The Roles and Weapons with the Squad

[JMA]

Thanks for a pics JMA, that´s a fine rifle. I never shot from that, but it´s capability seems similar to me like ours SVD Dragunov.

I thought the Dragunov was a sniper rifle? But certainly the FN/SLR was fit for purpose. As most of our action was at very close ranges the range of the weapon did not come into play but it was the knock down effect and the terrible wounding it caused that set it apart from the AK47. Yes, our guys went down when hit by a 7.62mm intermediate but the wounds were not of the same magnitude. I would say the huge advantage we had was carrying the FN MAG on a one in four basis as having gunners who built up fearsome reputations through much combat experience. Int reports from captures indicated how much the insurgents feared the MAG.

And about ear pro, it´s big issue for me. I personally hate peltors with active hearing. If rain drops on your helmet, or walking along the stream, the sound is deafening, and in hot weather, you are getting very uncomfortable after a while. Also, it´s crushing my skull, especially with shooting glasses underneath it (even if I have glasses with flat legs), or helmet over it, and I surely can´t buy own helmet. If I wear goggles with rubber strap, they became foggy too often no matter what type or treatment in very hot weather when moving. Peltors are OK for a three hours raid, but not for 2 days dismounted patrol, where you need to concentrate on observation, and not being tortured by hearing set. Next option are normal ear plugs, which are comfy, but restrict significantly your hearing - not an option when on foot patrol. You can have them half-in, and during the contact plug them deeper, but again that´s not ideal for hearing nor protection in the first moments of contact. I bought SureFire EP4 plugs (about 13 USD), which are possible to connect to one-ear hearing set. This plugs can be adjusted for better hearing and reasonable protection, but again, still it´s not ideal. Sometimes I just had them slightly in my ears, as I wrote above. When the contact is on closer range, usually there is no time to plug them in, but never had my ears go ringing, and even machine gunners had the same experience (if I would do the same on the range, I would go ringing for a week, I guess it´s because of adrenaline rush).

You have identified the problem... now what is the solution?

IMHO the hearing problem takes two forms. One is the obvious inability to locate the position of the enemy by his fire which is a life and death issue when in contact and then it is the protection acoustic trauma. We hardly used ear defenders even on the range in the 70s and we have paid the price. But that said all the use of ear protection is meaningless after a series of cave clearing contacts with loud bangs in confined spaces. And then we had a number of guys who hit a number of landmines... I think their ears are still ringing

I thought that ear plugs which allow normal speech and sounds through but protect against gunshot noise were freely available from gun shops or mail order?

Nobody wants to get kicked from the job because of decreased hearing, or lower medical level and go for a desk job.

Yes this is weird isn't it. I see the Brits are getting clever about this too. Soldiers beyond the ten years service are being found to be unfit for operational duty due to reduced hearing. Idiots. It was the army that did it to them and they should be fitted with the best available "hearing aids" to fix that not only in an operation context but also for after their service as well. What makes this so damn laughable is that on operations they give them a head set that blocks out the hearing in one ear anyway.

What would entice me back into the military at this stage of my life would be to carry out a "Stalinist type purge" of all the deadwood and idiots who seem to do more than the average enemy to hamper/sabotage military performance.

I admit I couldn´t find any non-restrictive, but effective ear pro, possible to wear for days on foot patrols, so far.

You need a gizmo? The yanks will have it and in this case some damn fine stuff too. Why not ask around here I'm sure you will get good advice.

About team radios - I agree it´s total nonsense to give everybody in the squad own personal radio. I still prefer yelling in contact and hand signals otherwise. When whole platoon is on the same frequency, someone´s still talking and disrupting the net while trying to listen and observe (radio discipline can decrease that significantly, but not solve the whole problem), and it becames mess when sh.t hit the fan. When every squad is on own frequency, some armies or unit´s team leaders have to carry two personal radios, so they can talk in the same time to superiors and subordinates, switching frequencies doesn´t work well, because your commander is gonna call you in the moment you switch on team frequency. I did not find any radio with two push-to-talk buttons each on different frequency, able to receive on both. Also getting wrapped in cables is annoying. There are situations, when somebody from the team is talking to his TL over the radio, someone next (local, interpreter, other team´s member) talks to him personally, and commander needs to issue some order over the other radio, and that´s just over one´s brain capability.

Again you have identified the problem (well done - I read the situation as you do, and had a current Brit special forces sergeant major (WOII) tell me the same on November last year.) There are of course situations where personal radio (PPR) is useful but not I suggest for the line infantry for the majority of the time.

I used a dog whistle.


Attached to my dog tags I started with it at a normally audible level and slowly tuned it higher and higher till only a trained ear (and a dog could hear it). You can get quite fancy with the whistles mixing long and short for different meanings.

Does it work? Well one day I showed a fellow officer how in a situation where my troop were playing volleyball against another about 30m away. I blew it. My troopies looked towards me, the others did not. It works. Try it.