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Do you think a week of Sniper training should go into the mix Kevin? Clean and lube, morning and night? Train to fight, not pass inspections? Training must be realistic, taught by veterans of the recent in country fighters?
All my Combat has been boots, head butts and what ever could be picked up. Spent 5 years as a Bouncer in Liverpool UK, full time day job, 3 nights a week to add to cash for young family, got stabbed twice.
74 this month, missed Korea and Egypt (Brit Army) lucky! And the troubles.
Yep!
Sounds like a lot of spasdic shooting. Aimed fire? Fire discipline? Anyone?
Unfortunately, there are a few problems at work. From the sounds of it, this an arty outfit on one of many small firebases throughout Afghanistan. Most are poorly supported and there has been a general breakdown in basic leadership in huge swaths of the Army. I am sure the Red Legs can put steel on target with their cannons, but most artillery units do little with their small arms outside of basic qual.
Small arms maintenance remains a problem in that most of the Army really doesn't understand guns (nor do they really like guns) and the Army maintenance system is fairly dysfunctional in Afghanistan. There are a lot of half broken weapons in the field right now. People who don't know shit like to bag on the M4. You should see the state of some of the M240's, M249's, .50's and Mk19's out there! Everything is beat to shit.
RESET has been a huge help but the guns that stay in theater don't get a RESET.
So to recap - small arms training and basic soldier skills, maintenance, and good leadership. Sound familiar? Anyone? Bueller?
The overall problem is a lack of continuity in training and combat experience. Experienced NCOs and Officers, rotate out, and new, inexperienced ones, take there place. Lessons Learned, are not documented and stored in a historical file with most units. Which the objective is to learn all that was gained from past mistakes on deployments, on every issue, from training to maintenance. Some of the units I was in, had files going back greater than 15 years. There was everything on how to plan, what resource you will need on a particular mission, how to plan and conduct two gun raids, night aeriel gunnery, etc... Our AAR were known as "shootouts", due to every unit member had a say in what part of that mission went right or wrong and how it went right or wrong. A lot of folks got butt hurt, but everything was recorded, to be placed in historical records to be past down.
For God and the soldier we adore, In time of danger, not before! The danger passed, and all things righted, God is forgotten and the soldier slighted." - Rudyard Kipling
12 mags is 360 rounds.
In 30 minutes that equates to 12 rounds per minute, or one round every 5 seconds. That sure as hell isn't spray and pray.
What's the acceptable rate of fire when under siege, outnumbered by Taliban, and your fellow solider are dying? I'd really like to know.
Dont always assume our soldiers are inept failures.
Kein Mitleid Für Die Mehrheit
What Happened to the American dream? It came true. You're looking at it.
Well Kevinb, I haven't been to war, but I have had crappy ammo! So you STFU! LOL.![]()
If you aren't armed when you take a dump in your own home then your opinion on what is a practical daily carry weapon isn't interesting to me.
Kevin you and several others havepointed out some good issues. For some reason I spent about four hours last night looking into some issues that I thought related not only to this contact, but OEF in general. I've been out of country for what five years now, but from all the photo and video eviadance I see a few things have not changed.
1. Weapons Station SOPs. First SOP's should include those gallon jugs at every weapon station on the FOB, MG's in particular. When the weapons start to act up dump lube on them and things usualy smooth out. Ammo storage. I can't count how many times I found belts of ammo that had been exposed for so long the belts were rusty or dirty. Ammo needs to be rotated and cleaned often. Ammo in fixed sites should be stored in ammo cans. We would link our 7.62 in to long belts and stow them like that in the cans in the positions. 203 rounds also were bunkered in the firing positions.
2. Fire Suppression capablities on the FOB's is lacking. I had traced out a few concepts based off of the old TPU tanks, but you could do it with a blivet to. Bottom line the FOB's need some way to fight a fire if they have one from a TIC such as this.
3. Plunging fires vs. grazing fires. Defense in the mountains is VERY differant then defense in the open. In 95% of all situations you will use plunging fires to engage your enemies. Extreme elevation changes that are often required are not well supported by either the M-192, M-3 or M-122A1 tripods. We often only used our M-240s off the bipod, because we could not get the tripods set up well enough to cover the sector. "Mountain" tripods, the rebirth of the old anti-aircraft tripods, mounting M-66 ring mounts on some sort of hard stand or something like the FN Medium Boat Pintle would assist with returning fire on super elevated targets from a FOB. Free gunning a M-2 or MK-19 at max elevation and max range from a M-1152 isn't going to end a fight.
4. I see video on the new it seems every night showing soldiers and marines in the defense on FOB's engaging targets with the m-249 from the standing position. It's unclear how far away the targets are, but it appairs safe to safe that they are outside 100m. The beaten zone for a 249 fired off hand at a Talib hiding by a rock is preety full of large holes at 100m for the average gunner. From video you can't deduct the reason for the shot being taken in such a manner. Underlying reasons can be as simple as poor positoning of firiing positions. Fighting positions being to shallow and the shelf to narrow to get a good firing position. Target of oppertunity, ect. I keep coming back to construction of the firing positions though. HESCO bastions while solid and simple cause many issues when attempting to depress to engage targets and with construction. Every one we recieved was either to tall or too short to make a good firing position. In all but the oddest terrian grazing fire is impossible from a weapon mounted on a HESCO. While at Baghram we had some high speed conex fighting positions and the shelf was too narrow to mount a tripod.
Of course all of these observations are from the safety of retirement. Of the 4 observations I make, only one cound have been easily dealt with by a PL/PSG or even a BN Commander.
It would be nice to see if SinnFéinM1911, Riverine and some of the SME's down range could comment on these aspects, at least so I don't loose another five hours sleep working on a info paper that will most likely take 3 years to see an outcome.
Last edited by DMR; 10-12-09 at 00:25.
pro-patria.us
guys, lets try and keep the speculating to a minimum.
I don't know what the situation was for them , and unless you were there with them, neither do you. You can take what you read online or in some damn paper for gospel, I wont.
as Kevin B said, aim more, shoot less.
Clean and maintain your weapons, they are yours and its your life and your team mates lives on the line. If someone failed to teach you how to clean and lube your weapon for your stiuation, seek out that knowledge.
Men acquire a particular quality by constantly acting a particular way. We become just by performing just actions, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave actions-Aristotle
The wise man sees in the misfortune of others what he should avoid-Marcus Aurelius
For these things give thanks at nightfall:
The day gone, a guttered torch,
A sword tested, the troth of a maid,
Ice crossed, ale drunk- Havamal
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