I cannot describe how much politically incorrect that book is in Germany.
A book about DIY submachineguns and repros of the "Werwolf - Winke für Jagdeinheiten" booklet for the planned '45 Nazi guerrillas are on about the same level.
Ah... "Total Resistance" I have a "Von Dach Bern" copy in English, published in the 1970's. Actually a very interesting read, but would be very un-fashionable today. It's actually about fighting!Originally Posted by Firn
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
I cannot describe how much politically incorrect that book is in Germany.
A book about DIY submachineguns and repros of the "Werwolf - Winke für Jagdeinheiten" booklet for the planned '45 Nazi guerrillas are on about the same level.
Possibly, but it's all OK, if you are Swiss and you are fighting Soviets.
Infinity Journal "I don't care if this works in practice. I want to see it work in theory!"
- The job of the British Army out here is to kill or capture Communist Terrorists in Malaya.
- If we can double the ratio of kills per contact, we will soon put an end to the shooting in Malaya.
Sir Gerald Templer, foreword to the "Conduct of Anti-Terrorist Operations in Malaya," 1958 Edition
Until Long Tan, they probably felt all right.
Aussie Army experience up until that point had been mainly fleeting contacts at short range, (either contacts or ambush) and doctrine was to fire aimed shots are identified targets.
In fact even after Long Tan doctrine and from what I have read practice (in terms of the practice of aimed fire at identified targets) didn't change much.
As both Kiwi Grunt and Blah have identified the practice in what grunts were allowed to carry ammo wise did change. And despite (as far as I can tell) the fact that there was an official carry what you want policy, I am positive it would be tempered, by seccos, platoon sgts, common sense and experience.
Except for very occasional battles mainly in towns and assaulting bunker systems I get the impression that typcically only a few members of a company or platoon would fire in the majority of contacts.
After Long Tan experience they did plan for bigger scale contacts, even if they rarely encountered them.
I'm glad that particular publication wasn't in greater circulation in 2003-04 when Rumsfeld and Rice claimed that the growing insurgency in Iraq was no different than the Werewolves in Germany post-April 1945, as though we'd been there before and done that earlier. As best I can tell the only thing the Werewolves managed to accomplish was the assassination of the mayor of Aachen in March '45 when the war was still going on and the ruined city was occupied by the U.S. Army. Hitler Jugend kids caused trouble for us in April and May '45 but there was little armed violence from the Germans after the surrender.
Going back to the original topic...
I've been curious lately on the effects of suppression with the scaling of weapons, but I haven't been able to find much on it.
It's intuitively obvious to me how a scaling up of HE weapons would result in an increase in suppression, but less so for KE weapons. The way I see it, there are 2 main components that lead to the suppressive effects of kinetic energy weapons: audio and visual. The auditory component being the sound of the bullet zipping past, and the sound of the weapon firing if you were close enough. The visual component being the effects upon it striking something. Being hit by debris caused by the bullet would also suppress, so I guess that can be a third category.
It's easier to see how a scaled up bullet would have a greater visual signature, but what about audio? If bullets were merely zipping past, would a .50 BMG have any meaningful increase in suppression than, say, a 5.56? Even the visual signature is difficult to quantify in the increase in suppression it would have.
Thoughts on the matter?
Last edited by Blah; 01-25-2011 at 08:47 PM.
Suppression as you seem to view it will only work on untrained folks.
Even the scale of HE has little effect on experienced troops. The only difference between a 60mm Mortar round and a 155mm Artillery shell in end effect is the amount of noise and the radius. If either causes few or no casualties, they'll be ignored. If either kills someone, they're dead and the size made no difference and others will pay attention.
Noise and visual clutter have some effect on the untrained or little experienced, very little on anyone not in those two categories. Sustained artillery fire that causes only insignificant casualties but continues for many hours can eventually have a psychologically debilitating effect on some even broadly experienced persons -- but they will relatively few in number. The possibility of small arms fire so doing is very slim -- not least because few have the ammunition available to sustain small arms fire for extended periods.
One good marksman who fires only once or twice a day but consistently gets hits will be more suppressive than an entire Company firing full automatic with few or no hits.
For reasonably competent troops, suppression is effected only by accurate direct or indirect fire that causes casualties in sight or hearing of the element involved. Everything else is assessed and mostly ignored within the parameters of common sense by such troops. All it takes for anyone is two or three of incidents to learn that noise and visual effects are annoying and can be distracting but on balance are not suppressive.
People around you becoming casualties is suppression -- everything else is just clutter.
This notion might well be the genesis of a new military truism, "Scare 'em all and let Bill Gates sort 'em out." Oh well, at times like this I fear my frames of reference have gotten dated and I'm getting old ...
It's uncanny how so much of the discussion on this forum, regardless of the ostensible topic -- COIN, human terrain, intelligence exploitation of the battlefield, or whatever -- seems to go back to light infantry tactics.
For World War II we turned our armed forces into vast administrative and logistical apparatuses. Ever since them we've assumed that the ability to integrate materiel, training and personnel to create combat-ready units, like LIN numbers on a 2715 report, is the key to success.
Some of our units during World War II were truly kick-*ss outfits; however many others mainly were part of the mass who overwhelmed the competition. That we beat the Germans and Japanese in 1945 wasn't an absolute confirmation that we were doing everything right then, it also showed what happens to nations who vastly overextend themselves militarily. In Korea and Vietnam events demonstrated the flaws in our approach.
Everyone in DoD one way or another supports the infantry. I'm glad we have air and naval superiority, high-tech stuff, net-centric commo and all that, but what good is it if the low-tech part needs more work?
Last edited by Pete; 01-25-2011 at 10:15 PM.
If it doesn't kill people or break things it is a supporting function. If it is a supporting function it should make it easier to kill people or break things. If it makes it harder to kill people and break things it is likely the CIA or NSA.
Sam Liles
Selil Blog
Don't forget to duck Secret Squirrel
The scholarship of teaching and learning results in equal hatred from latte leftists and cappuccino conservatives.
All opinions are mine and may or may not reflect those of my employer depending on the chance it might affect funding, politics, or the setting of the sun. As such these are my opinions you can get your own.
Last calling station, say again last transmission, you're coming in broken with cognitive dissonance... Authenticate X-ray Bravo ... screw it, negative contact, out.
At the heart of it you have to consider your enemy and what will affect him. If a 4-man team of snipers are dropping your friends left and right you're going to be "suppressed" and wishing you were back home with mommy. If an enemy is just randomly throwing tons of inaccurate ordnance your way (assuming you're trained), it won't have much effect.
Suppression is simply making the other guy not want to execute his plan, or prevent him from interfering with your plan, because he would be dead if he tried.
That's the theory, at least, but after a minute or so of rock and roll it ought to be replaced by something more thought-out and accurate.
As a Marine Machine Gunner MOS 0331 you are trained from day one in SOI School of Infantry that when you recieve contact you immediatly lay down that supression. (obviously in the direction of the enemy) Now accuracy is most defanitly wanted but the main goal is to keep the enemys heads pinned down. This is in the current war atleast. That is just for machine gunnery, any other MOS such as Rifleman 0311 will take the accurate shots and maneuver towards the enemy.
Hello at all...
Let me tell you about my experiences I had to make as a german soldier in AFG.
When I started my duty in the german army 1999, we were trained for defending our country against large armys. The doctrine was the same like in the cold war. A temleader had to lead every single riffleman. Fire was controlled by the leader. Surpressing fire we user for movement Rio. But we trained for fights when the enemy advances from one direction When you can see him comming miles away.
Then we were sent to AFG, where everything changed. Enemy comes from multiple directions and when you recognize it, he is too close to coordinate fire by one man. We germans where shocked the first times we got troops in contact. No one had real fighting experience in his life, even the commanding officers did not. So we just defend our asses by trying to get away.
But by the time we got this experience and we started to engage an defeat the INS who attack us. And I can tell you, we do our job now. And I am proud.
In my last tour, late 2010, I had to learn that the most INS does not give #### of surpressing fire. They don't keep thier heads down. They just go on doing thier business. They don't care about dying, they are full of drugs. You just can stop them with accurate fire. Body-Body-Head...
Hope you won't be angry for my english!
Thank you for posting that.
I would be interested to hear more about how the German troops in Afghanistan adjusted to the type of warfare and to combat itself.
I presume that there is no formal counter insurgency training as part of the basic and normal training of German soldiers? If there is now was it written based of Afghanistan or where did you draw the doctrine and tactics from?
The best public article on it is probably this recent one:
http://www.strategie-technik.de/04_11/Fue.pdf
(in German, of course)
A frequent remark of German soldiers from AFG is that only explosive warheads (40 mm) seem to have a psychological impact on the enemy.
Then again, this kind of firefights is not necessarily representative for other conflicts, nor is the skill applied necessarily matching historical heights.
-------
I have no good relations with any AFG vet, thus I've got no good source.
I am nevertheless a bit puzzled by those reports. They seem to be illogical or be based on some basic misunderstanding.
An enemy who doesn't get suppressed / impressed by small arms fire would expose himself so much that firefights would be over after mere seconds. That's apparently not the case.
A possible explanation could be that people have an exaggerated idea of what suppressing fires are. The seem to believe it's a near-permanent 100% silencing of the enemy (or causing his flight) when it's merely meant to be a very temporary interruption of his aimed fire capability.
I advise therefore caution about veteran reports about supposed failures to suppress the enemy. There may be a problem of inaccurate language.
Last edited by Fuchs; 05-14-2011 at 08:46 PM. Reason: link
It is the general comment from those with experience that the drill where you immediatly lay down suppressive fire in the general direction of the enemy does more for your morale than it suppresses the enemy fire. Bursts of machine fire in the general direction of the enemy does not achieve much at the ranges contacts reportedly take place in Afghanistan. The use of alternate fire positions by the Taliban and the restricted movement potential of ISAF forces due to the IED threat and individual weight loads make most of these contacts reportedly inconclusive.
Given the number of contacts infantry patrols have experienced there should have been a tactical evolution by now.
My experience thought me to exercise caution when debriefing or hearing reports from soldiers with limited combat experience. Most often they read the situation wrong and/or draw the wrong conclusions from their experiences. No soldier wants to accept that his squad/section fired off 1,000 rounds of ammo to no effect. These same soldiers - often half way to becoming 6 month wonders - are often asked and offer an estimate of how many of the enemy they killed. Kind of like if 1,000 rounds were fired then they must have at least got ten... surely, yes? The debriefing officer writes it down muttering "yes, that sounds reasonable".
I think there is; the same as with fighter aircraft with the introduction of radios by the late 30's. More loose patrols with lots of spacing between elements allows much of the blue force to remain effective even if one or two elements are in trouble. It's much better to fan out like this than to patrol in a large, cohesive group.
The terrain and mission don't allow for consistent use of such spacings and the elusive enemy has the initiative, can engage whenever the Westerner's are not in a favourable position...
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