M107 Barrett .50 cal Rifle

[akd]

Originally posted by Bigduke6:

[Mr. Picky]

What language is Colonel Stoddard speaking?

What is an:

"Anti-material target"

"Advantage point"

:confused:

This bit is rather murky as well:

“We’re also qualifying the XM151 spotting scope...

Last I heard, in modern English, you can qualify for instance an arguement or a statement, but not a material object, like for instance a sniper scope.

Maybe it's a secret Pentagon project, or the Patriot Act exempts lieutenant colonels and higher from the obligation to use grammar, or

maybe terrorists say "modify", "change", and "adapt" frequently, and Stoddard doesn't want any one confusing him with a terrorist.

I dunno. The guy's a field grade, and that's a lot of bad English to pack into three little quotes.

Also, what's the deal with "warfighter" this and "warfighter" that? Dd I miss something, is "soldier" no longer an appropriate term?

:confused:

[/Mr. Picky]

Language corrected through removal and addition of syllables (although I thought this was all pretty obvious). Please bear in mind that verbal interviews do not transcribe themselves to print.

"Material target"

"Vantage point"

"qualifying on"

[akd]

Originally posted by fytinghellfish:

http://anysoldier.com/brian/Afghanistan/

Photos from a 3-man sniper team of the 173rd Airborne in Afghanistan.

I saw that, too, and am noting a trend in the recent pics I've seen: one man of the three is carrying the .50 cal OR the M24, with the other two team-members carrying M4s/M14s.

This would solve the "two-shooter" dilemma raised above, as the team clearly retains just ONE primary, long-range shooter, but with access to either weapon depending on the mission.

The use of a silenced M4 on one of the supporting team members seems to be fairly common as well.

[hellfish]

The continuing commando-ization of the Army.

[Battlefront.com]

I heard it put this one time...

The Army is becoming more like the Marines, the Marines are becomming more like Special Forces, and nobody is becoming more like the Army (OK, I put the last bit in myself, but it is fitting!)

Steve

[Bigduke6]

Hmm, an ueber-army is created, and it beats up on medium and small opponents with its ueber-ness until it comes up against an opponent roughly the same size, at which point it loses because it is so infatuated with ueber-ness it can't handle attrition.

And then for the next six decades (so far) the ueber-army lovers fill the history books with stories about how they actually won all the battles because they were so ueber.

I've heard this somewhere before...

Or put it another way, what would the Founding Fathers say?

AKD: If you transcribed all those statements yourself then my apologies for the Mr. Picky attack, which was totally unprovoked and vicious.

However, if Stoddard is actually talking that gobbltey-gook - and I bet he is - then the reporter did his job right, he just wrote down what Stoddard said.

[akd]

I suspect the reporter wrote down what he thought Stoddard said, hearing civilian speak in place of the not-so-mainstream military speak. "Vantage" is not a word we use much nowadays (but we love "advantage"), and "qualifying on" is meaningless, but we understand "qualifying" in terms of sports, competitions, etc.

I think the anti-material target part was just an unclear statement and those probably were Stoddard's words rather than the reporter's interpretation.

[Bigduke6]

akd,

You're kidding, right? You're telling me "advantage point" is actually the popular usage, preferred by most speakers of modern English today, to the venerable and correct "vantage point"?

:confused:

You may be right of course, but that sure isn't my impression. But I can't prove my impression, so you got me there.

I can't exclude the possibility the reporter got the quotes wrong. But, if you assume the guy was working for a decent publication (and apparently that's the case) then it's pushing credibility to believe both the reporter and however many editors the guy had up the feeding chain didn't notice Stoddard's comments, as printed, pretty much make him look uneducated.

Unless of course that's precisely what Stoddard said, in which case the reporters etc. have no option but to pass on the comments verbatim.

At the end of the day if I have to choose between a professional reporter and a professional soldier on the accurate use of English, I am going to come down on the side of the reporter - that's what he does for a living.

So me, my guess is that's just what Stoddard said. Which is kind of a shame because the guy is obviously intelligent and has interesting things to say, but if he says them ungrammatically, then Mr. Picky will get on his case. :mad:

[Sixxkiller]

Well everyone knows the Marine slogan, "First to Fight, First to Die" right. Well we add something on the end.... "Cause they werent smart enough to get out of the way of the bullet." J/K

Originally posted by Battlefront.com:

I heard it put this one time...

The Army is becoming more like the Marines, the Marines are becomming more like Special Forces, and nobody is becoming more like the Army (OK, I put the last bit in myself, but it is fitting!)

Steve

[cassh]

Hmm, an ueber-army is created, and it beats up on medium and small opponents with its ueber-ness until it comes up against an opponent roughly the same size, at which point it loses because it is so infatuated with ueber-ness it can't handle attrition.

Can you cite a case where a highly trained, motivated and well equipped army have been defeated by an average army of the same size with all other factors being equal?

I think you'll be hard pressed to find one once other significant factors have been removed; i.e. US and USSR fighting conventional wars against revolutionary warfare/insurgency/asymmetric forces in Vietnam and Afghanistan where conventional strategies and tactics are inappropriate and fail to address and grasp the political nettle.

Usually an army living on past reputation is given a kick in the arse when they meet an opponent who has moved on and is outthinking and out-training them. Rarely will you find a thinking army, well led and trained on the receiving end of an arse kicking. But if you can think of any let me know?

Attrition is militarily the domain of the unimaginative and mentally flaccid. Defeating and enemy, not trading body blows, is what warfighting is about. Yes your army must be resilient and able to sustain casualties – but ones strategic, operational, and tactical objectives must never be "kill more of his guys than he kills of ours". That approach is grossly negligent and akin to cold blooded murder in my opinion.

If you think the improvement in training, doctrine, organisation, skills and military craft that is characterised in the phrase mentioned above "commando-ization[sic]" is not a good thing then I worry. Better troops with greater skill sets help commander with greater flexibility, and the ability to achieve their mission more easily with a greater degree of variation – making them more difficult to predict or defeat.

In a modern world under media scrutiny and political observation down to minor tactical engagements/outcomes you need highly professional soldiers who have surgical precision and the ability to operate to very tightly defined ROE. The utility of military force in this environment means commando-ized units are used more and more to fulfil key missions – this is no coincidence.

[Battlefront.com]

Gotta agree with Sixxkiller here BigDuke. You're misunderstanding what is in fact happening. The über Army was set up to defeat a conventional über Army. The threat was real for 50 years and then suddenly it vanished. For a while the Army didn't know what to do because there wasn't a clearly established pattern of threat to adapt to YET. But within a decade it became clear that smaller, less conventional conflicts were going to be the norm for a while. So the Army began its Transformation. Considering the size and nearly a century's tradition of large scale conventional thinking, the speed and success of the Transformation is astonishing. There is still a ways to go, but the understanding is there and the basics are pretty much all taken care of already.

As for being casualty averse... this is overblown. The military will do what it needs to do to win battles. The fact that it emphasizes equipment and tactics that contribute to their safety, as well as the safety of the civilian population, is a good thing. But as Fallujah shows, if it comes to taking off the padded gloves and going in with a big hammer it will do it. It's just that the new philosophy tries to find other ways of achieving good results without having to resort to a more traditional way of fighting.

The alternatives are what the US military (IMHO) still needs work on. Better and better each year, but still room for improvement. Unfortunately, the biggest components are out of their hands and instead in the hands of politicians who are usually incompetent when it comes to war. And sometimes incompetent at everything else too. Kinda hard to win an unconventional war when the political leadership is making fundamental mistakes.

Now, the problem with the "home front" being casualty adverse... this is a different problem. The collective memory of the US population still recalls the utter waste of life and resources that was the "Vietnam Conflict" (heck, even the name was wrong!). They don't want to see wastes like this again. With Iraq they were assured that it was necessary and had to happen right away. When it became clear they were, at the very best, ill informed by their political leaders, that called into question the need to be there in the first place. But since the troops are there, and order is not yet established, the population is largely resigned to staying for a long time at massive expense in terms of Human and monetary costs. But each year that things in Iraq don't significantly improve (not to mention get worse), the greater the call for withdrawal will be. The stronger the call, the less tolerant the population will be about casualties and more bills to pay, which will make the call stronger still. Ying and yang.

Do not confuse this with a situation where the population and the military both feel it is in the right place at the right time for the right reasons. Both have the stomach for large casualties and massive expenditures. It's just that neither want to see the latter happen in the wrong place at the wrong time for the wrong reasons.

Steve