Interesting discovery from "Marines of Lima Company"

[John Kettler]

Came across show (about halfway through?) on the History Channel and noticed something remarkable about the amtracs (forget the correct nomenclature).

The amount of topside stowage is simply enormous! The packs and other similar items dangling from the sides are to be expected, but there are also vehicle length rows of cardboard boxes, bags, etc. I've never seen so much stuff piled on an AFV before. Don't know whether Strykers suffer from the same situation, but if so, the 3-D modelers are going to be busy. From a vulnerability standpoint, there are combustibles galore topside.

Also of interest were the withering comments from the Marines about the lousy amtrac ergonomics, starting with a grotesquely inadequate pad in the bench seat. One Marine likened the resultant pounding to "like having a jackhammer up your a#%," followed by the hand eating hatch opening, the exhaust right in the face of those in the open hatch, and the water, also on top, which was described as "boiling." A far cry from the defense contractor/Pentagon "wonderful weapon" PR

releases! Some great operational MICLIC footage, too! Amtrac seems very capable vs. typical Iraqi stone walls.

Regards,

John Kettler

[ November 11, 2006, 04:29 PM: Message edited by: John Kettler ]

[John Kettler]

Just caught something else worth looking into. Combat drug use by the insurgents! Marines involved in clearing a house in Cykla, Iraq describe storming a house hit repeatedly by M1 tank rounds and the insurgent who would not die. Multiple magazines were emptied into one guy still trying to reach his gun. Empty adrenalin vials were found, together

with what the Marines thought might be crystal meth or somesuch. They were rather taken aback by these super insurgents. Will amped OPFOR be modeled, at least as an option for scenario designers?

Regards,

John Kettler

[Homo ferricus]

yes, the amtracks seem widely used in Iraq, i read an article about a group of Marines that ride up and down a road every day in one (they call them "gators") looking for IEDs.

the drug use was pretty amazing too. The gunnery srg. from a squad in Lima Co. said something like "atleast 3 different Marines opened up on the insurgent, they emptied out on him and were swapping in new magazines and he still screamed and yelled and tried to reach his weapon". Similar to the Somalis chewing khat before battles, it made them feel like hot sh*t before they threw themselves into the line of fire.

[civdiv]

A friend of mine is a Marine and in the intel field. I asked him about the drug thing and he said that in his two tours over there he never heard of it.

[Guest Guest]

deleted per user request

[John Kettler]

AdamL,

Good point! Do we need to raise the fitness level as well?

Regards,

John Kettler

[rudel.dietrich]

I do not believe the drug thing one bit

In fact I think it is a complete and utter lie

If you shoot someone with 50 5.56 mm rouns the damage done to the body will tear muscles and tendens to the point where the person will not be able to move even if they want too.

And then you have the kinetic impact of the rounds striking flesh and that is enough to stop you dead in your tracks or knock you backwards.

Shooting one person with many magazines worth of rounds and having them still comes at you is pure trash and has no common sense attached to it.

If it was 9mm M-9 rounds I could perhaps believe it.

Not 5.56mm rounds coming from a military grade assault rifle.

[Sixxkiller]

So Scarface was fake?

Originally posted by rudel.dietrich:

I do not believe the drug thing one bit

In fact I think it is a complete and utter lie

If you shoot someone with 50 5.56 mm rouns the damage done to the body will tear muscles and tendens to the point where the person will not be able to move even if they want too.

And then you have the kinetic impact of the rounds striking flesh and that is enough to stop you dead in your tracks or knock you backwards.

Shooting one person with many magazines worth of rounds and having them still comes at you is pure trash and has no common sense attached to it.

If it was 9mm M-9 rounds I could perhaps believe it.

Not 5.56mm rounds coming from a military grade assault rifle.

[flamingknives]

While I agree that the impact of multiple rounds would do severe damage, I doubt that they would physically stop a person. Since most of the rounds will go through and not impart all their energy in the target, the physical impact will be somewhat less than the recoil felt by the firer.

In the anecdote above, there is an implicit assumption that every round, or even a majority of the rounds fired, hit. In reality, it's quite probable that only a few hit and those hit non-critical areas, while the rest went off into the wide blue yonder.

[offtaskagain]

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.

[John Kettler]

rudel.dietrich,

Even if we factor in the spray and pray angle of frightened men in CQB, the fact remains that the annals of combat show that men can be shot with a .30 cal. rifle straight into the heart and last long enough (~ 10 seconds) to harm or even kill a foe, and that's without being amped on anything other than normal combat adrenalin. This is why the sure stop areas are the brain and the spine. Nothing else will stop an assailant in his tracks. Mossad hit teams were trained to shoot the eyes from the front and the ear canal from the side, using a .22 pistol, from ranges of only a few feet, for this very reason.

All,

Appreciate additional comments on insurgent combat drugs.

Regards,

John Kettler

[Battlefront.com]

I don't doubt the drug angle one bit, at least for those preparing to be Martyrs. In fact, this is pretty much SOP in the ME, just as it was for Japanese Kamikazis in WWII. Alcohol and/or drugs lowers inhibitions and decreases judgement. Like "gee, maybe I shouldn't be doing this!". The IDF uncovered large amounts of hash and pot during their recent incursion into Lebanon too.

Drugs also dampen nerve signals, which means being able to possibly avoid going into shock from injury or managing to do a bit more before the wounds themselves overcome the individual. This will not turn people into unstopable monsters, but it does make them generally more resistant than regular individuals. Ask any cop in any inner city and they'll tell you the same thing.

I also agree that chances are out of the couple dozen bullets fired in the example cited above, probably few actually hit the insurgent. Some probably passed right through him, which temporarily makes a difference. If the Marines backed away and didn't fire another bullet the insurgent would probably have been immobilized and/or dead within a few minutes. But in such situations seconds seem like minutes, so it doesn't surprise me that the Marines were confused and frustrated by the reaction to their fire.

Lastly, the US military did experiments on its soldiers in Vietnam to see if they could boost soldier qualities using drugs. The trials were quite controversial and a failure. The movie Jacob's Ladder was based on this.

Steve

[Nidan1]

"Better Dying through Chemistry"

[cassh]

assassins...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hashshashin

[ November 12, 2006, 04:45 PM: Message edited by: cassh ]

[Homo ferricus]

just to make a note, the insurgent wasn't sprinting at the Marines full-blast or anything, he just kinda plopped out of a bombed out house (it was getting shelled by an Abrams) onto the ground and reached for his rifle. At that point, multiple Marines opened fire on him and emptied their clips and loaded new ones and firing, while the insurgent still laid there yelling and rolling, faintly trying to reach for his gun.

Just to clear that up, because some of you seem to think that he was just running at the Marines with an AK in his hands.

btw, people often die of bullet wounds because they go into shock, not just because they have a hole in them, and like Steve said, adrenalin and meth will keep you from going into shock.

[dixon_el]

In response to civdiv:

Intel probably hasn't heard we're in Iraq yet. Intel never knows what's going on in the field.

DUH..........

[MERC]

Originally posted by civdiv:

A friend of mine is a Marine and in the intel field. I asked him about the drug thing and he said that in his two tours over there he never heard of it.

I think the more intersting story would be how you evaded being killed after he told you his "secret".

[Popfreak]

Originally posted by John Kettler:

Also of interest were the withering comments from the Marines about the lousy amtrac ergonomics, starting with a grotesquely inadequate pad in the bench seat. One Marine likened the resultant pounding to "like having a jackhammer up your a#%," followed by the hand eating hatch opening, the exhaust right in the face of those in the open hatch, and the water, also on top, which was described as "boiling."

Amtracs do suck big time. Team spirit '87 found me in one for about 20 days maybe give or take a couple. It was very uncomfortable. And regardless of the smoke in your face if your got to stand with your upperbody out the upper hatches it was better than being cramed inside.

I fully believe that it was my time in that trac that allows me to go to sleep under any condion.

I have a really good pic of our platoon from TS'87 posing with our track, If someone wants to host it for mke I'll let them post it. You really cant imagine the number of guys we fit(cram) in there. Our platoon, split in 2 squads, plus 2 or 3 mg teams from weapons plt, and also the trac crew

[John Kettler]

Popfreak,

An informative and attention getting post! If you had "fun" with that, then may I suggest you read/reread Viktor Suvorov's THE LIBERATORS, in which you'll find a fascinating description of the big suck on the Soviet side, the BTR-60 PK, the first of the fully enclosed BTRs? What worked reasonably well in the original open topped version became a living hell for the men in it under battened hatches. Apparently even Japanese style "shovers" weren't sufficient, the men could scarcely breathe, etc. And did I mention that because it had two unreliable, poorly synched engines, one of which was usually offline, it frequently couldn't even get out of the rivers it swam across? Indeed, during the famous Operation Dnepr "peepshow" the triumphant river emergence on the far side had to be scrubbed on the spot when the shell plowed banks wouldn't allow the BTRs to exit, forcing the infantry to debark and assault from the water's edge. This was after the artillery failed to cease fire on schedule, causing the swimming APCs to mill about in the middle of the river.

Regards,

John Kettler