ability to demonstrate an array of maneuver, sustainment and gunnery skills. The competition focuses primarily on the performance of the soldiers functioning as a crew. The key to success for the winning crew is the training provided at their home station by their unit’s master gunners and tank commanders. The noncommissioned officers (NCOs) serving as master gunners were chosen to serve as subject matter experts to aid and assist commanders at all echelons in the planning, development and execution of training individual- and crew-gunnery tasks, vital to the unit’s effectiveness in combat.

The tank commanders, primarily junior NCOs, are overall responsible for training each crewmember, ensuring proficiency in their assigned position and cross training their crewmembers in other positions. The lethality of our formations begins and ends with the NCO. The Sullivan Cup serves to recognize excellence throughout the force and also to highlight the importance of mastering the fundamentals that maintain a lethal edge over potential adversaries.

Lt. Gen. Ted Martin, then the 45th Chief of Armor established the Sullivan Cup in 2012 The competition embodies its namesake, General (Retired) Gordon R. Sullivan. Gen. Sullivan was commissioned as an armor officer and commanded numerous armor formations throughout his storied career.