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offtaskagain

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Everything posted by offtaskagain

  1. The first round of SAPIs were rated to 7.62x39 ball, not AP. The ESAPIs were fielded due to an incident in Al Qaim of several Marines being shot through the chest by 7.62x39 AP. If you've ever seen the documentary about the Marines of Lima Company this event is covered in there. ESAPIs, as those who have worn them know too well, are a good deal thicker and heavier and are rated to .30-06 AP. They do provide a pretty good deal of blunt force protection as well. A bit of late night jackassery by my friends and I revealed someone wearing them can take a full speed impact of an aluminum baseball bat to the chest without so much as flinching. I guess the impact just gets spread out over such a large area it doesn't affect them. I'll leave that energy equation to someone else.
  2. DID thinks its a front for an Iranian purchase.
  3. A mix of both. It's really spectacular seeing an M2 firing Armor Piercing Incindiary rounds at a solid target, like a tank hulk. It's like a roman candle from hell.
  4. There's also a number of pictures taken in the 1991 Camp Doha, Kuwait fire. The one at 1:03 is an obvious one. I also spotted at least one training accident in there. Most of the rest are of "Cojone Eh" in various stages of it's destruction. There are a few that are of IEDs like the one with its turret blown off but overall it's just a few tanks depicted.
  5. While we're on the subject... Marines are getting an entirely new vest
  6. The Buffalo is a huge vehicle. It's damned near school bus size. I really wouldn't consider it a realistic replacement for the HMMWV. It's certainly got it's uses but it's not a utility vehicle like the HMMWV.
  7. My bad. I guess that shows how well your brain functions after a 24 hour day.
  8. [ [ December 30, 2006, 08:11 AM: Message edited by: offtaskagain ]
  9. Yeah for sure. Some people may be suprised by this, but we also plan ahead and bring spare batteries. NVGs last a long time on their AAs, certainly longer than a single night. Radios don't last as long, but everybody with a man pack radio will carry a spare or two.
  10. While your on the subject, are you planning giving the M1114 the option of smoke launchers?
  11. I have to wonder how effective mounting a .50 on the back of a pickup really is. The recoil rocks a 12000 lb M1114 UAH pretty hard. I'd be suprised if a pickup homebrew mount could hold up to the stress for very long. Well I suppose a Jeep could mount it. But that at least had a purpouse built pedestal.
  12. I certainly wouldn't describe the MK 19 as useless. In a serious firefight it would have a chance to shine. Or a long distance engagement like Afghanistan tends to have. Another problem I forgot to mention is the arming distance of the grenades, and the fragmentation of course can be a problem if you fire it too close to yourself. The MK 47 that has been field to Army SF appears to address a great deal of the MK 19s shortcomings. It's smaller and lighter, operates on a closed bolt recoil operated design. and has one hell of an optical/NVG sight. If they replaced the MK 19 entirely with that, even minus the sighting system it would probably be much better regarded. Another link
  13. The 25mm has seen good use over here. If you dig around YouTube for Operation Al Fajr clips theres some of it action there. Still the vast majority of all fires by vehicles, M1 and M2 included, are coax or top mounted MGs. Anything that goes boom has very tight restrictions on its use. The MK 19 is definitely not the most liked weapon in the armory. It's not reliable, it produces duds, and it's heavy to manipulate in a turret. The ammo is a major bitch too. I don't think I've heard of anybody bothering to fire one in quite some time. In fact all the units I've been with usually just leave them in their armory. The M249 is a good enough weapon, but it's round has trouble with the brick and conrete structures that are prevelant in the cities. It's also avoided if possible on turret mounts because it's perceived as not being as effective against a vehicle as an M240. I personally am quite sure it will shred any civilian vehicle. [ December 06, 2006, 06:06 AM: Message edited by: offtaskagain ]
  14. The answer to reinforced concrete is the delay fuse and large caliber. 60mm and 81mm mortar systems are not much use in an urban environment due to their low penetrating power and small explosive filler. 120mm systems on the other hand have been found to be capable of causing all kinds of problems for brick and low quality concrete buildings. Anything above that with a delay fuse should eat up smaller reinforced concrete structures. Bigger buildings like the Stalingrad mill or a hardened bunker would require aerial ordnance. The building destroyed by the GMLRS was most likely one of the shoddily built cinderblockish structures common to this part of the world. They might be able to stop 5.56 rounds but I wouldnt rate them any better than that. I've got another example video that I just posted on Youtube from my time in Haditha with 3/3. I didn't take it but I got it from one of the guys who was there and confirmed the ordnance amounts with the battalion air shop. The building was a large 3 story reinforced concrete hotel that was destroyed by 4 2000lb JDAMS and 4 500lb JDAMS. There was also a pair of M1A1s firing on it. You can see one round impact in the video. You can also see the Marines involved are well within danger close for a 500lb munition, much less the 2000lb ones. I guess it shows we have alot of confidence in the pilots and weapons these days. I suppose I should put the link in here somewhere. [ November 30, 2006, 05:20 AM: Message edited by: offtaskagain ]
  15. I would assume they have always been that way, since Iraq doesn't really have a highway maintenance department anymore. If I can manage to get my video editor working, I will make a still of the one right outside my FOB that shows "Syria 1km".
  16. Most road signs on highways here in Iraq are in both arabic and english.
  17. I heard about numerous drug stashes being found during the second assault on Fallujah. Having not been there myself I know this can't be considered reliable but I've heard it from a number of Marines that were there. Methamphetamines were the most common ones found.
  18. Semper Fi Nidan1, the Hesco will never replace the sandbag. I've been fortunate enough so far to take over places that already had all of that taken care of. The fire in Haditha was a controlled burn to clear out the vegetation from the drainage ditches. The insect population there was absolutely insane. It put the ole Minnesota northwoods to shame. You can see some of them in front of the smoke in one of the pics. They were so bad they gummed up the cooling fans on my satellite dish and caused the transmitter to burn out. I sprayed them out every day but eventually they just got the best of me. Amazing how gnats can cause about 1.5 million dollars worth of damage. The fire was set in response to that problem. Eventually we got a bug control contract with KBR and the bugs were taken care of.
  19. Hello all. I haven't really made it widely known on here that I've been deployed for the past year but I've decided to start sharing my pictures. I deployed with H&S Company, 7th Marines out of 29 Palms California in January of this year. The regiment is based out of Al Asad Airbase in western Al Anbar province, but due to my MOS I've been detached the whole time to support the battalions or other subordinate units the whole tour. I've worked with 3/1 and 3/3 at Camp Haditha Dam, and I'm currently attached to a Border Transition Team here in Al Waleed. If you want to try to find it, look for the major highway that goes west to Syria and Jordan from Ramadi. I'm where part of it crosses into Syria at the far western tip of the country. It's close enough to the border that I can see the Syrian town on the other side of No-Mans land from my roof. Most of my pictures are fairly mundane, or rather repetitive shots of scenery but there are a number that should be of interest to grog types. In particular the oft discussed gun shields on the M1A1. I'm still sorting and adding to descriptions but at least they are up. I've disabled commenting due to the large volume of idiots that like to leave "I hope you die" type stuff. So without further rambling here is the link My Iraq Photo Album
  20. I think the biggest selling point of the GMLRS is that the Army can now provide itself with a large calibre precision strike munition on minimal notice. From the initial call for fire to impact would be probably be well under 5 minutes as long as the battery was already in place. CAS can be responsive, but only if the birds are already on station. There simply aren't enough aircraft to cover every little operation that's ongoing at any given moment. GMLRS allows coverage of anybody inside the 60km zone, with a very large number of available strikes. Aircraft only carry so much ordnance, and as mentioned by others are subject to weather conditions. Coordination with field artillery is historically much simpler than fixed wing aircraft. The 155mm GPS guided Excalibur round also provides this capability, but its not big enough to drop a building like the rocket can. Targeting is getting easier all the time. We are starting to field targeting systems for our various weapon systems that allow the gunner to get a grid on any object he can lase. The various FIST vehicles should already have that capability, and our Marine M1A1s got it with their new 50x sights this past year. I've also seen a retrofit for the M1117 armored cars. It's only a matter of time before every vehicle gets one.
  21. Artillery definitely has a use in Iraq. The above mentioned counter battery role is the primary, but with Excalibur (think 155mm JDAM) on the way it will have a whole new level of capability. The ability to hit point targets with the precision of CAS and the responsiveness of traditional artillery should be huge. The fielding of GMLRS has already brought some of this about.
  22. Actually we make very extensive use of the AT-4 as well. The SMAW IIRC is issued 2 per rifle company. The gunners are dedicated to that weapon system. All Marines receive basic training on the AT-4 after bootcamp and it is issued very widely in Iraq.
  23. There's quite a few differences. In addition to the above stuff, our primary weapon is the M16A4 with a RCO giving theoretically a longer engagement range. We also have the SMAW at comapany level and 6 shot grenade launchers are being fielded. We use TOW armed HMMWVs instead of the Stryker TOW carrier. Actually we use the HMMWV for all of our heavy weapons. We use MK-23/MK-25 7 ton trucks instead of the new thing the Army has. We don't have any 120mm mortars or MLRS systems, though HIMARS will add MLRS capability very soon. There is a 120mm system in the works called EFSS but I don't see it being fielded very soon. Also it's very common for a platoon of M1s from the division tank battalion to be attached to every battalion, along with a platoon of AAVs. We also use a considerable number of F-18s for CAS. More than the Harrier IIRC. [ October 16, 2006, 02:31 PM: Message edited by: offtaskagain ]
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