Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

Finally, technology has brought simulation to a level of realism that has heretofore been unattainable.

 

Shamelessly stolen from Blackfive.

 

 

Load HEAT

We’ve long liked Andie McDowell. We’ve seen her in all sorts of stuff, but her three biggest roles were probably “Sex, Lies and Videotape” “Groundhog Day” and “Four Weddings and a Funeral”

At least the Army isn’t the only branch that embrace’s the stupid…

I don’t usually think of the Air Force as a fierce band of bloodthirsty warriors. Hell, most of them don’t either. But even our blue suited cousins can recognize there’s a fine line between care for the well-being of Air Warriors and smothering them with preventative safety measures.

Go see what I mean. CDR Salamander has always had a good eye for sp0tting this kind of stuff.

Sudden Jihad Syndrome

Evil rears it’s head at Ft. Hood, TX.

It’s hard enough for the families of  a soldier to cope with the stress of repeated deployments to a war zone. And it’s no cakewalk for the soldiers themselves. But the garrison environment is generally one of the safest communities around.

Army posts are small cities, with all the aspects you would find in almost any town, with residential neighborhoods, a shopping district, a business district, and industrial parks.  But they have historically very low rates of crime.

In fact, this isn’t really a “crime” per se, but an act of terrorism, perpetrated by American soldiers, against American soldiers.

I can’t begin to tell you how my heart aches. Prayers for the families and loved ones of the fallen.

Load HEAT

We’re not really a big fan of Jessica Alba. We just like the way she looks.

Load HEAT- ‘I’ve been slacking’ Edition

I’m still away from regular internet access, which makes blogging somewhat problematical. But I love you, my dear readers, enough to attempt to keep up with what is really important. You know, hot wimmens.

While we don’t have regular internet access, we do have access to television, and have seen more crappy TV than we like. We really aren’t a fan of Regis, but Kelly is welcome into our living room pretty much any time…

 

Is your Smartphone a Weapon?

Here’s a pretty interesting article about using smartphones on the battlefield. We’re working on an epic post about communications, but wanted to tease you with this.
I can think of a number of handy uses that a smartphone might have, but I’m pretty analog in my thinking. I’d like to have all my checklists and reports on hand as a reminder, rather than having plastic reference cards for everything.

What would you like to use a smartphone for on a battlefield?  Have you taken your phone to war?

An aside, we’re away from regular internet access, so apologize for lack of posts and pictures of hawt chicks.

Shooting An Anvil 200 Feet in the Air

Heh.

H/T: Theo

ACOG

Down in the comments of this post, commenter Kevin mentioned ACOGs. That naturally raises the question, “What’s an ACOG?”

ACOG is the acronym for Advanced Combat Optical Gunsight. Trijicon, Inc. has made a line of specialty gunsights for the M-16/M-4 family of weapons for years now. And last year, after using a variety of different products from different manufacturers, the Army settled on the ACOG as the primary sight for the M-4.

Back in the Stone Age, when I was a grunt, all small arms, with the exception of sniper weapons, only had “iron sights.” They were fairly accurate, but took quite a bit of training to master. Further, they were very difficult to use in low light, such as early in the morning and late in the evening. They were of course, next to useless at night.

Iron sights on the M16A2

Traditionally, the Army (and to a lesser extent, the Marines) have been leery of adopting optical gunsights, mostly because of their perceived fragility. The other big factor was that they cost money. Now, in an era when a jet can cost more than the GDP of many small countries, you’d think a few hundred bucks for a scope would not matter. But that’s not how the defense budget works. When the Army only has a limited amount of money to buy stuff, they tend to focus on the big ticket items. Small stuff, like small arms and their accessories, tends to get pushed aside.

One of the consequences of the Army going into Afghanistan and Iraq was that there was a sudden push to make sure our troops had what they really needed in terms of all their gear. That freed up a lot of money for things that otherwise just weren’t going to be bought. Grunts have been watching police and recreational shooters use combat optics on their rifles for nearly 30 years. Not surprisingly, there was a big push to update the Army with combat optics.

Now, a rifle scope is actually not what you really want in most firefights. A scope actually narrows your vision and can even make it harder to see the target. But combat optics use what are called “reflex sights” that are meant to be used with both eyes open. This greatly aids in target acquisition and generally keeping up ones situational awareness.

The first big batch of combat optics was the M68 Close Combat Optic, or CCO. Unlike the crosshairs of a traditional scope, the reticle of a CCO is illuminated, making it easier to see, and far more instinctive to use. There was just a simple red dot. Put the dot on the bad guy, pull the trigger, make the bad guy go away. The CCO didn’t even magnify. It just made it easier and faster to aim. About the only drawback to the CCO is that it takes batteries to illuminate the “death dot”, and grunts already have enough to carry, without having to worry about carrying extra batteries.

M68 CCO

Next up, and recently standardized is the M150 RCO (Rifle Combat Optic). This is the Army name for Trijicon’s Advanced Combat Optic Gunsight. The ACOG works along pretty much the same lines as the CCO, but provides some magnification (either 3.5X or 4X) and doesn’t need batteries. It uses radioactive tritium to provide the illumination for the reticle.

ACOG, or M150 RCO

Variations of the CCO and the ACOG are also mounted on the M249 SAW and the M240 medium machine gun.

Infantry in Action

via a blog I’d not seen before, Present Arms, a very interesting snapshot of a small unit action. An infantry platoon in the mountains of Afghanistan gets into a small scrape.

Load HEAT

Let’s see. Bruce Springsteen video. Family Ties. Friends. Dirt. Cougartown. Various movies.

Yep. Courtney Cox.

Ownership

We occasionally get questions from our readers. Unlike Al Gore, we think this is a good thing. In the comments of the last post, reader Kevin Creighton asks:

Ok, this is quasi-related and may be out of your area of expertise, but when I flew into Baltimore-Washington International last year and saw a lot of soldiers transiting thru the airport with rifle cases strapped on to their baggage carts.

How are rifles and sidearms handed out in the Army? Does each infantryman get their own rifle to have and to hold, or are they doled out on a first-come, first-served basis? I figure the SpecOps crowd probably does things differently and snipers/Designated Marksmen as well, but what is the process to get the average soldier get a rifle when they need one?

Good question. This is the kind of thing people who aren’t familiar with the Army want to know, and which I’m happy to address.

Each company sized unit in the Army is of course, organized along the lines of a Table of Organization and Equipment, or TO&E, which specifies how many troops of which grades and specialties that it is supposed to have, as well as all the equipment is is allocated, from Bradley Fighting Vehicles to 3/4″ ratchet wrenches.  Of course, this list also includes all the weapons that the company possesses.

When a company has a change of command, as they tend to do every 18-24 months, one thing that occurs is that the outgoing CO and the incoming CO jointly hold an inventory of every single piece of gear in the entire company. Indeed, the supply sergeant of a company isn’t there so much to order stuff, but rather to keep track of what is on hand. After the inventory, the new CO will sign a receipt for all the equipment. He in turn, has his subordinates sign a further receipt for the equipment they use. For instance, the CO has a receipt for all 13 Bradleys in the company, then has each platoon leader sign for their 4 Bradleys. The platoon leader then has the drivers for each Bradley sign for their vehicle.  Every piece of equipment in the Army? Someone has signed for it and is responsible for it. Lose it? You just bought it.

When you leave a unit, you have to turn in all the equipment. For large items, like a Bradley, this is simply a matter or signing it over to the next driver. Kinda hard to misplace one. But it’s a foolish driver who signs for a Bradley that doesn’t make a very, very close inventory of all the ancillary equipment, such as the tools that come with it. No sense buying wrenches and sockets that someone else lost.

Weapons are a wee bit different. Guns, and to some extent, night vision devices, are what the Army calls “sensitive items”. They get a little testy if you lose one. In fact, if you misplace a weapon during training stateside, pretty much the whole post will be locked down until it is found. If you’re out in the field, you aren’t going home until the weapon is recovered. Units have been known to spend an entire month out in the field, doing nothing but combing the ground looking for a rifle. So, don’t lose your weapon.

Now, to answer Kevin’s question, let’s take a young grunt reporting in to his first unit as an example. PFC Snuffy is assigned to a light infantry company. The First Sergeant assigns him to the 1st Platoon, and the 1st Platoon Sergeant decides to assign him as a rifleman in the 1st Squad, Alpha Fire Team. As a rifleman, his assigned weapon will be the M-4 carbine. Our platoon sergeant will inform the company armorer that PFC Snuffy needs to be assigned an M-4. The armorer will take a look at his list of unassigned carbines, and assign one to PFC Snuffy. So far, this is all a paper transaction. Snuffy hasn’t even seen the weapon. Heck, he might still not have arrived at the company yet. One of the first priorities for Snuffy will be to take a trip to the range. He’ll edraw his assigned M-4, zero the weapon by firing it at a  short range target and aligning the sights until the rounds are striking where he’s aiming, then go to the qualification range and shoot for record with that weapon.

So long as PFC Snuffy is assigned as a rifleman in that company, he’ll have that weapon assigned as his responsibility. He’ll sign for it every time he draws it from the company arms room. He’s responsible for keeping it clean and maintained. He’ll have to qualify with it every six months.  If PFC Snuffy is later assigned as a M249 SAW gunner, he’ll be assigned one of those, and will similarly zero and qualify with that weapon. He’ll clean and maintain it.

Occasionally, the pressures of duty will dictate that someone carry a weapon that isn’t their normal assigned weapon. Let’s say that Snuffy’s team is in the field. The normal SAW gunner is away attending an Army course, and not available to go to the field. PFC Snuffy might be termporarily assigned to act as a SAW gunner for this trip to the woods. He’ll sign out SPC Jones SAW and perform those duties. Afterwards, he’ll get to enjoy the thrill of stripping and cleaning a SAW. But his normal assigned weapon still awaits him.

Let’s take a personal example from my days in Colorado, at Ft. Carson. When I arrived at A/1-12IN, I was  a Specialist (E-4) assigned as a Rifleman/Dragon Gunner for the 1st Squad, 1st Platoon. I was duly assigned an M-16A2 rifle (S/N 1714966, if I recall…). Soon after my arrival, I was promoted to Sergeant (E-5) and assigned as team leader for one of the two fire teams in 1st Squad. As a team leader is supposed to be armed with the rifle, I didn’t change my assigned weapon. I was later assigned as a gunner for a Bradley, and still later as a Bradley Commander. All these positions are normally armed with the rifle, so I never changed my assigned weapon. But when I left the company and moved to a different unit, I left the rifle behind.

To answer Kevin’s question in  a shorter form, what you do for Uncle Sam in large part determines what you are armed with.

As to the Designated Marksmen part of the question, what generally happens is that the company will have a given number of DM rifles, and the company will distribute those between the platoons, who will then choose the troops best suited for the job. There’s not a real hard and fast doctrine to this. There’s bound to be a good deal of latitude extended to very low levels of command to choose who shoots what. But as  a rule, a young grunt doesn’t have much say in what he ends up carrying. That’s up to the needs of the platoon he’s in.

Terminal Ballistics

What happens at the moment of impact? Watch and learn…

Stolen from Ace’s (thanks, Maet)

Obama’s a Winner!!!

Thanks, Cuffy!

Close Combat Marksmanship Training

There’s certainly still a place for traditional marksmanship training in the infantry. A lot of fighting in Afghanistan takes place at fairly long range, since the Taliban usually don’t want to come to close grips with our troops. But since there’s an awful lot of close combat in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Army has finally started to update some training to make it more realistic. If I had tried to shoot like this in my day, I would have been tossed off the range and subject to rather severe discipline.

Load HEAT

Sorry about skipping a week. I know you were unhappy. My stats cratered. Lemme make it up to you.

We first saw this week’s entry on Party of Five, which we only watched because we were temporarily exiled to Ft. Benning for a school, and didn’t have access to wheels to go hit the town. I’ve had a crush on Jennifer Love Hewitt for 15 years now. In fact, I’d forgotten that her appearance on PoF had a spin-off series, Time of Your Life, which lasted a season. And then there was the I Know What You Did... series of movies. And the rather terrible Heartbreakers and some other crappy movies.

When Ghost Whisperer first started, we thought it was a regular vanity project which would crash and burn. Gladly, we were mistaken. It’s doing well on CBS. And Jennifer still looks great!

Click each pic to enlarge.

Obama’s War

There’s a lot of controversy today about Afghanistan, Obama, and GEN McChrystal’s request for more troops. Basically, the issue is that GEN McChrystal wants to shift to a counter-insurgency strategy of having our troops live among the population full time. One reason we never tried this strategy before is that there was concern about being seen as an occupying army. The other part is, it takes a lot of troops to do counter-insurgency this way. In the 24 minute video below, you’ll see a young Marine asking where the people are that would normally be at a market. The local tells them they’ve gone to a different market. In a perfect counterinsurgency world, the Marines would have enough men to cover the other markets. But they don’t. That’s part of what the argument going on right now.

There’s concern, legitimate concern, about how effective this would be. There’s also concern that logistically supporting a force would be difficult. And of course, there’s a very good chance that by spending more time with the local population, and less time patrolling the Taliban’s infiltration routes, we might face more attacks similar to the one that killed 8 American’s this weekend. It’s a real risk.

But manning an outpost in the middle of nowhere that might, or might not, interdict Taliban infiltration doesn’t win the population over. Winning the population over generates intelligence, denies the Taliban the use of the population for shelter, money, and other support. It removes the sanctuary every insurgent force needs.

The nearest analogy I can think of is convoys in WWII. The U-Boats of Germany were sinking merchant ships at a frightful rate. The British Admiralty was loathe to have merchant shipping travel in convoys, as they saw them as a defensive measure, when the warships that would escort them should be used offensively.

But that turned reality on its head. In fact, the convoy was an offensive measure. Instead of having warships hunt willy nilly for U-Boats, by using a convoy, you created a group of merchant ships that U-Boats had to attack, and therefore brought them into range of the escorting warships.

Similarly, if you can provide full time security for a village in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, the Taliban will be forced to either come to you, on ground you are prepared to fight on, with all proper support, or they cede the battle.

Watch the video, make your own judgment, and let me know what you think.

H/T: chad at DPUD for the video.

US Army Action in Afghanistan

Whenever we are pressed for time to write, or just uninspired, we steal from Theo Spark. He and his co-bloggers always find some good stuff.

Again, we watch a patrol of light infantry in the hills and hamlets of Afghanistan. The placard calls it a movement to contact, which is a term of art for an attack when you don’t know where the enemy is.  The idea is to move forward in a sector until you find him. In addition to the laudable goal of finding and killing enemy insurgents, a movement to contact is used to generate tactical intelligence. You’ll notice the patrol is speaking with villagers, presumably asking if there is any insurgent activity in the area, and if so, what type.  Of course, there’s also a “show the flag” aspect of this as well, letting the locals see you and know that you are watching.

Some NSFW language, but as I’ve said, that’s what you get from grunts.

What’s life like in the infantry?

Well, they’ve managed to edit out most of the long days of humping rucksacks up steep hills, freezing your butt off, and time spent doing boring but necessary work, either simple day to day logistics, like filling sandbags and moving supplies, or the drudgery of pre-combat checks.

There’s plenty of NSFW language, but then there almost always is around soldiers in the field.

H/T: Theo

Load HEAT

We went over to our friend The Reluctant Optomist’s place last week, and saw that his Brunette of the Week was none other than Alyson Hannigan. And we thought, hey, I’d bet he’d like to see all the pictures we found when we she was our HEAT Hottie! So we went looking for the link.

That’s when we discovered to our amazement that we had never posted dear, sweet Alyson. Oops.

We’ve been a fan of hers since she was in My Stepmother is an Alien. And we were big fans of hers in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. And of course, the American Pie series of movies. And she’s funny as hell (and still hot) on How I Met Your Mother.

Click each pic to enlarge

Good Morning!

There’s nothing like waking up on a beautiful morning.

U.S. Army Soldiers awake, in their hasty fighting position, after a night patrol in the mountains, near Sar Howza, in Paktika province, Afghanistan, Sept. 4, 2009. The Soldiers are deployed with Bulldog Troop, 1st Squadron, 40th Cavalry Regiment. (U.S. Army photo by Staff Sgt. Andrew Smith/Released) Date Posted: 9/16/2009

It would be a lot nicer if room service would hurry up with the coffee.

H/T: Theo Spark

Load HEAT

I gotta confess a little secret. I think of some of the HEAT hotties pretty much the same way I think of mopeds. I love ‘em, but don’t want anyone to know it.This weeks entry pretty much falls in that category.

Click each pic to enlarge.

Just don’t make me listen to her.

Zapplesauce?

Zapplesauce. Really.

Light infantrymen are obsessed with weight. Everything they take into battle has to be carried on their backs. Some things they don’t have any options about. They have to take their weapons. They have to take ammo. And they have to take water.

But anything they don’t have to take, they won’t. Given the choice of carrying enough warm clothing to keep from freezing, or lightening their load, they’ll fall back on the old adage: “Fight light, freeze at night.”

One item that grunts have to take, but traditionally weighs a lot, is food. Since the early 1980s, the standard Army combat ration has been the MRE. Now, the MRE isn’t bad. Right now, there are 24 different menus, and most of them, if not tasty, are at least edible. But MREs weigh quite a bit. About 2 pounds per meal. They are fairly bulky as well. So if you need to carry two or three days worth of food, you’re talking quite a load.

Grunts being grunts, most folks would take their MREs and “field strip” them. They would remove the meals from their outer packaging, discarding the heavy pouch they come in, as well as any extraneous packaging. A lot of parts of the meal might get tossed out as well.

The Army wasn’t thrilled with this because rations are carefully designed to provide enough calories and nutrients. When you start tossing stuff out, the meals are out of balance. So, the Army started working on a lightweight ration that would get light infantry through the first 72 hours of an operation. After that time, most operations would either be over, or regular ration resupply could take over. For instance, if the 82nd Airborne jumped into combat, after the first 3 days, they could probably count on regular supply channels. And if they couldn’t, they’d have bigger problems than finding something to eat.

The answer to the lightweight ration problem was the First Strike Ration, or FSR. The FSR is a tailor made to provide lots of calories, and to be small and light. It comes in a shrinkwrap pack of three meals, and yet is only a little larger than a single MRE.  Unlike MRE meals, which need a spoon to be eaten, FSRs can be eaten by hand, since they are like “Hot Pockets” or sandwiches.

FSR Components

One of the most popular components of the FSR is a packet of applesausce, fortified with maltodextrose for extra energy. For whatever reason, the Army decided that no one wants to eat “applesauce fortified with maltodextrose”, but Zapplesauce, well,who wouldn’t want Zapplesauce? So the name was changed. In addition, there’s a couple of Army specific energy bars (Called the HooAh bar) and a powder to make an energy drink called ERGO (Energy Rich, Glucose Optimized).

The FSR is a handy ration for folks that just can’t carry a lot of extra weight. But it isn’t designed to feed folks for more than a couple days. For one thing, there’s only a few menus, so people get tired of them pretty quickly. For another, it’s hard to provide long-term nutritional balance from Hot Pockets. Ask the mother of any college student. She knows.

Addendum: While looking for pics of the FSR, I came across the following picture:

Ration Breakdown- Louisiana Manuevers 1940

Back in 1940, they didn’t even have C-rations. Every meal was made from scratch. Each company had it’s own mess cooks and kitchen. The battalion would break down each days ration for the companies to pick up for the next days meals.  I can’t be sure, but this is either a battalion or regimental breakdown.

Claymore!

One of the handier tools in the infantryman’s kit is the M18A1 Claymore mine. The Claymore is primarily a defensive weapon, used to provide close in defense of a position such as a Forward Operating Base.

The M18A1 is a command detonated, directional mine. Unlike most land mines that are buried, then set off by either being stepped on or by tripwires, the Claymore is usually set off by an electrical blasting cap controlled by our troops. The Claymore isn’t buried, but is emplaced on the surface of the ground. It is called a directional mine, because when it is detonated, it sprays a pattern of 700 ball bearings in a fan shaped pattern.

Clacker, mine, and detonating wire.

Like most things in the Army, it’s fairly simple to operate. Some directions are more important than others. For instance, see where it says “Front Towards Enemy?” Yeah, might be a good idea to follow that one. The Claymore can actually be aimed with a fair degree of precision. The fan of fragments is fairly tightly defined, so when emplacing a Claymore, great care is taken to make sure that the mine is aimed at the most likely location of enemy troops.

Watch this video closely. When the mine explodes, you’ll see the smoke from the explosion, but you’ll also see dust kicked up by the fragments hitting the hillside in the background.

Most of the world has a ban in place on landmines. But because the Claymore is used as a command detonated weapon, it is exempt from the ban. It is issued as ammunition. Normally, if a unit doesn’t fire its Claymores, it will collect them for reuse when they leave a position.

There are fairly few places in Iraq where troops can use Claymores without the risk of decimating innocent civilians. Afghanistan is a different matter. The Forward Operating Bases in many remote locations can easily profit from the defensive firepower of Claymores, without the risk of killing non-combatants. The Claymore is effective out to about 100m, and dangerous out to about 250m.

Another use for the Claymore is offensive. When an infantry unit is setting up an ambush, they will try to cover the killzone with Claymores. Since you want to initiate your ambush with the most devastating weapon, many units use the Claymores to initiate the ambush.

One more video, to give you a better idea just how awesome a Claymore can be.

9/11 Remembered

I want to write something. Tell what I was doing, where I was, what I felt.  But everything I’ve tried to write was so trite, it would be insulting.

I was fortunate that I didn’t know a single person lost in the Twin Towers, The Pentagon, or on any of the four doomed flights.  My company had people in NY, but they all came through safely. In any event, I didn’t know them personally.

Every American is my countryman. I may disagree with him on politics, religion, culture, sports, and who makes the best barbecue. But no matter how strong my disagreement, I am wounded when he is murdered.