Suppressive Fire

[Ken White]

Fuchs, it has to do with how likely contact with the enemy is. The more probable it is the more important it becomes to have one's weapons able to fire at the enemy. When a traveling element makes contact it often has to change formation for fire and maneuver. There is also an advantage to being able to form without the need for detailed instructions about how to do it.

You're right -- and the key to ability to do that is to train units in varying situations against varying opponents. You need a book to tell you the basics -- and we have one -- but you need to practice doing it and you need to be able to do it in triple canopy rainforest, in a cottonwood thicket at Fort Sill or the bare hills of Camp Pendleton, in the river bottom of the Chattahoochee, in downtown Baghdad, in the bare desert of Fort Irwin or in the mountains of the Hindu Hush. Ability to do it in an open field at mainpost at Benning isn't adequate.

The book exists, it's adequate. Formations are known and taught -- they just are not trained or practiced adequately.

Ability to adapt a formation is present. What that does not cover goes back to your earlier question; suppressive fire? flank? artillery? The formation and what Joe needs to do are the easy part and really are not a problem -- what the Leaders do is the problem.

[jcustis]

The problem with manuals is they embed thoughts and images in minds and then when folks get in a scrap in places and ways the manual did not depict (or often could not predict...), they simply don't know what to do. Training -- repetitive conduct of combat like activities in different settings and against differing opponents is the answer, manuals are not. Tha training should be harder, more diifcult and more complex than is most combat, then combat will be easy. right now because the training is marginal, combat is more difficult than it should be.

And we rarely train as hard as we should at night.

Just when someone should be getting a foot broken off in their you-know-what, we tend to ratchet things down, or at least pay lip service to reverse cycle ops.

Want to impress me that you can do something? Do it to standard in the dark.

Good post Ken!

[Compost]

Two articles by CWO3 Eby were published in the Marine Corps Gazette during 2004. The articles - summarizing trials for effective employment of platoon crew-served and individual weapons in CQB - are not currently retrieveable via the Gazette index. Versions available elsewhere on the web either lack tables or have poorly formatted tables. Attached (hopefully) is a fair copy formatted in Word.

Interesting to note that current USMC planning for its Infantry Automatic Rifle is apparently focussed on using the IAR as a replacement (rather than as a complement) for the LMG/M-249 with suppression to be provided by the M-240 and other heavy crew-served weapons.

[Compost]

Two-part item in almost original format.

[William F. Owen]

Just some basics to tighten the discussion:

a.) Suppression is action which causes the enemy not to act through fear of being harmed.
b.) So a sniper rifle can suppress just as well as a machine gun, given a specific context. It is effectiveness versus efficiency.
c.) As an action, "Killing" is what best delivers suppression. Not shooting.
d.) Suppression is not a viable action within itself. You suppress the enemy so as you can do other things, - of which killing him should be top of the list.

All very obvious, but I hope that helps.

[Rex Brynen]

Just some basics to tighten the discussion:

As usual, straight to the point. You'll never make it as an academic, Wilf

[Kiwigrunt]

Spud reminded me of the existence of the Australian Army Journal in another post. The latest one is not available online yet but the first article in the July one would support this:

As usual, straight to the point. You'll never make it as an academic, Wilf

[Pete]

As usual, straight to the point. You'll never make it as an academic, Wilf.

Wilf is no fan of Liddell Hart's "indirect approach."

[Ken White]

Two-part item in almost original format.

Thanks for posting it.

[JMA]

I fail to see the point of formations.

Self-discipline, confidence and wit of its NCOs and officers are decisive for survival and mission success.


It's about the attitude, not about formations and recipes.
We had way too many stupid fashions and specialised 'solutions' since the mid-90's and need to have a close look at OPFOR HE-frag effects again.
The "AK+RPG" opposition led to tailored responses that would be suicidal even against a 1944 army.

OK, this is what I was taught and agree with:

Sound patrol formations are necessary in order that:
1. Control is exercised.
2. Movement is facilitated.
3. The patrol is ready for immediate action.

OK, so how do soldiers move from one place to another... in a blob?

[JMA]

Wilf is no fan of Liddell Hart's "indirect approach."

Can't think why, its a good read.

[JMA]

Just some basics to tighten the discussion:

a.) Suppression is action which causes the enemy not to act through fear of being harmed.
b.) So a sniper rifle can suppress just as well as a machine gun, given a specific context. It is effectiveness versus efficiency.
c.) As an action, "Killing" is what best delivers suppression. Not shooting.
d.) Suppression is not a viable action within itself. You suppress the enemy so as you can do other things, - of which killing him should be top of the list.

All very obvious, but I hope that helps.

Good stuff.

[Tukhachevskii]

Ok. Admittedly, I may have grasped the wrong end of the stick (it's a habit) but there's stuff I don't quite get. Perhaps it purely an editorial thing but the tables and the text are confusing me.

Using a gunner and assistant gunner for each LMG became a variant on the LMG FT. This variant allowed the LMG to be manned and enjoy the same benefits as a medium or heavy machinegun. Rather than merely carry extra ammunition and a spare barrel, the assistant would load, direct impacts, help move the gun, and observe for maneuver encroachment on the gun target line. (See Table 2.)

Billet Weapon

3d FT Leader M16A2
SAW M249
SAW M249
A-SAW M249
Table 2. LMG FT: Variant 2.

So, does the above mean that the assitant SAW/LMG gunner is also armed with a SAW/LMG?



Secondly,

The third platoon in each company consolidated their LMGs at the platoon level; i.e., the platoon organized itself into two rifle squads armed with test variant ARs, and the nine LMGs were placed into an LMG section.

Am I to undertand that in the LMG section/squad there are only four men not armed with SAWs/LMG (thre TL and a SL). If so who is helping to load and carry the extra ammo for this section/squad's SAWs/LMGs?

Overall I was quite impressed, it's almost a USMC version of Wigram tactical principles.

[William F. Owen]

As usual, straight to the point. You'll never make it as an academic, Wilf

Don't want to be an "Academic". I just want to be useful.

[jcustis]

No Tuk, the standard arrangement is not like that. That construct was used during experiments only, as the IAR concept was worked through out At 29 Palms. Eby led that experimentation effort.

[Pete]

Up 500.

Say again last transmission. That's awfully high for a height-of-burst correction, over.

[Ken White]

Say again last transmission. That's awfully high for a height-of-burst correction, over.

from that airburst.

[Pete]

I guess that's what they mean when they say you should stay flexible. I never went into the "Adjust Fire" mode with that type of round before.

[Ken White]

I guess that's what they mean when they say you should stay flexible. I never went into the "Adjust Fire" mode with that type of round before.

As the Actress said to the Bishop -- she was a Howitzer fan.

The 155mm had a 100t yield IIRC. With the 203mm you had dial-a-yield. Or assemble a yield, actually and got from three kt to 40 kt. A 40kt airburst EMP would knock out every unprotected electronic device within a healthy radius with a 1,600' or more airburst. Make a few people sick, too...

[Tukhachevskii]

No Tuk, the standard arrangement is not like that.

Knew that, but thanks anyway.

That construct was used during experiments only, as the IAR concept was worked through out At 29 Palms. Eby led that experimentation effort.

Ok. So it was just a one off. I just wondered how the logistics of something along those lines would work. Very interesting implications though. Thanks again for the clarification. Although I do wonder wether it wouldn't have been a better idea to run an experiment with two platoons, one using the LMG/SAW mix as per Eby and another replacing the LMG section with a HE projector equipped section, say with M32s or some such. The percentages of hits for no. of rounds fired really opened my eyes (i.e., do soldiers really need to be carryign huge amounts of ammo for such miniscule hit rates- yes, I know, suppression isn't just about hitting the target- when surely SHOCK would be better, in which case HE is the way to go?)