Almost immediately after US forces overran Baghdad in 2003, they started building large logistical bases, called Forward Operating Bases or FOBs. Not surprisingly, these evolved from austere supply dumps to comparatively lavish posts, with many of the comforts of home. Relatively secure and safe, they serve as the home to maintenance units, administrative units, and pretty much everyone who isn’t going outside the wire on patrols or raids. The denizens of these bases, no longer called REMFs, became known as Fobbits. Given the fairly urban nature of Iraq, even small outposts could quickly come to have some of the creature comforts we Americans like, such as internet access, fast food restaurants, and hot and cold running water.
Afghanistan is a little different. It is a largely agrarian nation, with few troops stationed in the cities. Most of the troops are scattered among small villages, many perched precariously on the sides of the rugged mountains that make up so much of the nation. That tends to lead to a very austere lifestyle.
This is hardly the lap of luxury. Still, almost as soon as Marines or Soldiers start to improve the defenses of a cantonment, they start working on making it just a little more like home. It’s what troops do. The Marines of Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines, stationed in Helmand province, figured a home cooked meal was a good place to start. So they built a kitchen.
“We want to live as comfortably as possible, and dinner is a big deal to all of us. Preparing a meal together, cooking together and eating together – it’s just like family.”
Now, my one wartime experience was something of a contrast to that, but in some ways similar. My unit was a part of the VII Corps, stationed in Germany, and it was never designed or equipped (or trained) to deploy away from Germany. So we weren’t very “expeditionary” in the current cant of the DoD. Just getting to the theater for Desert Storm was a major endeavor. But once we got there, we lived out in the field. We didn’t set up any cantonment areas, just basic tactical bivouacs. Each company of the battalion was separated from the next by about 3 kilometers or so, dispersed to present a less appealing target for SCUDs, artillery, or other weapons. Each company position was basically a circular perimeter of the vehicles, with a couple of tents set up for the troops to sleep in. Not bad, since we were used to just sleeping on the ground when we went to the field, but hardly luxurious. Picking up and moving was not a major challenge. We rarely stayed in one location more than a couple days. And we were always miles from any civilization, or even the nearest road.
Today, units are far more adept at deploying half-way across the globe, but far more likely to operate out of one location for an extended period of time, usually near a local population center. They have the time to not only dig in a significant defense, they have the time to improve the position from a comfort point of view.
Via John at Castle Arrggghhh, here’s a Youtube about air-dropping supplies to a Forward Operating Base in Afghanistan, and how GPS technology has made airdropping supplies easier and more feasible.
Yes, that’s the RAF, and they’re resupplying the British Army (ever wonder why it’s “the Royal Navy” and the “Royal Air Force” but not the “Royal Army?”) but the basics apply to US forces as well, with a couple of caveats.
First, the RAF has a serious shortage of Chinook helicopters. They’ve recently signed contracts to buy more, but they’ll be short of helos for a while. With fewer helicopters to move heavy loads, they have to either move supplies by road, or air-drop them. For many missions that the RAF might air-drop supplies, US forces would simply use Chinooks.
The second is that even this isn’t the cutting edge on using GPS to improve drop accuracy. The comment at The Castle points to MMIST, a supplier of air-drop accessories. And while the video seems to show their Low Cost Aerial Delivery system, they also sell GPS guided para-delivery systems. In fact, almost as soon as the Army realized that GPS could be used for more than just pinpointing your location, they started development of a system to guide air-drops using modern airfoil parachutes tied to a GPS system.
And age old military problem has been trying to figure out what the bad guys are up to. When you are a grunt on the ground (or even a brigade commander on the ground), very often, your ability to see what is going on in the battlefield only extends as far as the next ridgeline. In an urban environment, it is even worse- you can’t see around the next corner. As soon as airplanes became viable, the military started using them for observation. Indeed, the whole development of military aviation started as a result of this need for observation. In modern terms, this observation is called ISR or Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance.
Today, in the age of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, getting the high ground is pretty much accepted as the norm in our military. We’ve all seen gun camera video of Predators smacking insurgents with a Hellfire. But while it is nice to have the odd Hellfire land on Jihadi heads, what the ground commander really likes is having an eye in the sky for long periods off time. There’s a couple of different schools of thought about how to use UAVs like the Predator. The Air Force takes a more centralized approach, using the video as the first step in a long-term intelligence analysis, much of which is done stateside. The Army tends to like to use it in a more immediate sense, appreciating the ability to peek over the bad guys shoulder. Both approaches have merit. And there’s a good deal of overlap between them. The only real conflict is in how and where the UAVs are flown. That tension has been enough for the Air Force and the Army to both operate their own fleets of Predators.
There’s three major UAVs supporting the Army in Iraq and Afghanistan. There’s a small UAV called the RQ-11 Raven, designed to support companies and battalions, and it’s basically just a video camera in the sky.
Raven’s are run from a laptop computer on the ground right there with the troops. The feed from the video camera is feed to the laptop, and gives the company commander a good overview of what is happening right now. It is unarmed, and pretty unsophisticated. It’s little more than an electric radio controlled model airplane with a digital video cam. Still, it is handy as heck. Cheap, reliable and an easy way to look over the next hill.
The next UAV system is one that is familiar to most of us from the news, the MQ-1Predator.
The Predator is currently operated by the Air Force. The Predator started out as a simple reconnaissance machine, again, a simple remote controlled airplane with a video camera. Pretty soon after development started, someone figured out that if you go to all the trouble of putting a day/night sensor in a stabilized mount under the nose, you might as well add a laser designator to allow it to “paint” targets for missiles and bombs. And it didn’t take long for someone to figure out that if you have all that, why not cut out the middleman and strap on a couple of Hellfire missiles as well. Now, the Predator could tap high-value or time-critical targets. Mind you, it’s primary mission is still to be a set of eyes in the sky. It’s not really an attack aircraft. The Predator can stay airborne over a target for anywhere from 14 to 18 hours, but can only carry two dinky little missiles. If it is being used to attack targets, it would still normally call on a regular jet to bring the ordnance.
Now, once the Air Force and the Army figured out how handy it was to use these UAVs in strike role, it was a logical step to produce one that was tailored more towards it. Mostly, that meant a bigger drone that had the horses under the hood to carry more weapons. That lead to the development of the MQ-9 Reaper.
You can see that the Reaper looks pretty much like a Predator on steroids. Which it is. No sense reinventing the wheel. Instead of the dinky little 115hp piston engine of a Predator, the Reaper has a 950hp turboprop engine. It’s got a bigger wing, and instead of carrying 250 pounds of weapons, it can carry up to 3000 pounds. It can still provide all the same ISR capabilites, but now, instead of having to call in a fast mover jet like an F-15E, the Reaper can provide serious close air support with 500lb bombs.
One huge advantage to the Reaper is that it is relatively cheap. Now, it’s not cheap compared to the RQ-11, but it sure is compared to an F-15E. One of the big concerns the Air Force has had (and the Navy as well) is that ever since 9/11 (indeed, ever since the end of the Gulf War) they’ve had to keep aloft patrols of expensive manned aircraft over places like Iraq and Afghanistan. That costs a lot of money to operate. Another, hidden, cost is that those hours accumulate on the airframes. Jets can only last for so many flight hours. The services don’t really like burning those flight hours droning around in circles waiting to see if someone needs some bombs. And all the time spend loitering over A-stan is time that could be spent training for other missions.
Now, since the services, especially the Air Force, would rather spend their time and money doing the things they are good at, they have sometimes dragged their feet on doing the tasks they need to do but don’t really like. SecDef Gates, last year, nudged the Air Force and said, basically, “You guys need to spend more time supporting ISR in Iraq and A-stan.” The Air Force leadership basically said “Sure thing” and went back to doing what they were doing. That made SecDef Gates unhappy. So he fired the Secretary of the Air Force and the Air Force Chief of Staff. Suddenly, the Air Force decided they were gonna jump on the ISR bandwagon, whole hog. And since they couldn’t suddenly field a whole bunch of new MQ-1s and MQ-9s, they took a retro step. They took the recon systems from the Predator family, and plugged them into a manned aircraft, the trusty Beech King Air, creating the MC-12W Liberty.
As a short term solution, it’s a pretty simple and cheap way to pump some additional ISR into the theater. All four branches of the services fly some version of the King Air. It’s a very popular and easy to operate airplane.
Now, about that video. Like I said, the Air Force model is to beam the video take form the sensors all the way back to the US (or other ground stations)via satellite and have it analyzed. That’s great, but it doesn’t do much for the grunt on the ground. So in addition, they also use a souped up version of wifi to beam the video directly to the ground, so troops using a laptop can see what the sensors see. That gives them great situational awareness and also lets them refine the tasking. That is, they can talk the sensors onto those things that they really want to take a look at. (There’s a similar program that lets them see what manned aircraft like F-15s and F-18s see through their targeting pods). They can also use this to make sure that the weapons are going to be dropped where they need them.
It turns out that the video signal is unsecured, much like a home wifi that isn’t encrypted. Whether this is because of an oversight, or for technical reasons is unknown. Not being entirely stupid, some of the insurgents have figured out a way to tap into the signal and see if they are being watched. Understand, the insurgents haven’t figured out how to hack the controls that operate the birds, just the video feed that goes to our troops on the ground. Still, it’s not a good thing. This means that some insurgents will be clued in to whether or not they are under surveillance, and maybe getting ready to take a Hellfire through the front door. It isn’t the end of the world, however. It’s surprising how hard it is to tell just what an overhead video is showing if you aren’t used to it. If you look at a Google Earth pic of your hometown, you might be surprised how long it takes you to figure out if its showing your neighborhood or not.
CJ Grisham has been a popular mil-blogger. He was one of the earliest active duty troops to start blogging about what life in the service during the Global War on Terror was like.
He blogged about what his service was like, and he blogged about what his life was like. He earned influence in the mil-blog world. He has twice been invited to the White House to discuss mil-blogging and its significance.
As a show of solidarity, many mil-bloggers are going to protest his treatment by boycotting blogging, either for the day, or for the remainder of the week.
First, milblogs are facing an increasingly hostile environment from within the military. While senior leadership has embraced blogging and social media, many field grade officers and senior NCOs do not embrace the concept. From general apathy in not wanting to deal with the issue to outright hositility to it, many commands are not only failing to support such activities, but are aggressively acting against active duty milbloggers, milspouses, and others. The number of such incidents appears to be growing, with milbloggers receiving reprimands, verbal and written, not only for their activities but those of spouses and supporters.
For once, we have a good reason to skip a day of posting. CJ has some daunting legal issues facing him, and paying the legal bills on a Master Sergeant’s pay isn’t easy. If you are inclined, you can pitch in here to help.
Grisham Legal Fund
c/o Redstone Federal Credit Union
220 Wynn Drive
Huntsville, AL 35893
Please write “Grisham Legal Fund” in the memo line if you use this option.
As Lex says, “The battle for freedom of speech and the marketplace of ideas is fought on many fronts and in many ways. Without your help, the battle may well be lost.”
Update: Welcome, Instapundit readers. Please poke around, but more importantly, go visit the other mi-bloggers above and think hard about helping CJ.
Update 2:
I’ve written to the Garrison Commander of Redstone Arsenal, COL Robert Pastorelli. If you care to write him an email, his address is:
IMCOM-GC-Redstone@conus.army.mil
Here’s the text of my email:
Dear Sir,
I’m writing to let you know of my displeasure with your treatment of one of your soldiers, MSG CJ Grisham. As you know, MSG Grisham became involved with a dispute with members of the local civilian education establishment. In an apparent pique, those civilians contacted his chain of command to express their displeasure. My understanding of the matter is that when his company commander was first contacted, he responded in an appropriate manner. If the civilians thought his behavior was threatening, they should contact the police. If not, he had nothing further to say to the matter.
Sadly, you became involved in the matter, and did not conduct yourself in a way the reflects credit upon you as a leader or a commander. Army Times reports that you used your position as his superior to chastise him for expressing his concerns in a public forum. Indeed, the Army has for 30 years trumpeted the need to care for Soldier’s families, and yet when one of your Soldiers tried to address a critical issue for his family, you took steps that have jeopardized his career.
According to The Army Times:
In the weeks that followed, Grisham says, Redstone Arsenal garrison commander Col. Robert Pastorelli and Command Sgt. Maj. Rickey Cooper repeatedly called him on the carpet, ordering him to remove posts.
I’ve heard that one of the posts you ordered removed was the video of a meeting with the local school board, which provided evidence that MSG Grisham was not only not threatening, but was in fact being threatened and bullied.
I would appreciate your thoughts and comments on this issue, specifically:
Under what regulation or authority did you order MSG Grisham to remove or edit posts?
Which posts did you order MSG Grisham to remove or edit?
Why you, the Garrison Commander, rather than his parent unit commander, undertook these steps.
What are the results of the IG investigation into MSG Grisham?
Who ordered MSG Grisham relieved as a First Sergeant? Was it you, or his parent unit commander?
I’ve posted a copy of this letter to my blog. If you wish, any response you provide will be posted, unedited, in order to provide you with a forum to discuss this.
I think I’ve mentioned before that I hated recruiting. I met a lot of great people, but so much of the job was a pain. Finding people that wanted to join the Army wasn’t much of a challenge. Finding qualified people that wanted to join was a huge challenge.
I talked to a lot of people every day (which was a challenge in and of itself- I’m not the most outgoing person) and even a lot of people that were seemingly a good fit for service were, for one reason or another, ineligible.
There’s only a limited pool of potential recruits, and it isn’t as big as you may think. First, the target market, people from 18 up until their mid-20s isn’t the largest demographic in the country. Then, add in minor things like having a high school diploma, being physically and medically qualified, having a clean (enough) criminal record and passing the ASVAB test. Pretty soon, you’ve whittled down the pool even further. How much.
According to Wired Magazine, as much as 75% of the demographic is unqualified. Ouch. Fatboys seem to be the biggest component of that.
We are hardly an expert on South Korea, having never been stationed there, and only visiting for a month for Exercise Team Spirit ‘87, the annual joint US/South Korean wargames. Still, we found it a fascinating place, and a country that faces some interesting challenges, from a defense standpoint.
South Korea is on a peninsula. It’s only shared border is with its antagonistic neighbor, North Korea. North Korea invaded South Korea in July of 1950. After some truly harrowing fighting, US forces, rushed to the scene, managed to stem the tide, defeat the North Korean People’s Army, and regain lost ground. Disaster struck once again when massive Chinese forces entered the fight on the side of North Korea. Eventually, the lines were stabilized roughly along the 38th Parallel, the original border between North and South. In effect, we were right where we started. US forces have been present on South Korean soil ever since. Still, the South Koreans understand that, ultimately, their security rests on their shoulders. They have made enormous strides in becoming a democratic nation, and a highly industrialized one at that. A large part of that effort has been devoted to their defense industry.
From a strategic and operational standpoint, S. Korea faces a couple challenges. One, N. Korea has a massive army. It may not be particularly well equipped, but it is huge. And that army has a huge number of tanks and armored personnel carriers. Second, S. Korea isn’t that large a country. There isn’t a hell of a lot of room to maneuver on the strategic or operational scale (as contrasted to the tactical level, say, division and below). For instance, the capitol, Seoul, is very near the border, in fact, within artillery range of N. Korea. And being on a narrow peninsula, while it narrows the front you have to defend, and reduces the chances of flanking movements, it also allows the enemy to concentrate, and denies you the opportunity to use flanking movements in the counterattack.
One other thing. Korea is very mountainous. Like, really, really. So if you operate armored vehicles in that terrain, they better have a high horsepower to weight ratio, so they can make it up hills. There’s two ways to increase that ratio- increase the horsepower, or decrease the vehicles weight. Better yet, do both.
The Republic of Korea Army (or ROK Army) is organized along lines roughly similar to the US Army. For many years, it was equipped mostly with US weapons, but S. Korea has long worked at building its own defense industry, both to support its own army, and supply weapons to the international market. Most weapons, while not directly based on US systems, were roughly analogous. For instance, they built the K1 and K1A1 tanks, that bore a familiarity to the US M1 and M1A1 tanks.
As for armored personnel carriers, the ROK army has used a design based on the M113 since the 1980s. It is long been due for replacement. Finally, the Koreans have begun to field a new Infantry Fighting Vehicle, known as the K21 KNIFV (Korean Next-generation Infantry Fighting Vehicle).
One of the most interesting things about the K21 is how they saved weight. The K21 weighs about 26 tons. In contrast, a Bradley weighs about 33 tons. They are similar size vehicles. How did they save the weight? Well, for one thing, they make the chassis out of fiberglass. Yeah, fiberglass. Used in conjunction with ceramics and other materials, they can achieve good levels of protection for less weight. It will be interesting to see how it holds up to the stress of service.
As for armament, they’ve gone with a much larger weapon than a Bradley has. Instead of a 25mm autocannon, they’ve gone with a 40mm cannon. This provides a couple options that the 25mm doesn’t. First, most of the tanks it will face are older Soviet designs such as the T-55 and T-62. The APFSDS round of the 40mm can actually penetrate the side armor of these older tanks. Of course, it is fully capable of defeating armored personnel carriers. Also, with 40mm gun, you can have what are called “programmable rounds” where as the round leaves the muzzle the fire control computer sets the fuze of the round to either burst on impact, after a delay, or at a set distance from the muzzle. This is excellent for troops in the open, or for anti-aircraft fire.
The K21 also has a two-round anti-tank missile launcher, similar to the TOW launcher on a Bradley, but firing a domestically produced missile.
A lot of attention has been paid to the threat IEDs and EFPs pose to Humvees in Iraq and Afghanistan. Heavier armor, jamming of cell phone signals, the CROWS weapons mount and “Rhino” countermeasures have all worked to make Humvees more survivable in an IED environment. Also, moving from Humvees to MRAPs for some missions has increased troop survivability.
Still, IEDs aren’t the only threat Humvees and similar vehicles face. One of the most common weapons on the battlefield is the RPG, or Rocket Propelled Grenade. An RPG is a pretty simple weapon. It’s basically a HEAT warhead with a rocket motor to push it along, all fired from a simple tube. Our guys use a similar weapon, the AT-4, which is a disposable, one shot weapon. The RPG is reloadable.
RPG-7
The RPG is a real threat to light vehicles like Humvees, MRAPs, and even Strykers and Bradleys. Its HEAT warhead can penetrate the armor of just about any armored vehicle short of a main battle tank like the M-1. An RPG hit on a Humvee will often result in death or injury to the entire crew and a catastrophic loss of the vehicle.
So how do you defend a vehicle like the Humvee from RPGs? They are too small to carry explosive reactive armor or an anti-RPG cage. You can’t keep adding additional armor. The chassis just won’t take that much weight.
Well, for a couple decades, the armies of the world have been exploring “active defense” against RPGs (and similar HEAT warheads). Using a radar sensor to detect an incoming round, the active defense would instantly and automatically react to fire a projectile to impact with the warhead. Two big problems have always existed with this. One, the sensors and controls just haven’t been practical until the recent improvements in electronics. Secondly, having a vehicle that routinely has troops (and innocent bystanders) nearby suddenly start shooting off explosives is kinda unsafe. Recently, Artis LLC, in conjunction with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) came up with a system called Iron Curtain that uses a combination of advanced sensors, downward firing countermeasures, and special explosives and projectiles to field a system that can defeat RPG rounds without posing a great risk to dismounted personnel.
The system probably won’t be ready for service for another year or so, but can potentially be a great aid in saving the lives of troops.
One of the things that makes me a lousy blogger is that I don’t like to post my thoughts immediately on issues of the day. I didn’t post my opinions within 5 minutes of the President’s address last night because I wanted to digest them a bit. I also wanted to see what others thought, as that almost always gives me a deeper insight into what I truly think, rather than my first emotional reaction.
Oddly, two of my favorite blogosphere sources are from retired Naval officers, CDR Salamander, and Neptunus Lex. And of course, Drew M. at Ace’s has some thoughts that illuminate. Why take the Navy guys take on what is primarily an Army operation? Well, CDR Salamander is dialed in on the operational and strategic implications of policy changes in Afghanistan (traditionally, I think the Navy has trained its officers to think at that level better than any other service). And Nep Lex has a wonderful clarity of thinking and such a terrific ability to write that you can hardly afford to not read him. As for Drew? Look, I read Ace’s all day every day.
My own thoughts…
1. Good on Obama for adding an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. There is clearly a need for more troops if we are to shift to a counterinsurgency approach there. I think that is the proper approach, vice a counterterrorism approach. And COIN warfare is inherently a manpower intensive approach.
2. Bad on Obama for only adding 30,000 additional troops. GEN McChrystal requested 40,000 troops. You can be sure he didn’t just pull that number out of a hat. He had a reason for requesting the number he did, tempered by what he believes can be logistically supported in theater, and by what the Army staff tells him can be generated for deployment. I’m certain he didn’t just request a number of troops, but rather a particular force structure that happened to add up to 40,000. The President has authorized only 30,000. Which troops and what units did he think that McChrystal didn’t need? Why did he think that? What justification has he given for not including those forces? Does he think the additional 10,000 troops will be forthcoming from our NATO allies (fat chance!)?
3. Other than an arbitrarily imposed timeline that will enable the President to show a troop drawdown, why impose a 2011 timeline? Is this in there solely so Obama can show this drawdown during a presidential election cycle? One of the concerns I had about the surge in Iraq was that it was a “one-shot” deal. It simply had to work, because there was no way the Army could double down, and the ability to maintain that level of effort was time limited. They could surge additional troops, but only for about one deployment cycle, before real issues developed in maintaining readiness. That is potentially a problem here in Afghanistan, but it isn’t nearly the problem that the Army faced in 2007 in Iraq. But when President Bush announced the surge in Iraq, he did not announce that the surge was a limited time offer. In fact, the open ended nature of the commitment was a key component of its success. Those Iraqi factions that were beginning to consider aligning with us were convinced that we would still “respect them in the morning” and weren’t going to leave them hanging. In contrast, President Obama’s speech last night pretty explicitly told the Afghani people, “I’m love you, but I’m not in love with you.” If you were a tribal leader, and had to choose to align yourself and your tribe with either the US or the Taliban, who would you choose? That kind of undoes the whole point of a counterinsurgency strategy. The anti-coalition forces are pretty good at information operations. You can bet that this will be a major bullet point on their presentation.
4. The money thing. Look, no commander gets everything he wants. There are never unlimited resources. The Army understands that. But this sudden pennypinching impulse in an era of massive government expenditures for bailing out banks, and the Porkulus Stimulus spending that magically seems to fund every Democrat pet project of the last 20 years costs a heck of a lot more than funding the fight in Afghanistan. And you may rest assured that spending a ton of money to win a war is a lot cheaper than losing a war by trying to save money.
5. Dithering and deployments… What did the President say last night that justified the three months that it took for him to reach a decision? Nothing. So why did it take so long? And this three month delay is on top of the fact that back in March, the President announced his own new approach to the war and appointed his own commander for Afghanistan. Are we going to see quarterly revisions to strategy all the way through this administration? I understand that circumstances change, and that you have to adapt. But there has been no clear communication of our goals and how we intend to fulfill those goals by this administration (and this isn’t a problem exclusive to this administration. The Bush administration did a poor job in this respect as well).
The President has attempted to make up for his three month delay in reaching his decision by expediting the deployment schedule for those brigades that will be going. I was asked about this at The Hostages last night, and here was my response:
Brad, I’m thinking moving 2+ Divisions into inland and mountainous regions without ports and decent roads is going to take just a bit longer than the first few months of 2010.
Your thoughts?
Dave, the Army has a plan to move them (and more, don’t forget that McChrystal offered options of 80k, 40k, and 20k to Obama). It won’t be easy but it will be doable. The problem is that Obama is gonna “push” the deployment and get them in theatre faster than the original plan.
That will pose logistical problems, I’m sure, but the real assfuck will come in training. Brigades that see their deployment date moved up will have less time to integrate new troops, develop their training plans, implement individual, squad, platoon and company training, less time for cultural and language training, less time for Bn and Bde leadership to do leaders recons on the ground in A-stan and develop their campaign plan.
It’s impossible to quantify, but some troops will die because of these training deficiencies.
6. GEN McChrystal seems to be onboard with the President’s decision. He really has only two choices. Either say “Yes, Sir!” and try to do the best he can, or hand in his resignation. Given that the President has voiced support for his strategy and resourced most of it, GEN McChrystal really had no choice to but accept the challenge. If the President had instead provided only token increases, or none at all, he would have been sorely tempted to call it a day, I’m sure. Still, we as a nation have civilian control of our military, and at the end of the day, expect our officers to do what they are ordered to do by the President. For a theater commander to resign, he better have a damn good reason. And every commander that faces that choice also has to struggle with the issue that he could be abandoning his troops on the battlefield. That goes against the grain of every moral fiber in a soldier.
7. Delivery. For a guy that has a wonderful reputation for oratory, it sure seemed like he was just phoning it in. Of course, I’ve yet to be impressed by his public speaking. I’m biased, of course. I didn’t vote for him, and tend to have an immediate distaste for whatever he’s pitching the moment he opens his mouth. But it seems to me that his best speaking comes when he is making campaign speeches, and his worst comes when he discusses policy. And, to me, he seemed to lack any enthusiasm for what he was selling last night. His handlers like to stage manage this sort of thing, putting him in front of the Corps of Cadets at the US Military Academy. That struck me as being a bit too smart for themselves. While the Commander-in-Chief is guaranteed to have a polite audience there, Barack Obama was unlikely to have an enthusiastic audience there. I still clearly remember when President George H.W. Bush announced the doubling of troop deployments for Operation Desert Shied/Desert Storm in November of 1990. He gave that speech from the Oval Office. It seemed presidential and had the proper gravitas. I didn’t get that impression last night.
Overall, I’m somewhat disappointed and less than fully optimistic for the campaign in Afghanistan. But I’ve not given up hope. I have a near boundless faith in the ability of the American Soldier (and Marine, Sailor and Airman) to persevere in the face of daunting challenge and to overcome. Time will tell the result of the President’s approach to his leadership in what he himself called a war of necessity.
I just found out a bit of sad news (from Neptunus Lex of all places).
COL (USA, Ret) Lewis L. Millet, Medal of Honor, passed on November 14th, 2009. COL Millet, as a Captain, was awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions on February 7, 1951 in Korea:
Capt. Millett, Company E, distinguished himself by conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty in action. While personally leading his company in an attack against a strongly held position he noted that the 1st Platoon was pinned down by small-arms, automatic, and antitank fire. Capt. Millett ordered the 3d Platoon forward, placed himself at the head of the 2 platoons, and, with fixed bayonet, led the assault up the fire-swept hill. In the fierce charge Capt. Millett bayoneted 2 enemy soldiers and boldly continued on, throwing grenades, clubbing and bayoneting the enemy, while urging his men forward by shouting encouragement. Despite vicious opposing fire, the whirlwind hand-to-hand assault carried to the crest of the hill. His dauntless leadership and personal courage so inspired his men that they stormed into the hostile position and used their bayonets with such lethal effect that the enemy fled in wild disorder. During this fierce onslaught Capt. Millett was wounded by grenade fragments but refused evacuation until the objective was taken and firmly secured. The superb leadership, conspicuous courage, and consummate devotion to duty demonstrated by Capt. Millett were directly responsible for the successful accomplishment of a hazardous mission and reflect the highest credit on himself and the heroic traditions of the military service.
While I was stationed in Hawaii, I was privileged to be assigned to the 1st Battalion, 27th US Infantry, The Wolfhounds. The Wolfhounds are a very proud unit, considering they have a relatively short history. The regiment was only formed in 1902, but quickly acquired a reputation as a “can-do” unit. In addition to service in Siberia immediately after the Russian Revolution, the Wolfhounds, as part of the 25th Division, served with great distinction during WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and now in Iraq.
Many units in the Army pay lip service to their heritage. The Wolfhounds live it. One program we had was making sure there was a real connection from the past to the present. Several times while I was in Hawaii, we hosted COL Millet to unit functions. There were some semi-formal events, dinners and such. But the real benefit was having “Lew” come out and just spend time with us as we went about our training. We tend to elevate our heroes up onto a pedestal. But by meeting and talking with Lew Millet, many young troops had chance to meet a real hero, and see that he was human. Each of us could, if not guarantee that we would perform to his level of valor and gallantry, at least aspire to it.
Our Dad missed WWII by about a year, but other family members fought the whole war through (one uncle was at Pearl Harbor) and as a history buff, you just can’t avoid being interested in the war. I’ve seen a goodly amount of the clips in the trailer, but over the course of 10 hours, there’s sure to be plenty of footage that is new to me.
For a guy that served in the Army as long as I did, I was a little unusual in that I only went on one deployment that lasted more than a month. These days, people in the Army can routinely spend half their enlistment on overseas deployments. And too be sure, that separation from families, friends and other loved ones is a real burden.
One of my favorite activities when I was a kid growing up in a Navy family was going to the Air Station to watch the squadrons returning from deployment. It was of course pretty cool watching the jets fly in, but it was really cool seeing the aircrews finally getting to hug and kiss their families after 6 months at sea.
And while many of you, my dear readers, will know that I’m the proud servant of Sox the Cat, you may not know that, at heart, I’m a dog person. I love me some puppies. And it’s a rule of nature that puppies like soldiers.
And if you follow that link to MentalFloss, you’ll see there’s even some kids that like soldiers.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
This site is in no way affiliated with the Department of Defense, Department of the Army, the Department of the Air Force, or the National Guard Bureau and nothing said herein should be considered to have any official sanction by those (or any other) agencies.
Posted by xbradtc 
Posted by xbradtc 
Posted by xbradtc 
