Ask a Soldier

[Flying Pig]

joking to themselves - "that must be a staff officer - he's actually wearing a gun here in Granby!

Touché - well, Patton always wore his grenades (as did Schwarzkopf, so they say), and if it's good enough for him it's good enough for us. To be honest, it's not as if it was entirely a nice, safe place to be - one American barracks, not that far from where we were, was mauled by a Scud near the end of the operation, which killed 28 of them.

And on the "lighter side", fatigue has recently (decades) been a consideration in the design and weight of infantry rifles. Just try to imagine the Redcoats lugging those heavy Brown Bess's across the width and breadth of the Empire, taking pot shots from Yanks and Maoris and Boers "out in the midday sun".

Oh, aye - if you look at the SLR and M16, they're built out of plastic rather than wood for that exact reason. The SA80 takes this to a whole new level; a lot of senior NCOs and officers were calling it a 'toy gun' when they first introduced it (and some still are!)

Rifles have had slings for at least two centuries, but it's only been in Iraq and Afghanistan that we've begun noticing those "sling mounts", which carry the rifle at the ready - center chest, freeing up the troopers' hands, and relieving him of the dead weight of the weapon on long patrols. Probably a five dollar item that's priceless in the field.

A normal sling can do that - just swing the rifle around and do the buckle up - but we (the British; Americans don't seem to mind so much) don't like to see troops carrying their weapons like that outside of very safe areas (I had mine slung on my back almost all the time on Granby, for example) - you carry it with the sling un-buckled whenever there's the slightest chance of needing to use it, either at the 'low port', with the magazine rested on your belt, in long patrols where you're not expecting the enemy, or at the 'ready', in your shoulder and ready to fire at a half-second's notice. In fact, our special forces didn't even issue slings, because forcing the rifleman to keep both hands on his weapon at all times not only keeps him alert and ready, but cuts down on noise and slings getting caught on things in the jungle.

 

[Eran of Arcadia]

To be honest, it's not as if it was entirely a nice, safe place to be - one American barracks, not that far from where we were, was mauled by a Scud near the end of the operation, which killed 28 of them.

And rifles are a good defense against that sort of thing then?

 

[Uncle Anton]

A normal sling can do that - just swing the rifle around and do the buckle up - but we (the British; Americans don't seem to mind so much) don't like to see troops carrying their weapons like that outside of very safe areas (I had mine slung on my back almost all the time on Granby, for example) - you carry it with the sling un-buckled whenever there's the slightest chance of needing to use it, either at the 'low port', with the magazine rested on your belt, in long patrols where you're not expecting the enemy, or at the 'ready', in your shoulder and ready to fire at a half-second's notice. In fact, our special forces didn't even issue slings, because forcing the rifleman to keep both hands on his weapon at all times not only keeps him alert and ready, but cuts down on noise and slings getting caught on things in the jungle.

To be perfectly honest, the proper way to "affix your sling and thus weapon" is usually BS and so much hot air.... usually promulgated by Officers and NCOs with too much focus on "what they like" who can't get their head out of their backsides for long enough to consider "what works for the soldier" is what's important. So long as you can effectively employ your weapon quickly and effectively, then quite simply put, anyone's opinion on how your weapon is fitted quickly becomes irrelevant, no matter what their rank is.

EDIT: FP, whilst I'm not going to get into a speculative discussion on what the Secret Squirrel boys in various countries are or aren't up to, needless to say I've been lucky enough train in support roles with some of those guys to know they don't include/exclude kit arbitrarily in any instance.... Same old story really... it's all about appraising the AO and if you need a bit of kit, you use it.

 

[Borachio]

<nvm>

 

[Uncle Anton]

And rifles are a good defense against that sort of thing then?

Mate, unless you're in an air-conditioned demountable office that's only barely in-theatre, having anything's better than nothing.

 

[Flying Pig]

To be perfectly honest, the proper way to "affix your sling and thus weapon" is usually BS and so much hot air.... usually promulgated by Officers and NCOs with too much focus on "what they like" who can't get their head out of their backsides for long enough to consider "what works for the soldier" is what's important. So long as you can effectively employ your weapon quickly and effectively, then quite simply put, anyone's opinion on how your weapon is fitted quickly becomes irrelevant, no matter what their rank is.

I'd say that I agree up to a point - if the drills clearly don't work then they should be changed - you're right, but would say that I've often seen frankly stupid, lazy and dangerous things being done 'because that's what works; the Pams are out of date' - no, the Pams are fine, do it properly. The big example was people wearing their waterproofs outside of their combat jackets - yes, it's easier, but you crash through the exercise area like a bull elephant with that amount of rustling. Ditto wearing fleeces outside, which again is lovely but shows up bright white on a CWS sight - and even in the eighties, the enemy could be relied upon to have a few of those. Don't forget that RSM Nasty goes out on the training area and into battle as well, and he's been a cocky lance-jack fresh off his first tour who thought that the Army had got it all wrong.

EDIT: FP, whilst I'm not going to get into a speculative discussion on what the Secret Squirrel boys in various countries are or aren't up to, needless to say I've been lucky enough train in support roles with some of those guys to know they don't include/exclude kit arbitrarily in any instance.... Same old story really... it's all about appraising the AO and if you need a bit of kit, you use it.

Totally agree - your lot Down Under are a bunch of nutters though. The sling hatred actually makes complete sense, bearing in mind that in those days the operational mentality was for Malaya and unbelieveably dense forest - slings would have made (literally) hacking through that a nightmare. Nowadays I don't doubt that they've gone back to using them as standard - from what I remember, almost all of the patrols going out into Iraq at least went out with them, and I can't imagine that the boys frozen in their OPs in the Falklands would have wanted to go without.

 

[Uncle Anton]

I'd say that I agree up to a point - if the drills clearly don't work then they should be changed - you're right, but would say that I've often seen frankly stupid, lazy and dangerous things being done 'because that's what works; the Pams are out of date' - no, the Pams are fine, do it properly.

Oh for sure, I'm not suggesting that an individual soldier should ever have licence to throw things out the window. TTPs, SOPs and Pams are written up from experiences after all. It's like anything, there's usually a happy medium. I guess I was making a point about the opposite end of that medium.

The big example was people wearing their waterproofs outside of their combat jackets - yes, it's easier, but you crash through the exercise area like a bull elephant with that amount of rustling. Ditto wearing fleeces outside, which again is lovely but shows up bright white on a CWS sight - and even in the eighties, the enemy could be relied upon to have a few of those. Don't forget that RSM Nasty goes out on the training area and into battle as well, and he's been a cocky lance-jack fresh off his first tour who thought that the Army had got it all wrong.

I'm with you on this one FP, I never understood the reason why new guys saw the need to wear their wet weather gear the second the sky clouded over. As much as being wet is something you want to avoid, so's having your noise discipline thrown out the window because your issued 'Raincoat, Psychological' makes it impossible to so much as scratch your backside without announcing it to anyone in the grid-square.

Totally agree - your lot Down Under are a bunch of nutters though. The sling hatred actually makes complete sense, bearing in mind that in those days the operational mentality was for Malaya and unbelieveably dense forest - slings would have made (literally) hacking through that a nightmare. Nowadays I don't doubt that they've gone back to using them as standard - from what I remember, almost all of the patrols going out into Iraq at least went out with them, and I can't imagine that the boys frozen in their OPs in the Falklands would have wanted to go without.

Well it makes complete sense if you're jungle-bashing outside Butterworth, no argument there. I remember thinking that was a nasty little bit of TA, and found myself glad that I was "patrolling" through it well and truly after their was any chance that said TA may contain some SKS-wielding insurgent

Of course, the other caveat I do have to raise is that I never had to swing a bloody huge gat like a L1A1 or M-60 around....

 

[Flying Pig]

Of course, the other caveat I do have to raise is that I never had to swing a bloody huge gat like a L1A1 or M-60 around....

Heh... that's the only time that being the biggest man in the platoon is a problem; you invariably get the heaviest weapon - in our case normally 'the General'; essentially an M60 chambered in 7.62mm

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Is there training on how to secure an area full of skyscrapers? Is leveling everything the only way to secure a well-developed CBD?

 

[Flying Pig]

Is there training on how to secure an area full of skyscrapers? Is leveling everything the only way to secure a well-developed CBD?

Sun Tzu wrote in The Art of War words to the effect of 'don't touch FIBUA (FISH and CHIPS in less formal terms) with a sharp stick' - we try to avoid even normal house-to-house fighting as much as possible for the simple reason that it takes an excessive amount of time to move a tiny distance on the map, it negates the advantages of most of our favorite toys (especially tanks, which become very vulnerable, and mortars - although the RM had a very inventive use for those when they cleared Basra), and it's really, really bloody. Clearing one skyscraper would be an operation in itself; if we were absolutely forced to fight an enemy in the City of London the brass would probably say 'screw it' and get on the line to the RAF.

Update on the sights question - a few days ago I was talking to a friend who shoots Gallery Rifle (essentially, short-range, fast shooting, often with moving targets) and has recently converted one of his rifles into a long-barrelled pistol. UK firearms laws define a 'legal rifle' as anything with an overall length of over 600mm, and a barrell length of at least 300mm, so an LBP has a barrel just over 300mm long and an extension rod fitted to the bottom of the grip (picture here). He said that he used a red dot sight for his events, which are up to 25m, and finds that much more accurate than traditional open sights - so perhaps there's an argument for fitting that sort of thing to carbines and the like.

 

[Borachio]

<nvm>

 

[SS-18 ICBM]

Sun Tzu wrote in The Art of War words to the effect of 'don't touch FIBUA (FISH and CHIPS in less formal terms) with a sharp stick' - we try to avoid even normal house-to-house fighting as much as possible for the simple reason that it takes an excessive amount of time to move a tiny distance on the map, it negates the advantages of most of our favorite toys (especially tanks, which become very vulnerable, and mortars - although the RM had a very inventive use for those when they cleared Basra), and it's really, really bloody. Clearing one skyscraper would be an operation in itself; if we were absolutely forced to fight an enemy in the City of London the brass would probably say 'screw it' and get on the line to the RAF.

What about a siege though? Assuming the civilian population has fled, you can just cut off power, water, and all access to the city. Problems might be large stockpiles of supplies to allow the defenders to hold on for a long time, which leads to the next problem of enemy reinforcements arriving to break the siege. But this could be done with air power, assuming superiority or better in that aspect. Not sure how effective air defense systems are in such built-up areas.

 

[Flying Pig]

What are your views on Stalingrad?

Haven't read Stalingrad, and I'm sure there are better historians and strategists on here to talk about it in better detail than I could.

What about a siege though? Assuming the civilian population has fled, you can just cut off power, water, and all access to the city. Problems might be large stockpiles of supplies to allow the defenders to hold on for a long time, which leads to the next problem of enemy reinforcements arriving to break the siege. But this could be done with air power, assuming superiority or better in that aspect. Not sure how effective air defense systems are in such built-up areas.

Depends how effective your enemy is - fighting a mythical IRA takeover of London would be a very different proposition to (for some reason) trying to invade New York City in the face of (for some reason) an opposition determined to fight for every building. Seiges in general are a bad idea; it's not a good idea to sit somewhere in full view of the enemy and with limited mobility unless you know something they don't, because it's just screaming 'come and get us'.

 

[Silurian]

A large part of the civilian population tends to stay in the city.
Look at Stalingrad, Berlin, Fallujah, Grozny etc.

And even if you do not care about civilian deaths, artillery and aircraft attacks will destroy the place. But they will not make the place in defensible if people are still willing.

 

[Flying Pig]

A large part of the civilian population tends to stay in the city.
Look at Stalingrad, Berlin, Fallujah, Grozny etc.

Which is one of the main reasons we normally say 'you know what, we can do without it' rather than actually hacking through the place. Civilian deaths are not nice, and not good for PR either.[/QUOTE]

And even if you do not care about civilian deaths, artillery and aircraft attacks will destroy the place. But they will not make the place in defensible if people are still willing.

True, but they will kill a lot of people, and reduce the amount of house-clearing to be done - by reducing the number of houses! That's another good reason why city-clearing isn't very popular; you're given the choice of a deadly environment with intact buildings, or a deadly environment with broken-up buildings

 

[Borachio]

<nvm>

 

[Flying Pig]

What's your views on the jungle. Chindits (?) and all that. The start of the SAS (?).

With regards to the Chindits, I wrote at length on the British campaigns in Burma during the Second World War here, which contains a significant amount on the Chindits - you might want to take a look there. I'm not really sure of what you mean by 'my views on' these things?

 

[Borachio]

<nvm>

 

[Flying Pig]

Well, the conditions are neccessarily demanding - hot, humid, and nasty biting things all over the place - and it can be downright terrifying at times, but at the same time there's something primordially infantry about jungle training and operations. Creeping around a forest with a rifle and the knowledge that the enemy could pop up within spitting distance just seems, in a perverse way, to be a pretty good time in the Infantry book. Does everybody else think I'm a nutcase for feeling that?

 

[Cutlass]

I've heard it said that some guns like the AK, while not great in a number of respects, have high tolerances for dirt and poor conditions. Now I know any proper soldier is supposed to keep his weapon clean enough to use at all times. However it seems to me that there are any number of conditions soldiers get into that make keeping a gun properly clean is a really hard thing to do. What's your take on that? Should guns be designed a bit more fault tolerant because conditions are often harsh? Or should the soldiers be more aggressively drilled in keeping their weapons clean? And if so, how do you handle extended periods of combat in hostile conditions like desert or mud?