Back to Basics…The Lost Art of Basic Combat Fundamentals

[82redleg]

This looks indeed very, very bad. He might have a laser pointer on the side of the M4, though?

I can only hope he is pointing out a target to AHs with a laser pointer/GCP/IZLID/something of that sort. However, since his finger is on the trigger, and his NVG is up, I doubt he is doing anything except spraying bullets, possibly aided by tracers.

[Pete]

About 30 percent of dudes always fire blind over the berm, since War II, so this ain't nuthin' new. But it don't make it right, no way.

Any NCO sayin' this is new is a lyin' mutha, and if he says I'm wrong I'll whup him and his daddy too ...

... and I be short fo' a MF, a double-digit midget, so you can't do nuthin' to me. Whatcha gonna do, throw me out of the Army?

[Ken White]

About 30 percent of dudes always fire blind over the berm, since War II, so this ain't nuthin' new. But it don't make it right, no way.

I disagree with your statement. That's a a very questionable statement with no basis in fact. Neither of us has seen every unit in combat siince WW II but in the ones I have seen I strongly doubt if as many if 2% of the folks did that or anything remotely like it. How about you?

If you know any NCOs that would do that or tolerate anyone who did, you have my sympathy. Though I note the guy in the picture IS an NCO -- and is an FO, probably an Infantry mortar FO...

The rest of your comment contributes little to anything. I also doubt you can whip my Daddy -- he died before you came in the Army.

[Pete]

Ain't no use in lookin' down
Ain't no Discharge on the ground
Ain't no use in feelin' blue
Jody's got your girlfriend too

[82redleg]

If you know any NCOs that would do that or tolerate anyone who did, you have my sympathy. Though I note the guy in the picture IS an NCO -- and is an FO, probably an Infantry mortar FO...

If he's a forward observer, he is MOS 13F. The Army combined all their forward observers (the FA FOs, the IN BN Mortar FOs and the IN CO Mortar FOs) into MOS 13F in the mid-70s. Each maneuver company/troops had a Fire Support Team (FIST), with a LT, SSG and a couple of RTOs for the CO HQ, and, depending on unit type, an FO party of a SGT and an RTO for each platoon. Until 2004-2006 (the modular MTOEs), they were generally assigned to the HHB of the DS FA BN, and attached to the Infantry/Armor/Cavalry unit for deployments (there were some exceptions to this: they were organic, to the companies I believe, in the 75th RGR RGT; they belonged to either the HOWBATs or to the SQDN HHT in the ACRs; the 82nd generally, and some other places at certain times, put a BNs worth in each firing battery instead of consolidated in HHB; in Germany/Korea, where BNs lived on their own kasernes, they were often attached from the FA all the time; but overall, at least on the MTOE of most units, the FISTs belonged to the FA). Under the first iteration of the idea, from the Close Support Studies Group, they were supposed to belong to the manuever unit, but that changed somewhere before implementation. In the initial Stryker MTOEs, they were broken down, all the way to PLT level, in the maneuver unit. Beginning in 2004, with the modular unit MTOEs, the FISTs were put into a platoon in the HHC/HHT of the maneuver unit. In my experience, the maneuver units often made the attachment of the FISTs to their companies a full time thing. This significantly degraded their training in their MOS- the CO is supposed to have a LT and a SSG- in my last assignment, I was putting SPCs in charge of the CO FIST as soon as they made SGT, and since they often operated without the LT, they were only training on whatever the IN CO was doing, not in their MOS. However, even given lack of MOS skills, I would have thought that they would have been trained in basic small arms skills while assigned to the IN CO.

[Ken White]

If he's a forward observer, he is MOS 13F...

I think I knew that but had certainly forgotten. I'm old, sometimes I don't know what I forgot...

"There are known knowns, unknown knowns..."

Pete: I see your tacit admission at 0511 that you didn't know what you were talking about at 0243 and were trying to foist just another off kilter joke. Good man

Not to worry, we're used to it and old or not, I do remember that chant -- as well as the one that starts with "If I die on the old Drop Zone..." and a bunch of others that also add nothing to discussion here.

[Pete]

A guy I went to OCS with was in an Air Defense Artillery unit in Vietnam. He said the only time he was under fire was when the VC hit his base one night, and that he fired his M16 blind from the top of the berm. An actual percentage of the number of guys who might do that is hard to say, just like S.L.A. Marshall's assertions about the number of men who didn't fire their rifles. When non-Infantry types suddenly find themselves unexpectedly in combat odd things happen, like Jessica Lynch's Ordnance unit in 2003.

[Ken White]

...When non-Infantry types suddenly find themselves unexpectedly in combat odd things happen, like Jessica Lynch's Ordnance unit in 2003.

One of our many training flaws -- thankfully, that one's been fixed at least a bit for the kids today.

Marshall was full of more BS than Ferdinand. Met him once, nice enough guy but none of his books stand close scrutiny.