CM:SF Marines.

[Imperial Grunt]

OK, that post was fixed. Sorry it took so long.

[Imperial Grunt]

And here is a picture of a romantic evening in Iraq...

Sunset patrol

[Imperial Grunt]

In my opinion, the M-4/M-16A4 with ACOG works real good for target ID and engagement, much better than the Aimpoint as a standard infantry combat scope.

[Imperial Grunt]

Here is a pretty cool recruiting video...

[Imperial Grunt]

Regarding US infantry squad firepower, I wonder if a difference in range, accuracy, and lethality is going to be modelled between a M-16A4 rifle and a M-4 carbine.

The US Army is issuing M-4s, usually with Aimpoint reticles, as a standard infantry weapon while the Marines deferred to the M-16A4 rifle with 4X ACOG scopes. I think that all of the Army light infantry and Stryker formations have M-4s.

The M-4 is very mobile in urban environments and for CQB. It is also very convient when mounted in vehicles. But the shorter barrel reduces muzzle velocity and there have been plenty documentation about reduced performance, especially at beyond 300 meters.

Would this matter in game terms?

[M1A1TC]

Modules that are hot on my list

1. USMC

2. IDF

3. British

[Bigduke6]

I've got it! USMC fights the IDF, in Britain!

Boy, I can't wait for my royalty checks!

[Battlefront.com]

I've got it! USMC fights the IDF, in Britain!

That would be a short game. Each side would take over a certain number of pubs and then the battle would end as soon as they had at leat spot per soldier. Since Britain is basically one big pub crawl, it is possible that the two opposing sides would never even get into shooting range of each other (depending on where each landed).

Steve

[Cary]

Originally posted by LtCol West:

Regarding US infantry squad firepower, I wonder if a difference in range, accuracy, and lethality is going to be modelled between a M-16A4 rifle and a M-4 carbine.

The US Army is issuing M-4s, usually with Aimpoint reticles, as a standard infantry weapon while the Marines deferred to the M-16A4 rifle with 4X ACOG scopes. I think that all of the Army light infantry and Stryker formations have M-4s.

The M-4 is very mobile in urban environments and for CQB. It is also very convient when mounted in vehicles. But the shorter barrel reduces muzzle velocity and there have been plenty documentation about reduced performance, especially at beyond 300 meters.

Would this matter in game terms?

I'd imagine this is a difference between firefight and tactical scale.

[flamingknives]

Originally posted by M1A1TankCommander:

Modules that are hot on my list

1. USMC

2. IDF

3. British

I'd go for three and one, in reverse order.

Two is a weensy bit politically charged at the moment (but 12 months down the line, who knows?) although I'd be interested to compare the tactical implications of the Heavy APCs that the IDF uses.

[Imperial Grunt]

Regarding names of soldiers/Marines in a unit, when the Marine module is published, you could add a LCpl by the name of McCain.

Sunday, Jul. 30, 2006

Like Father, Like Son

Vietnam hero and Senator JOHN MCCAIN has unyieldingly backed the Iraq war. Now son Jimmy is heading to boot camp and, maybe, to battle

By MASSIMO CALABRESI

This September, Senator John McCain's youngest son, Jimmy, 18, will report to a U.S. Marine Corps depot near Camp Pendleton in San Diego. After three months of boot camp and a month of specialized training, he will be ready to deploy. Depending on the unit he joins, he could be in Iraq as early as this time next year, and his chances of seeing combat at some point are high. Of the 178,000 active-duty Marines in the world, some 80,000 have seen a tour in Iraq or Afghanistan, and 25,000 are now bearing the brunt of some of the worst fighting in Iraq. About 6,000 Marines have been wounded there, and about 650 have been killed. "I'm obviously very proud of my son," says the elder McCain, "but also understandably a little nervous."

At 70 years old, McCain might have thought his days of living in the shadow of family military men were behind him. His grandfather, Admiral John S. McCain Sr., served in the Pacific in World War II and was present at the Japanese surrender aboard the U.S.S. Missouri. His father, Admiral John S. McCain Jr., commanded U.S. forces in the Pacific during Vietnam, when the young McCain was a prisoner of war in Hanoi. But if the old men cast long shadows, McCain is about to learn, the young ones can too.

Jimmy McCain's deployment will affect more than his family. His father is a leading contender for the White House in 2008. If Jimmy deploys to combat, it appears that McCain will join Franklin Roosevelt to become one of the very few American presidential candidates to have had a son at war. And even the prospect of Jimmy's service will shade the race. Iraq is the most important strategic and political issue facing the U.S. Many Democrats are calling for troop withdrawal to begin immediately, and the Bush Administration is struggling to reduce troop strength by the end of the year. McCain is the leading voice calling for increasing the number of U.S. troops there.

In the way that happens more frequently in fiction than in life, a McCain family drama is replaying itself. As a prisoner of war, Senator McCain declined an offer of early release by his Vietnamese captors, extending his stay at the Hanoi Hilton by almost four years and nine months. During that time, his father continued to approve air strikes against Hanoi, knowing his son was there. Now comes Jimmy McCain, putting himself in the line of fire even as his father calls for more troops to be sent to war.

Named after McCain's father-in-law, James Hensley, Jimmy is the lively, happy-go-lucky member of the clan, friends say. During the 2000 campaign, a Boston Globe reporter spotted Jimmy, then 11, chasing his older brother Jack around the house, calling him a "pork-barrel spender"--a deep cut in the McCain home. During that year, when McCain was on the road in New Hampshire, the candidate proudly read aloud from a school report on General George S. Patton Jr. by Jimmy that he had faxed to his father: "The Tanks Will Roll On."

McCain's personal influence on Jimmy appears to have outweighed the privileges that came with being his son. McCain is rock-star famous, and his wife Cindy came to the marriage with money as the daughter of a Budweiser distributor. While others have signed up for duty--the sons of Senator Kit Bond of Missouri and Tim Johnson of South Dakota have served combat missions in Iraq--it is nonetheless unusual for children with their background to enlist. By comparison, at least 32 congressional family members were found to be lobbyists, in a recent study by Public Citizen's Congress Watch.

Jimmy knows the risks of war from his father's descriptions of battle, imprisonment and torture in Vietnam. The Senator's book, Faith of My Fathers, dryly relates the experience of "small pieces of hot shrapnel" tearing "into my legs and chest" and tells how, in solitary confinement, "the first few weeks are the hardest," as "the onset of despair is immediate." Not exactly a prime recruiting tool for your kids. Still, when it comes to them, McCain the elder is stoic. "I don't think there's anything unusual about Jimmy," he says. "There are, thank God, lots of young men and women like him."

In some ways, though, Jimmy is breaking with tradition. His brother Jack, now 20, has just finished his plebe year at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, where his father, grandfather and great-grandfather went before him. And McCain, the Navy aviator and keen interservice competitor, has been known to crack more than a few jokes at the Marines' expense. McCain says he doesn't read much into Jimmy's decision. "I know that he's aware of his family's service background," he says. "But I think the main motivator was, he had friends who were in the Marine Corps, and he'd known Marines, and he'd read about them, and he just wanted to join up."

McCain says his son's service won't change his position on the war, and claims it won't even affect how he feels about it. "Like every parent who has a son or daughter serving that way, you will have great concern, but you'll also have great pride," McCain says. But it will be hard to ignore. If Republicans retain control of the Senate after November's midterm elections, McCain is due to become chairman of the Armed Services Committee in January, a position he has long aimed for. There he would have day-to-day responsibility for oversight of the war.

And then there's 2008. McCain already has strong national-security credentials. His son's service only strengthens his position. It will neutralize the assertions of the left that Republicans are "chicken hawks," pursuing the war for ideological reasons without any connection to the pain of it. And it will probably have a broader effect on McCain's credibility. Critics have accused McCain of pandering to the right in order to solidify his front-runner status, but the power of that argument would be diminished if McCain were seen steadfastly supporting a war even as it endangered his youngest son.

More than anything else, though, the country may find itself viewing Iraq through McCain's eyes as it follows his son's progress. And nothing is more powerful for a candidate than sympathy. Nothing, too, is more irritating to McCain, who sounds annoyed by the interest in his son's enlistment. In mid-June, he asked TIME not to run this story, and relented only when it appeared that other organizations might break the news. In response to most of the heavier questions about Jimmy's motivation and the influence he may have felt from his family, McCain doesn't want to play. "He's an 18-year-old kid," he says, and he no doubt remembers what that means. The Senator was such a hell-raiser as a plebe and a pilot that he was nearly forced out of the academy.

Whatever Jimmy's enrollment says about him, his father or the country, candidate McCain is letting it speak for itself, for the most part. Often the clan gathers for a popular July 4 barbecue at McCain's cabin in Arizona. But this year McCain canceled the picnic, and the Senator, his wife Cindy and Jimmy went to the Quinault Indian reservation in Washington State. "We went fishing and hiking and enjoyed the rain forest there as well as the salmon fishing, although we didn't catch any salmon," he says. "Cindy and I were able to spend a weekend with him. And it was fine."

With reporting by Reported by Melissa August, Sally B. Donnelly/Washington

[Imperial Grunt]

Designated Marksman story...

USMC sniper metes out swift death in Iraq

By ANTONIO CASTANEDA, Associated Press WriterSun Jul 30, 12:57 PM ET

He was 5 when he first fired an M-16, his father holding him to brace against the recoil. At 17 he enlisted in the Marine Corps, spurred by the memory of 9/11. Now, 21-year-old Galen Wilson has 20 confirmed kills in four months in Iraq — and another 40 shots that probably killed insurgents. One afternoon the lance corporal downed a man hauling a grenade launcher five-and-a-half football fields away.

Wilson is the designated marksman in a company of Marines based in downtown Ramadi, watching over what Marines call the most dangerous neighborhood in the most dangerous city in the world.

Here, Sunni Arab insurgents are intent on toppling the local government protected by Marines.

Wilson, 5-foot-6 with a soft face, is married and has two children and speaks in a deep, steady monotone.

After two tours in Iraq, his commanders in the 3rd Battalion, 8th Regiment call him a particularly mature Marine, always collected and given to an occasional wry grin.

His composure is regularly tested. Swaths of central and southern Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, are dominated by insurgents who regularly attack the provincial government headquarters that Marines protect.

During a large-scale attack on Easter Sunday, Wilson says, he spotted six gunmen on a rooftop about 400 yards away. In about 8 seconds he squeezed off five rounds — hitting five gunmen in the head. The sixth man dived off a 3-story building just as Wilson got him in his sights, and counts as a probable death.

"You could tell he didn't know where it was coming from. He just wanted to get away," Wilson said. Later that day, he said, he killed another insurgent.

Wilson says his skill helps save American troops and Iraqi civilians.

"It doesn't bother me. Obviously, me being a devout Catholic, it's a conflict of interest. Then again, God supported David when he killed Goliath," Wilson said. "I believe God supports what we do and I've never killed anyone who wasn't carrying a weapon."

He was raised in a desolate part of the Rocky Mountains outside Colorado Springs, "surrounded by national parks on three sides," he says. He regularly hunted before moving to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., as a teenager. His brother also serves in the military.

Guns have long been part of Wilson's life. His father was a sniper in the Navy SEALS. He remembers first firing a sniper rifle at age 6. By the time he enlisted he had already fired a .50-caliber machine gun.

"My father owned a weapons dealership, so I've been around exotic firearms all my life," said Wilson, who remembers practicing on pine cones and cans. "My dad would help me hold (an M-16), with the butt on his shoulder, and walk me through the steps of shooting."

Technically, Wilson is not a sniper — he's an infantryman who also patrols through the span of destroyed buildings that make up downtown Ramadi. But as his unit's designated marksman, he has a sniper rifle. In the heat of day or after midnight, he spends hours on rooftop posts, peering out onto rows of abandoned houses from behind piles of sandbags and bulletproof glass cracked by gunfire.

Sometimes individual gunmen attack, other times dozens. Once Wilson shot an insurgent who was "turkey peeking" — Marine slang for stealing glances at U.S. positions from behind a corner. Later, the distance was measured at 514 meters — 557 yards.

"I didn't doubt myself, if I was going to hit him. Maybe if I would have I would have missed," Wilson said.

The key to accuracy is composure and experience, Wilson says. "The hardest part is looking, quickly adjusting the distance (on a scope), and then getting a steady position for a shot before he gets a shot off. For me, it's toning everything out in my head. It's like hearing classical music playing in my head."

Though Wilson firmly supports the war, he used to wonder how his actions would be received back home.

"At first you definitely double-guess telling your wife, mom, and your friends that you've killed 20 people," Wilson said. "But over time you realize that if they support you ... maybe it'll make them feel that much safer at home."

He acknowledges that brutal acts of war linger in the mind.

"Some people, before they're about to kill someone, they think that — 'Hey, I'm about to kill someone.' That thought doesn't occur to me. It may sound cold, but they're just a target. Afterward, it's real. You think, 'Hey, I just killed someone,'" says Wilson.

Insurgents "have killed good Marines I've served with. That's how I sleep at night," he says. "Though I've killed over 20 people, how many lives would those 20 people have taken?"

Wilson plans to leave the Marines after his contract expires next year, and is thinking of joining a SWAT Team in Florida — possibly as a sniper.

[Imperial Grunt]

Here is a new rifle that the Marine Corps has just adopted as an additional sniper rifle. I believe it is the standard SEAL sniper rifle as well.

Mk-11

[hellfish]

Looks like the SR-series of rifles.

[Sixxkiller]

When I was in Afghanistan, I overheard an Army Captain talking with a woman who asked him if he expected the Marines to show up soon. He said something like, "Marines, we dont need them, havent we ****ed up your country enough already?" I couldnt help but chuckle and the woman looked at me and blushed.

[Imperial Grunt]

This is a section from an article that illustrates what counter-insurgency is like for the most part.

Pretty boring as a wargame.

"Marines said independent tips led them to a cluster of houses near an abandoned train station outside the Taqqadum base, near Fallujah and about 50 miles west of Baghdad. A one-story home in the relatively peaceful neighborhood that Marines often drove by matched the tips.

"Where it's at, there's a mosque, a school. It blends into the neighborhood. It's like any other house," said 1st. Sgt. Chris Reed, 32, of Kirkland, Wash., who helped arrest the first suspect.

On the afternoon of the operation, 20 Marines from Company L, 3rd Battalion, 5th Regiment driving to the targeted home were struck by a roadside bomb, although none was injured. Shortly afterward a second nearby bomb exploded and insurgents fired from a car several hundred yards away.

"We knew it was a limited time window. It was our best shot at it," said 1st Lt. Jake Cusack, 24, of Grand Rapids, Mich., who matched together the intelligence reports that led to the home.

Marines who arrived at the suspect's house presented their stopover as a regular visit. While several spoke with the suspect in his living room, others quickly searched the rest of the home.

Inside, Marines confirmed the house matched their intelligence reports. They said they also found a slip of paper with Carroll's name written on it, $3,600 in U.S. currency and an AK-47 assault rifle hidden in a car outside. They also discovered a false ceiling in the shower, which had been used to hide explosives in the past.

"Hey, sir, don't react but this is it," Cusack recalled radioing to his commanding officer, who was still chatting with the suspect.

Marines said the suspect calmly responded to their questions — until one Marine mentioned how a recent spate of kidnappings in the area had angered him.

"He blanches, just for a second, then (a Marine) says, 'All right, you're coming up with us,'" recalled Cusack.

[Imperial Grunt]

Originally posted by Sixxkiller:

When I was in Afghanistan, I overheard an Army Captain talking with a woman who asked him if he expected the Marines to show up soon. He said something like, "Marines, we dont need them, havent we ****ed up your country enough already?" I couldnt help but chuckle and the woman looked at me and blushed.

During my second tour in Iraq I was a civil affairs team leader and my team was attached to 1-32 Infantry, 10th Mountain Division for most of our tour. Everywhere we went the Iraqis made a big deal about the fact that my team and I were Marines, even in front of 1-32's BC.

I guess they were confounded by the fact we could not get past two syllable words.

[Sixxkiller]

Ya 10th Mountain doesnt roll off the tongue like "Marine" does. But Hooah does sound better than Oorah.

[hellfish]

I still feel dumber every time I hear "Hooah." When I was in it was just something to say to the senior NCOs to get them off our backs.

[Imperial Grunt]

We used "hooah" for things that were really f_cked up.

On another note, this is a funny video that some soldiers made in Ramadi. No Marines in it until the last picture with the IED in the ground and the Cobra gunship flying in the beginning.

Hilarious video but they could have included a Marine yelling "ooh-rah" somewhere though.

Lazy Ramadi

[Imperial Grunt]

Found an article about Marine AAVs, the beautiful hogs that they are....

USMC Hogs

[John Kettler]

Imperial Grunt,

Now, that's a new one to me!

Regards,

John Kettler

[Imperial Grunt]

Here are some USMC videos I found, I think the Phantom Fury one has been posted before, but what the hell!

Devil Dogs

Phantom Fury

[MoNuckah]

I think BF should give you a very small random chance of getting a SMAW operator named 'Mason' that has a higher rate of fire than the usual Lance Corporal.

[Imperial Grunt]

Sounds good to me!