The Roles and Weapons with the Squad

[jmm99]

and this statement (based on the Rowland article which I couldn't find on line) doesn't make physical sense to me when I multiply by "factors of ten":

A few studies are quite insightful. It appears that a soldier’s ability to hit a given target is typically reduced by a factor of ten or so when he is moved from a static rifle range to a field firing area where he has to select cover, move, shoot and so on. It is reduced by a further factor of ten or so if there is an enemy firing back at him. It is reduced by another factor of ten if the enemy has machine guns, or if he has tanks; and by a hundred if he has both. [1]

[1] D. Rowland, The Effect of Combat Degradation on the Urban Battlefield. Journal of the Operational Research Society, Volume 42 No 7, 1991

Posit a rifleman who at range consistently shoots 100mm (4") or under, 5 shot groups at 100m (Storr, p.2). Thus, the following table using the "factors of ten" from the Storr article:

1. 100mm (4") - firing at range

2. 1000mm (40") - firing when executing fire and movement (3.3 feet)

3. 10000mm (400") - same as # 2, but under enemy rifle fire (33 feet)

4. 100000mm (4000") - same as #3, but adding enemy MGs or tanks (330 feet)

5. 1000000mm (40000") - same as #3, but adding enemy MGs and tanks (3300 feet)

For the last one, this exercise in multiplication yields a 1000m envelope at 100m distance to target. This doesn't seem to make physical sense.

Any idea of what Storr/Rowland means by a "factor of ten" ?

PS: The concept of Combat Degradation would seem to be very relevant to development of sensible ROE/RUFs and the need to train with them under realistic conditions.

[Fuchs]

@jmm99: He meant hit probability, not dispersion.

Get some fire down!’ is the wrong approach.

‘Suppress the enemy!’ is a better approach.

‘Suppress the enemy, to enable the platoon to attack him
from his rear’ is a better approach still.

As always: It depends.
He's right when destructive indirect fires are difficult, but he's wrong if shortages prevail in regard to
- ammunition for suppressive fires
- cover & concealment for maneuver

I always miss the element of artificial concealment (smoke) in discussions about suppression.
You often don't need to suppress if you can conceal.

Another caveat is about the maneuver (old school flanking) thing; it becomes predictable.
It's sometimes better to make them move (smoke on their position if they're on a delay mission, for example) so they expose themselves instead of exposing yourself.


Besides; suppression isn't really important for ambushers, and ambushes should be top priority because they're extremely unfair.



We're extremely short of infantry for major warfare - so we need to keep casualties and exhaustion down or else we would have 3rd grade infantry (cooks, engineers*, clerks, mechanics) real quick.

I have a strong preference for a huge emphasis on fieldcraft (for stealth), ambushes, sneaking up, movement in heavy APCs, movement with cover by smoke, long-range combat (400+ m) reserved to mortars and snipers and rather rarely raids with surprise as precondition.

The whole 'machine guns suppress, infantry moves' thing falls apart once you fail to ID a relevant hostile position (or simply face too many hostile positions). It worked satisfactorily in WW2 when a stray soldier had only a repeating rifle, not an automatic magazine-fed weapon. the other reason for the success in earlier times was the acceptable margin of failure; armies had more infantrymen than our armies have soldiers overall.


*: Not applicable to Germany, as Germans traditionally consider all engineers as (kind of) combat troops.

[William F. Owen]

Posit a rifleman who at range consistently shoots 100mm (4") or under, 5 shot groups at 100m (Storr, p.2). Thus, the following table using the "factors of ten" from the Storr article:

I think you may have misread the passage concerned.

A few studies are quite insightful. It appears that a soldier’s
ability to hit a given target is typically reduced by a factor of
ten or so when he is moved from a static rifle range to a field
firing area where he has to select cover, move, shoot and so
on. It is reduced by a further factor of ten or so if there is an
enemy firing back at him. It is reduced by another factor of ten
if the enemy has machine guns, or if he has tanks; and by a
hundred if he has both. We begin to see why many thousands of rounds can be fired, but very few actually hit.

He is referencing the total rounds fired, not the theoretical degrees of dispersion

[jmm99]

Thanks for the clarification.

[Ken White]

He said "...It appears that a soldier’s ability to hit a given target is typically reduced by a factor of ten or so..." That's specific, 'hit' is prettly simply defined, thus his hit potetnial is degraded by a factor of ten, etc. etc.

However, if you use the size of the round, say 5.56mm and a dispersion factor due to weapon, human, atmospheric and target considerations of about five, that yields a roughly 25mm circular error probable, not 100mm and if you degrade that by a factor of ten (250mm), then ten again (2500 mm / 2.5m). You can add his further degradation of another ten (25,000mm / 25m) but I don't agree that enemy MG, tanks or Artillery make that much difference; to most people, incoming fire is incoming fire -- type is of small note. However, I'll give him a bit and take half that last figure, that would mean 10-15m off target -- pretty reasonable at anything over 200m.

Taking Fuchs dispersion route, you get essentially the same result -- somewhere between 2.5 and 25m dispersion.

OTOH, use Wilf's total rounds fired you get, say three rounds for a hit at the Range; then 3 x 10 = 30 x 10 = 300 x 10 = 3000 rounds which may or may not have hit. That seems excessive. IIRC, a couple of studies showed US experience (Army) at ~800 rounds per small arms hit in Viet Nam. I think that's probably pretty accurate for Viet Nam and I'd be willing to bet it was less for the Army in Korea -- and I know it was less for the Marines there...

Though I do recall seeing a column of mixed Marine units fire easily over a thousand rounds from Carbines, M1s and M1919s at a lone Chinese soldier about 500m away with no success. He made no attempt to shoot back and just walked leisurely away...

[Ken White]

As always: It depends. He's right when destructive indirect fires are difficult, but he's wrong if shortages prevail in regard to
- ammunition for suppressive fires
- cover & concealment for maneuver.

It's sometimes better to make them move (smoke on their position if they're on a delay mission, for example) so they expose themselves instead of exposing yourself.

Besides; suppression isn't really important for ambushers, and ambushes should be top priority because they're extremely unfair.

I have a strong preference for a huge emphasis on fieldcraft (for stealth), ambushes, sneaking up, movement in heavy APCs, movement with cover by smoke, long-range combat (400+ m) reserved to mortars and snipers and rather rarely raids with surprise as precondition.

All excellent -- and too often overlooked -- points.

This point in particular should be embedded in the memory of all commanders:

We're extremely short of infantry for major warfare - so we need to keep casualties and exhaustion down or else we would have 3rd grade infantry (cooks, engineers*, clerks, mechanics) real quick.

Hmm. Should have said all commanders and their political masters...

[kaur]

Fuchs said:

Besides; suppression isn't really important for ambushers, and ambushes should be top priority because they're extremely unfair.

I suppose that this point starts again calibre debate. If you prefer ambush tactics and don't intend to use suppression (you don't intend to enter killing zone), you prefer ammo that destroys most. Like HK 417 slogan says "No need to double taps."

[jmm99]

from Ken
However, if you use the size of the round, say 5.56mm and a dispersion factor due to weapon, human, atmospheric and target considerations of about five, that yields a roughly 25mm circular error probable, not 100mm....

Am I positing correctly that this refers to the results at range ?

When I was shooting, I averaged ~1.5" (+/- .25"), 5-shot groups at 100 yds, with an AR-15 (semi-auto) shooting with the std receiver sight and with support (bench, tree stump, mound, etc.). Sid (a Marine sniper before a Bouncer took off his leg) did better with the same rifle, ~1.25" (+/- .25"). My wife on the same weapon was more like 1.75-2.00". So, your 1" groups are very good shooting (would beat Sid). Storr's 100mm (4") was based on what a reasonably well-trained soldier should be able to do at a minimum.

I can't go beyond the range so far as personal experience is concerned. There is such a thing as Match Degradation, where I've managed to go from a practice average off-hand of 85 on international targets down to the 40s. All a long time ago.

Thanks all for the help. Have to see a client now.

[Fuchs]

I suppose that this point starts again calibre debate. If you prefer ambush tactics and don't intend to use suppression (you don't intend to enter killing zone), you prefer ammo that destroys most. Like HK 417 slogan says "No need to double taps."

I look at 7.62 rifles, but for another reason.

The most important ammunition in AP ambushes should be command-detonated directional frag mines (a.k.a. "Claymore").

Firing small arms gives away your position. I'd rarely do that (I'm no small wars guy; I think about combat against equally dangerous forces).
Unless I'm confident that there would nobody be left after a few seconds to radio my position, of course.

[Ken White]

Group size is only marginally relevant, the location of every individual round on a target or in the target area is the discriminator. In the immortal words of Charlton Heston "Groups don't kill people, bullets do." All of the bullets one launches will almost never hit the X Ring under field conditions; under combat conditions they probably won't all hit inside the target frame.

Ability to group as tightly as you do improves the probability of putting a bullet where it counts but the vagaries I mentioned will affect even the best shooters (and I didn't even get to mediocre ammo...) and there will always be some dispersion. Do recall though, I said that trained and experienced troops will not have dispersion of anywhere near that 10x magnitude.

However, using his factor of 10, just look at a single bullet;

5.56mm ideal = 5.56mm
5.56mm field conditions = 5.56 x 10 = 55.6mm (2.2" dispersion * )
5.56mm field conditions + fired upon = 55.6 x 10 = 556mm (21.9" dispersion)
5.56mm field conditions + the end of the world = 556mm x 10 = 5.56m (=18+' dispersion)

You can visualize the best shooter is liable to not hold a really tight group under field conditions and if he's getting shot at, running, out of breath, hot or cold, possibly hungry, certainly tired, perhaps afraid, his ability to throw rounds outside his normally tight group is, uh, significantly enhanced.

You can also see the under such conditions throwing rounds out 20 inches or so at 200m is not at all unrealistic; OTOH, throwing one out 18 feet is perhaps unlikely -- though I suggest that in really bad conditions, one out eight to 10 feet is pretty common (most people in combat tend to shoot high, way high. A trait for which I have long been thankful... ).

In any event, any time numbers are tossed about and someone says "Ten times..." I'm skeptical. Now, if he'd stated "The data shows that 'A' is off by a factor of 3.5; 'B' by 6.2 and 'C' by 2.8..."

Hmm, just put numbers down but I bet they're closer to correct for the three categories than ten. No matter, his point -- people under stress do not shoot as accurately ergo aimed fire is not a big killer -- is correct and we could quibble about how much until the Yooper Air Force retires for the Winter ** but he's a PhD, they like numbers and neat numbers are better... (Sorry, Marc, shoulda said 'many seem to like numbers'). I agree that his statement is broadly correct if slightly overstated; I also believe that can be fixed to the benefit of combatants.


* Your 1.5" group might expand to 3 to 5" on a brisk February day in the wilds of Houghton County; then to 20-30" if you were attacked by Mosquitoes and Sid was so uncharitable as to shoot at you while you were shooting at him. Once you got acclimated to the Mozzies and to Sid, you'd probably tighten the groups back down to 2-3" (field) and 8-10" (under fire) -- you a lethal Dude!

** Do they? Mosquitoes? Retire for the winter?

[RJ]

Fuch posted *: Not applicable to Germany, as Germans traditionally consider all engineers as (kind of) combat troops.

We American Marines consider our rear echelon support troops combat troops. and our Marine Cooks as expert combat troops.

"Every Marine a Rifleman" is alive and well in todays Marine Corps.

[jmm99]

the Area of Dispersion.

Here's my figures. Used a 2" group at 100 yds, so the radius would be 1" (just to keep things simple using A = pi*r^2) - and 1" ~ 1 moa @ 100 yds.

diam.(in) radius(in) Area(sq in) [Situation - as in Storr article]

2" 1" 3 [range]

6" 3" 31 [f & m]

20" 10" 314 [f & m + ef]

63" 32" 3142 [f & m + eff]

200" 100" 31416 [f & m + efff]

So, if your target was between the eyes at 100 yds, you would have a lot of misses under the other conditions. But some would hit the human target not so precisely; most missing even that, but coming close enough. As in the middle situation (under enemy fire) 10'' to the side from the middle of my nose would cause me to duck - or take me out if it hit 10" low.

Anyway, under the worst conditions, at 200 meters the radial dispersion would be 200" from desired exact point of impact. This seems to be in the ballpark of Ken's real world experience. In fact, the middle situation is close on target for what he says.

-------------------
Sid would have been the lethal dude (I expect he was such in Nam, which we never discussed). I would never have got off a shot cuz I wouldn't have seen him - just, bang, bye-bye JMM.

He was a quiet guy who bought a farm with many acres way out in our boondocks - so he could set up what amounted to a 500 yds or better rifle range. He bought a collection of Ruger single-shot rifles (from 22-250 up to .458); and shot one of them every day. The AR15 was his baby (load development - but probably memories as well). Therapy I suppose.

One day he told us (a group of shooters) that he was selling the farm, the Ruger collection, and that it was time to go back to The World. Asked me if I wanted to buy the AR15, which I did. I've not heard from or of him since, but he is one guy that I hope his life in The World turned out as he wanted.

PS: No mosquitoes - about 50 and supposed to go down to 40s tonite. If it gets a bit colder in the next few days, we might have snow in July.

[Kiwigrunt]

Kaur said:

I suppose that this point starts again calibre debate. If you prefer ambush tactics and don't intend to use suppression (you don't intend to enter killing zone), you prefer ammo that destroys most. Like HK 417 slogan says "No need to double taps."

I believe that in the 7.62 era soldiers were also taught to double-tap, so that argument in the 5.56 vs 7.62 debate appears somewhat moot.

I look at 7.62 rifles, but for another reason.

Out of interest, may I ask for what reason?

Firing small arms gives away your position.

Just a thought on this, albeit a bit off topic. Maybe the use of sound suppressors needs to be taken more serious, for two reasons. One, it protects our hearing, especially in concrete buildings. Two, with regards to giving away our position. When I hunt goats without a silencer, they obviously scarper in the opposite direction after the first shot. However, when I use a silencer (suppressor), they usually just look around confused, and often start walking in my direction. They can of course hear the shots but can’t identify where they are coming from. Not sure to what extent this may apply to human goats.
I hate cleaning the rifle afterwards though!


Back on topic. What I get from the last few posts, and many previous ones, is that automatic fire is often overrated (especially at the lower levels of section/platoon). A hundred year ago the machinegun was said to be as good as 10 or 20 riflemen. Sure, as Fuchs said, when compared against bolt-actions, and in the open as an area weapon where the beaten zone becomes important. Someone mentioned in an earlier post/thread appreciating the ability to put lots of SAW fire down towards a building with many windows and potential targets (when trying to get out of an ambush). Even though I totally get that and I think I would probably feel the same way, I can’t help in my minds eye seeing all of that 5.56 aimlessly and wastefully hitting brick with very few coming anywhere near any window. So that would again appear to be a perception of suppression. An M4 with a reddot sight may perhaps be more effective and efficient in that sort of a scenario, supporting the Storr article.

Haha, I remember an exercise where the platoon commander repeatedly yelled at the Minimi-gunner (who was desperately trying to clear it) to ‘get that f@king gun going’. At debrief o’clock the DS-SNCO said: ‘Get that f#king gun going is not a fire control order, Sir.’
My point here is, we just appear to be totally programmed (brainwashed?) into believing that the gun will win the battle just by its mere presence, as long as it makes lots of noise.

And finally, (posted by Ken)

I agreed with your article, Wilf and thanks for posting it. I did not comment on it simply because it made sense and I had nothing to add.

Concur, I always look forward to your articles Wilf.

[Ken White]

...so the radius would be 1" (just to keep things simple using A = pi*r^2)...

Cornbread r square, Pi r round -- Don't believe me, ask Slap...

Anyway, under the worst conditions, at 200 meters the radial dispersion would be 200" from desired exact point of impact.

Yep, seems about right. I can buy that; poorer shots to start with would have a bit more but not terribly much.

I've not heard from or of him since, but he is one guy that I hope his life in The World turned out as he wanted.

I can identify with that...

PS: No mosquitoes - about 50 and supposed to go down to 40s tonite. If it gets a bit colder in the next few days, we might have snow in July.

Hah. Well, thank you -- that was enough to break the 107+ heat index here, rain this PM and more tomorrow.

[Ken White]

...Marine Cooks as expert combat troops.

"Every Marine a Rifleman" is alive and well in todays Marine Corps.

Rolls and the Messman who was concurrently the G.I. Man and the Salad chef or maybe it was Bologna sandwiches in the Guard Shack...

But I'm old and can't remember it.

[jmm99]

from Storr article - chart generated by fancy machine - based on fire & movement situation (obviously no Sid firing first ). Interesting leftward bias (as one looks at the pattern).

---------------------
And a very brief comment on Wilf's article. This ...

Capability is something we all want. The ability to do useful and relevant things is good, but adding new capability generally means adding weight. Maybe we should stop doing it. Instead of chasing a capability – being able to do things – maybe we should just try to create improvements – do what we do better, while reducing weight.

brought back a pleasant memory. Of my dad discussing the M1 rifle (as opposed to the M1 carbine[*]), which he perceived as the finest rifle he ever used; but which was too heavy. He wanted a pound or two off (down to the 8# range), and maybe more magazine capacity.

So, Wilf, great minds run in the same channels. Thanks for the memory.

----------------------
[*] His comment on the utility of the M1 carbine (not claimed on the basis of personal experience, I should add, but of others):

"Hit a German in the ass at 50 yds and he'd just keep running."

[Ken White]

totally believable pattern...

[jmm99]

could be due to 80% or so of us being right handed - so, the natural swing bringing up the rifle in movement would be slightly to the left - that's a theory - and also doing it a few times tonite (what a scientific process ).

I do recall (that's dangerous) that my scores on the running boar coming out of the right hand house were better than when he came back from the left hand house. Checked my notebook, but didn't denote the scores between right and left runs - my bad.

Have no idea about why the high bias. People have been noting that from the advent of the musket. "Fire on the bulge in their pants."

[William F. Owen]

Storr's 100mm (4") was based on what a reasonably well-trained soldier should be able to do at a minimum.
.

Correct. 4" at 100m/yards was/is the British Armies minimum standard for grouping. To be an infantry man, you have to be able to do this, all day, everyday.

Hand held dispersion is incredibly important. It is what operational shooting is about. The current "Wilf Owen" combat shooting test is,

• From standing, engage a 0.5 x 1m target at 100m, given a 5-second exposure. Fire as many rounds as you need. 1 hit per exposure is required, and you must score on 4 out of 5 exposures.
• Repeat the same, prone supported at 300m. Same qualification required

That's a basic minimum standard, to be attained before you start all the more complicated stuff.

[Fuchs]

Fuch posted *: Not applicable to Germany, as Germans traditionally consider all engineers as (kind of) combat troops.

We American Marines consider our rear echelon support troops combat troops. and our Marine Cooks as expert combat troops.

"Every Marine a Rifleman" is alive and well in todays Marine Corps.

I understand that this is meant in a self-defence or emergency context.

German 20th century engineers were meant as specialists attachments (flamethrower, demolitions, demining) in difficult (often deliberate) infantry assaults.

---------------
Leftward bias:
Many explanations are possible. it would take a video of the test and possibly an additional interview to explain it with certainty.
A soldier who was unaware of his weapon's lack of zeroing would explain it very well.

A sideward (or downward) bias is sometimes acceptable; enemies are usually next to each other and bullets deflected from the ground (with some dust splash) suppress as well. Only missing high is certainly wasteful.

By the way; I wonder how many of those very high bullets might have been deflected (and possibly been effective for suppression by their dust splash effect).