Vet 0369

A good friend of mine was part of a USMC M60 machine gun team in Viet Nam. He told me of an assault on a tree line they made across a rice paddy. By the time he reached the tree line, three-quarters of the gun team were down, and he was the last one left. In the tree line, the fighting was hand-to-hand. They were so close, that when he threw a grenade from his prone position, the NVA soldier pushed it back. I didn’t press him any further (I never asked him direct questions, just let him tell me what he was comfortable with telling me).

I believe that the issue with modern armor is “mission creep.” Armor was always envisioned as support for the Infantry, but IMHO, the Generals who employed the armored units fell into the “political” trap of wanting to expand their “empires” by claiming that Armor is crucial to the attack so they could increase the size of their force and have more influence in Headquarters. Folks have referenced Patton’s Third Army was Infantry centric with Armor supporting the Infantry attack. Armor was used like the flamethrower teams, identify a need, follow a cleared path, get out of harms way when the identified threat was reduced. Patton was a Cavalry officer, so he always highlighted his “Cavalry units (I.e. armor) over the Infantry, so it gave an inaccurate picture of the 3rd Army’s actual battle record. Use Armor as it was originally conceived to support the Infantry mission by reducing enemy strong points and providing protection for the infantryman from one enemy “Cavalry,” and you won’t be losing all those expensive toys. Compare the historical uses of Armor by the U.S. Army and the USMC. To the best of my knowledge, the USMC never used armor to “lead” the attack, because they have no “tradition” of Cavalry.

Excellent! The video also seems to highlight that the population is under constant surveillance since the speakers seem to have video cameras, unless someone stuck up a hybrid camera/speaker.

This video is prime evidence why Infantry will always be needed. This man is a GRUNT!!!

Unfortunately, you’ll still need the Grunt. Whatever tech humans can create can and will be defeated by opposing humans, ensuring that you’ll always need the Grunts to go in and dig them out after the Techies” disable or destroy the defensive tech.

This! It really doesn’t matter what your other assets are, be they armor, artillery, air, drone, or space based surveillance, eventually, “someone” has to go in and dig the enemy out of their positions. That “someone” is the Grunt. Even if the position is identified by aerial or space surveillance and the armor or artillery reduce the position to rubble, or air drops a MOAB thermobaric bomb that kills everyone in the enemy position, it’s still the infantrymen who has to clear, occupy, and defend that position. All the others do are to make the infantryman’s job safer or easier (MOAB), or more difficult (arty reducing the position to rubble with fanatic defenders such as Azov). I’ve served in both the USMC Air Wing and the Infantry, and know the strengths and weaknesses of both. I’d also take more infantry in a heartbeat.

This rivalry between services goes well beyond the bizarre. In the 1980s, a DOD plant representative where I worked asked me to help him develop a joint military specification for aircraft turbine engines (there were three specs at the time, one for each of the Navy, the Army, and the Air Force) that basically had different requirements for the same engines. The need developed from an issue with the same engine used on Navy and Air Force airplanes. The Air Force engines were developing corrosion on the turbine blades of the engines, but not the Navy engines. It turned out that the Navy spec required a corrosion preventative coating, that the Air Force choose not to incorporate in their spec because the AF engines weren’t going to be used at sea, but then the AF based aircraft on bases next to the sea and they corroded. The combined spec effort went nowhere because the Army and AF couldn’t even agree on an agenda or need. So much for having the Nation’s interests at heart.

For one thing, one of the main purposes of Infantry in a Combined Arms Attack is to clear and protect the flanks of the armor advance. These are not the days of the WWII Blitzkrieg armored spearpoint when the only infantry AT weapon was the anti-tank rifle. One opponent of mine in the CMx1 scenario “The Library” was stunned when I sent my Axis Infantry through the buildings on either side of the route of my Armor advance. Of course, that was where he had sited his AT Teams and my infantry wiped them out. Combined Arms Operation means everyone supporting each other. When it comes right down to it, Armor, Artillery, and Air exist for one and only one purpose, to support the mission of the Infantry!

The P-51 (Air Force designation F-51)Mustang was never a very effective ground attack platform because of it’s liquid-cooled engine and radiator on the bottom of the airplane that made it very vulnerable to ground fire. That’s one of the primary reasons the “Jug” (P-47) was developed by the USAAF for ground attack duties. Unfortunately, Air Force conception was “shining knights of the air in their powerful metal steeds clearing the skies of opposition!” That’s one of the reasons why, along with costs to maintain the P-47, the newly created Air Force scrapped all the P-47s and used F-51s for ground attack in the Korean Conflict, where they sucked because of their vulnerability to ground fire. Inter-service rivalries exist to this day.

The U.S.Army/U.S. Air Force “Key West Accord of 1947” prohibits the Army from having “armed aircraft.” In fact there was a “major fervor” when the Army put door gunners on helicopters. In the view of the Air Force, even that was forbidden by the Accord. I doubt that there was ever any serious consideration of transferring the A-10s to the Army.

I’m sorry Steve, I usually agree with your historical insights, but as an Historian myself, I don’t agree with this assessment. The majority of Russian population was emancipated from Serfdom (basically slavery bound to the land with no more “rights than other chattel such as livestock) just 160 years ago by Tsar Alexander II, as the last of the “European” countries to ban Serfdom. Just over 50 years later, they effectively became “chattel” again under Lenin until just 32 years-ago when the Soviet Union dissolved . How long in total have the majority of the Russian populations, with the exception of the “intelligencia” and criminals been allowed to practice free-thought and free-speech without fear of punishment by those who rule them? I contend that the Russian people are so ingrained psychologically to think and act as the Serfs they have been for literally thousands of years that we can’t compare the majority of Russian people to those of the U.S. Even the existing Western Democracies such as The UK, France, Germany, and others that had Serfdom are much more inclined psychologically to accept decisions of their leaders than those troublemaking “Yankees!” (Notice I didn’t say “Americans” or “North Americans” as I consider all residents of the Continents of North and South America to be “Americans.”)

Strategically, I’d place the attack on the airbase in Crimea on the same level as the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo!

It needs to be stated here that the Marines were on Guadalcanal for only about six months (August, 1942 to February, 1943). The Marines completed their basic mission “To seize and secure advanced Naval bases,” and turned over the remaining persecution of the Campaign to the U.S. Army and National Guard units, so effectively, while the Marines made the initial shock force assaults, the Army and National Guard completed it.

That is likely true. As I said, I spoke from my experience as a Company Weapons Section Leader in the USMC in the 1970s. The biggest tubes we had were 81s. The Army had the 120s and IIRC, Four-Duces that were originally developed post-WWI Chemical weapons.

Now this really surprises me! Granted, it’s been more than 50 years since I had a mortar section, and technology has undoubtedly advanced in that time, but I never saw a mortar tube of any size that was rifled. All were smoothbore. In order to engage rifling in a barrel, it must be done by the round engaging the rifling as it leaves the chamber, or by expanding the base of the round itself (such as the Minnie ball round developed in the mid-19th century). A mortar round is dropped dow the tube from the muzzle, so there is no chamber, and since the round is not compressible, unless the base of the fins expand to engage the rifling, there is no need way to engage any rifling. As I said, i’s been at least 54 years since I’ve fired a mortar, so I guess it could be different now, but I can’t comprehend why they would do it. Put rifling in a mortar, and you effectively have a howitzer.

Not necessarily so. While the tubes might have been based on the Brandt design, as was the U.S. 60mm M2 mortar, the Soviet/Russian tones use ammunition that is about 2mm larger than the Western designs. That allowed them to use captured ammunition, but prevented their opponents from using captured Soviet/Russian rounds.

Couldn’t read The NY Times OpEd you attached. It’s behind a paywall.

This. No country in the world, today, or in the past is exempt from bigotry and prejudice, and no group is exempt from them either. The types of statements that the above post refers to are universal to the entire race, and attempts to excuse them by saying that “My use of (your term here) camps weren’t as evil as yours” is just an attempt to separate you (not the author of the quoted post) from the “evils” of theirs.”

Let us not forget that the reason Finland joined with the Axis during WWII, was because the Allies took too much time arguing about whether or not it would piss off The USSR which was attacking The unaligned Finland at the time. When the Western Allies (U.K. And U.S.) finally decided to help Finland, Germany have already offered to protect Finland from USSR aggression, and Finland had accepted.

Thank you for posting the link. It’s about 23 miles south of me. Told my wife about it, but our State rate of COVID infections is rising, so probably not for us at our ages. We do have another UKR charity we support though.

Well, live and learn, i stand corrected! Thank you for the reply. I imagine the change was due to the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Interesting that it’s codified in 10 U.S. Code. I wonder if they also changed the Selective Service Act?

Thank you for clarifying that. As I said, an Officer is appointed by Congress, and can and may be recalled up to a certain age. It sounds to me like an administrative SNAFU. God bless him an all of you. He served in one of the most crucial jobs in the Military.

MSBoxer, I very sorry to hear about the loss of your Father. Was he an Officer or Enlisted? If Enlisted, perhaps he had re-enlisted for four years shortly before retiring which would have him still under contract? That’s the only circumstance I can think where one could be recalled. If you still have his orders that activated him, those could shed some light on it.

To be perfectly honest, during my 12 years in the U.S.M.C (1969 to 1981), I have never heard of an “eight-year” contract. The Selective Service Act sets your obligation to six years. If some “creative” Recruiter got someone to sign a contract for eight years with those other conditions, then SHAME ON HIM OR HER and the Commanding Officer for deceiving a gullible 18 or 19-year old with such crap. I’d put them in the same category as the recruiters who deceived the young Russian Conscripts to sign contracts so the could be sent to Ukraine without their knowledge. I I served as a Recruiter for a bit, so I know some of their deceptively vague tricks, but have never heard of anyone doing eight-year contracts. Even the contracts to reenlist are from two to four years maximum. Unless you are under contract, to the best of my knowledge, you CANNOT be forced back into the service unless you were an Officer.

Every male citizen in the U.S. has a six-year “obligation” to serve That is part of the Selective Service Act. Every eligible male is required to register with the Selective Service. Since we now have an “All Volunteer Service,” each individual has the choice of whether or not to “fulfill” his obligation. I f you serve two years in the military, you generally serve two years active duty and four years Active Reserve. Three years Active Duty is (I believe,) two years Active Reserves, and one year inactive Ready Reserves possibly three years Inactive Ready Reserves, and if four years Active Duty, two years Iactive Ready Reserves.At the end of those times, the man has fulfilled his six-year obligation to serve, and cannot be called up under any circumstance. An Officer, on the other hand holds his or her Commission from Congress, and can (ability) and may (permission) be recalled until a specific age, that I don’t know.