"...one IMO should not plan for and accept that as the only certainty."
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Originally Posted by
Fuchs
WW4 maybe, not WW2.
That'll be with rocks and sticks -- no one will be able to afford the other stuff for long...
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We got some clues, got some thinkers - but only actual warfare will sort out the fools and force lessons on us.
True.
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We simply lack good experiments...
No way yet discovered to do that.
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Basic training is meant to be the basis for later unit and formation training - but units and formations on the front don't conduct the later any more.
Also true -- and a good argument for not doing things the way we now do them.
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Short wars are desirable because they are typically less destructive than long ones. To win a war quickly you need to work for it - not prepare for a long one.
I thought that was what I said??? ;)
Flags, Politics, Bureaucracy and what should be...
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Originally Posted by
JMA
You spoke of 'firepower' not MGs.
No, you spoke of firepower. See the attached screenshots. Merely responded to your usage.
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The moment you start to group these weapons centrally you end up having to 'attach' them to callsigns they have not trained with (enough) and this is not good for unit cohesion as they may be 'detached' again the next day.
All arimeis are not compoised of Bands of Brothers. Many fight with crowds of people that don't know each other -- and some take so many casualties because of the type of warfare that turnover in units is often above 50% per week. I doubt you've had to deal with those factors. Some have.
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LMG (certainly the FN MAG) weapon handling is not rocket science and should not be considered a specialist weapon.
In order, true and I disagree.
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The tactical employment for a particular war trumps the training and should lead and dictate where the training emphasis should lie.
We can agree. Pity that most Generals and the Politicians do not. Once again reality trumps the ideal.
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...Yank soldiers are normally smart but something is preventing them from acting intelligently on this...Yes BUT... it is insane to prosecute any war (even the smallest) in a halfhearted manner.
Again, I agree. Again reality intrudes and -- this time the Generals get a bye -- the politicians don't seem to realize how dotty they are... :(
Bad habits are easy to acquire and quite difficult to lose...
We picked up a slew of bad habits in Viet Nam and Ranger School embedded most of them as did IOBC -- interestingly, because of far less Armor branch exposure in Viet Nam, AOBC did not fall into that trap. We are picking up more rand even worse habits as a result of Afghanistan and Iraq.
There is, as noted a considerable difference between SOF operations conventional operations. Small unit patrols are one thing and the tactical efforts are similar -- but both do a great many things aside from conducting patrols (though in the current wars no one is really doing much else...). That is dangerous, a mid or high intensity conflict will shred units with little besides current experience. Thus far in 2011, all ISAF has incurred 509 fatalities (combat / non combat not diffrentiated). In a mid intensity conflict like Viet Nam or Korea, one Division could endure that many killed -- or more, many more -- in a quarter. In WW II like conditions, it could reach that figure in a week or two.
The current fights obviously provide little to no use of tripods -- except for the M2 and Mk19. One has to wonder if the M240 were more often tripod mounted if as many .50s and 40mm would be about.
Chris jM has it right. As he points out, defense is far from the only use for tripods. The use of really accurate fire as a support measure in the offense has great merit -- you cannot provide accurate long range fire from a bipod so no thinking Commander is going to allow his MGs to fire over the heads of advancing troops unless the guns are tripod mounted. That occurred often in WW II and Korea, only rarely in Viet Nam and is even more rare today -- yet it is needed capability. Sometimes the organic stuff is all that's available...
As jcustis notes:
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As for application, that tends to be difficult to do when pre-deployment training takes the fore.
That's reality -- and that is the danger. Training for the here and now should not be in lieu of needed training, it should be in addition to. We often forget that; we forgot it post Viet Nam. We're forgetting it today. Hopefully we will not repeat that 1970-90 mistake. :(