Military service poll

[Dillweed]

Originally posted by Bigduke6:

S2, 5/8 Infantry (Mech), 8th ID. 86-89. Our war mission was speed bump smack dab in the middle of the Fulda gap.

Wasn't that the whole 8th? Or am I mistaken?

[Stavka_lite]

US Navy 1974-78 Operations Specialist, No combat but we did chase alot of Russians around the Sea of Japan when they weren't chasing us or cutting off the Carrier during flight ops.

[WineCape]

I didn't start anything; you obviously wore the silk riding pants in all the wrong places. And after all that your mother and I tried to teach you.

Bah! No comment.

If you believe I'm the ~ize, then by all means, 'tis not for me to inform you that your dearest "m" has no warm heart.

[Thin Red Line]

French navy officer, South Pacific, for 14 months. If shark fishing is considered as combat experience, mark me down.

[scoop88]

Fought the Battle of Jefferson Barracks from 1971-77 with 88th Engr Bn, HQ Detachment. Field wireman 36K20. Highlight of military career was when some genius decided to send our entire bn from St. Louis to Fort Riley, Kan., for our annual two weeks of active duty at the height of the "energy crisis" in 1974 after spending active duty in 73 and 74 at our home base. We littered I-70 with broken-down deuce-and-a-halfs. No doubt the summer vacationers on the highway were less than amused, especially when we all pulled off to the side of the road for our regularly scheduled stop to relieve ourselves.

[felixgrey]

US Army 97-Present.

Served with 1-4 CAV, 1ID in Samarra Iraq, OIF II.

[Splinty]

U.S. Army '80-92, 11B including Desert Storm,Michigan National Guard '99- and still in including OIF 2.

[KiloIndiaAlpha]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by KiloIndiaAlpha:

This is almost as good as fishing. No actually in some ways it's better, fish don't always bite but Grog Dorosh ...

Bite? Hell, any poster brave enough to profess to a raging crush on me, the way you have, is worth at the very least the 10 seconds of my time it takes to post a response. But once again, you've got the modus operandi all wrong. I hope you're not this daft with girls; instant responses will just get you a "reputation" for being easy. I may need to rethink everything I said about you way back...well, almost 45 minutes ago now.

Anyway, not that I hate the attention, but if you can't bring yourself to hate me with the white hot impassioned incredulity I think I deserve, could you at least muster up enough dislike to at least freaking spellcheck your insults? I have a reputation, too, you know. Usually it's only the halfwits who get "anoyed" (sic) by my existence. You need to prove you're better than them! For MY sake. </font>

[MOS was 71331]

US Army, Corps of Engineers.

ROTC at Carnegie Institute of Technology in Pittsburgh, PA

Engineer Officer Basic at Ft Belvoir, VA

Jump school at Ft Benning, GA

Platoon leader, bn staff officer, with 2d Engr Bn of 2d Inf Div in Korea

Also worked on the Safeguard ABM system at the test site on the Kwajalein Atoll.

Two years active duty, May 1966 to May 1968, followed by five or six years in army reserves.

[J Ruddy]

Originally posted by KiloIndiaAlpha:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by KiloIndiaAlpha:

This is almost as good as fishing. No actually in some ways it's better, fish don't always bite but Grog Dorosh ...

Bite? Hell, any poster brave enough to profess to a raging crush on me, the way you have, is worth at the very least the 10 seconds of my time it takes to post a response. But once again, you've got the modus operandi all wrong. I hope you're not this daft with girls; instant responses will just get you a "reputation" for being easy. I may need to rethink everything I said about you way back...well, almost 45 minutes ago now.

Anyway, not that I hate the attention, but if you can't bring yourself to hate me with the white hot impassioned incredulity I think I deserve, could you at least muster up enough dislike to at least freaking spellcheck your insults? I have a reputation, too, you know. Usually it's only the halfwits who get "anoyed" (sic) by my existence. You need to prove you're better than them! For MY sake. </font>

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by J Ruddy:

When you're done showing KIA how to spell, can you teach me how to tie my shoes as well?

Thanks

JR

Bringing this back on topic - sorta - JR, didn't you have armoured corps boots in the sigs? Why do you think black-hatters were called 'zipperheads'?

[Bigduke6]

Originally posted by Dillweed:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Bigduke6:

S2, 5/8 Infantry (Mech), 8th ID. 86-89. Our war mission was speed bump smack dab in the middle of the Fulda gap.

Wasn't that the whole 8th? Or am I mistaken? </font>

[Dillweed]

Originally posted by Bigduke6:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Dillweed:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Bigduke6:

S2, 5/8 Infantry (Mech), 8th ID. 86-89. Our war mission was speed bump smack dab in the middle of the Fulda gap.

Wasn't that the whole 8th? Or am I mistaken? </font>

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Dillweed:

Well from what I hear even if nukes weren't used all of the standing forces in germany would have been a speed bump. Most of the real fighting power would have come from the PONTUS (? forget the accronym) troops.

Are you thinking of CONTUS (Continental United States?) Gwynne Dyer called WW III the 'come as you are' war; he posited that there would be little time after mobilization for increasing production of vehicles, training men, etc. I think other luminaries like Hackett suggested the same; any conventional war would have been fought very quickly with lots of expensive weapons systems being destroyed and practically unreplacable. Whatever armies were standing on the first day would largely be what you had to fight with, unlike WW II.

Glad we never found out. People underplay what the guys in West Germany really did; they scoff at medals for eating sausage and drinking beer, but these guys were the best - at least, the Canadian brigade in FRG was the best equipped and trained brigade in the Canadian Army; I am sure the other forces there were the same - British Army of the Rhine, et al., in addition to the large US forces that would have done a lot of the fighting. A lot of hard training, and a pretty scary premise for ultimate employment.

[Sergei]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

any conventional war would have been fought very quickly with lots of expensive weapons systems being destroyed and practically unreplacable.

You know, if a veteran of the Great War were to read this, he might experience a strange déjà vu...

[J Ruddy]

Originally posted by Dillweed:

Well from what I hear even if nukes weren't used all of the standing forces in germany would have been a speed bump.

Operation Dropshot does support this theory - if a conventional war broke out in Europe (in 1957) the Soviets would have crushed the west in Europe. This report was written in 48 (I think) and declassified in the 70's - and I have a book that someone put it togther in.

What would have happened in 1977? - I don't know - I've never read any in depth studies on it. I suspect not much changed.

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Sergei:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

any conventional war would have been fought very quickly with lots of expensive weapons systems being destroyed and practically unreplacable.

You know, if a veteran of the Great War were to read this, he might experience a strange déjà vu... </font>

[J Ruddy]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by J Ruddy:

When you're done showing KIA how to spell, can you teach me how to tie my shoes as well?

Thanks

JR

Bringing this back on topic - sorta - JR, didn't you have armoured corps boots in the sigs? Why do you think black-hatters were called 'zipperheads'? </font>

[Dillweed]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Are you thinking of CONTUS (Continental United States?) Gwynne Dyer called WW III the 'come as you are' war; he posited that there would be little time after mobilization for increasing production of vehicles, training men, etc. I think other luminaries like Hackett suggested the same; any conventional war would have been fought very quickly with lots of expensive weapons systems being destroyed and practically unreplacable. Whatever armies were standing on the first day would largely be what you had to fight with, unlike WW II.

Glad we never found out. People underplay what the guys in West Germany really did; they scoff at medals for eating sausage and drinking beer, but these guys were the best - at least, the Canadian brigade in FRG was the best equipped and trained brigade in the Canadian Army; I am sure the other forces there were the same - British Army of the Rhine, et al., in addition to the large US forces that would have done a lot of the fighting. A lot of hard training, and a pretty scary premise for ultimate employment.

Agreed. I know its not CONTUS, it was the system where we fly over divisions on commercial ariliners to pre-positioned eqipment. I don't mean in any way to degrade to quality of the western forces in germany, but just based on numbers I don't think they would have made it without dropping the big one.

[Michael Dorosh]

Oh, ok - Canada had a similar system called REFORGER - Reinforcement of Forces in Germany or something like that. We had Militia and even Army Cadets fly over to augment forces there, sometimes on weekends or for weeklong tours; I have some photos on my website of a 16 year old Army Cadet who went over for some time one summer to act as a rifleman in a mech infantry battalion. Apparently it was quite common to do this in the 1970s. Now, Canada is a signatory to some convention on "children soldiers". From all accounts, he had a lot of fun.

Does go to show how desperate they may have been for manpower in FRG...

Days of plenty for the Canadian Army.

[ October 05, 2005, 12:44 PM: Message edited by: Michael Dorosh ]

[General Bolt]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Dillweed:

Well from what I hear even if nukes weren't used all of the standing forces in germany would have been a speed bump. Most of the real fighting power would have come from the PONTUS (? forget the accronym) troops.

Are you thinking of CONTUS (Continental United States?) . </font>

[SgtMuhammed]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:

Days of plenty for the Canadian Army.

Hey! Even more pictures of Hohenfels. My favorite Gasthaus is just up the street from where that picture is being taken.

[hellfish]

You guys are thinking of POMCUS, which has two meanings, I think:

Prepared Overseas Movement from the Continental US

and

Pre-positioning of Material Configured in Unit Sets

Basically it was a bunch of big warehouses filled with all kinds of stuff that, in theory, would allow entire brigades and divisions to be flown into Europe on commerical airliners, do some quick maintenance on the stored vehicles, and then drive right onto the front lines.

They use a similar system today with maritime pre-positioned stocks and storage facilities. Kuwait had a brigade's worth, Diego Garcia had something like a division's worth of stuff sitting on ships, Oman has another brigade or two and Guam has a Marine brigade's worth of stuff. I think there are a couple more pre-positioned asset sites around the world (Okinawa and Spain?) but not quite on the scale of POMCUS (I think the entire III Corps with the 1st Cav, 2nd Armored and 5th ID could move to Germany without bringing a single vehicle with them).

[Michael Dorosh]

Ah, thanks fythinghellfish and General Colt. REFORGER was not like that, then; we sent troops over as augments, but the equipment was there already.

I may have confused CONTUS with COITUS as in OPERATION CANINE COITUS - the slang term one uses for a non-essential use of resources...

[hellfish]

REFORGER, as I understand it, was annual NATO military maneuvers. I know the US would often send over units to utilize some of the POMCUS stocks and give them a bit of a working out, but the maneuvers usually utilized forces already stationed in Germany (with allies - I think there were red/blue armies with USA on one team, UK on another and Germany slit up between them).