Headspace and Timing

[Ken White]

and it's newer than an M75 or an M41A1, it's probably wrong.

[Cavguy]

Thanks, Neil (never could get your name spelled correctly)

Something about all those fancy (ahem) upgrades to replace HST training (and result in death). Great video of what often means blowing the top cover off.

BTW, you may be the only person colder than I am here

Thanks Stan.

Alaska is warming up, high's in the 30s this week. Breaking out the shorts after the -40 degree spells of Nov-Jan.

Actually lost most of my acclimatization while at NTC during Jan and Feb, and then some pre-deployment block leave to Hawaii. Rolling out the door to Afghanistan with our unit in the next month.

Niel <==

[Pete]

Jeez, Pete, don't you mean the M35 Deuce and a half?

Back when we had the Deuce and a Half our rifles were of .45-70 caliber and our politically incorrect C Rations still had cigarettes in them.

[Pete]

Regarding the old C Rations, the Pork Slices w/ Juices could be turned into a good sandwich when combined with the round crackers in a can, what one of my guys once called "Field Frisbies." Spaghetti w/ Beef Chunks wasn't that bad either. The Eggs and Ham used to have a blue tint.

I'd best wind this up before a Moderator brings up the subject of me being off-topic again.

[Granite_State]

How many guys here remember how to set the headspace and timing on an M2 Browning .50-caliber machine gun? I had two periods of instruction on it in 1977-78, one in OSUT and the other in OCS. In each case the instructional pitch was, "Gather around and listen up" while an NCO showed how it is done, but in neither case was there actual hands-on for individual students. I wouldn't feel competent at it until until I'd actually done it four or five times to an instructor's satisfaction.

Likewise. First time I learned how to do it, at TBS, I only got brief hands-on time and promptly failed it. Once I had the chance to do it a half dozen times in front of an 0331 sergeant I got the hang of it. Don't think I could do it at the moment though, it's definitely a perishable skill.

[Pete]

The problem with training the task is that it's instructor-intensive, one-on-one. It could be done as concurrent training, like at the rifle range for the guys who aren't firing. Instead of waiting around for their turn to shoot they could stop at stations for headspace and timing, first aid, NBC, etc.

[Stan]

As we reminisce over C rats, .45 and .50 caliber rounds it seems evolution has now been approved for the venerable Ma Deuce

By spring 2011, all new M2s coming off the assembly lines will be manufactured to M2A1

The M2E2 Quick Change Barrel (QCB) Kit will enhance the M2 with new features and design improvements that make the weapon easier and safer to use:

Sounds like a politician ranting about his recent kill at the White House.
Now maybe we could eliminate high school grads too

[Pete]

In around 1980 when I was a lieutenant I brought up the issue of headspace and timing with our battery first sergeant, who had been in the 1st Cav in Vietnam. He said the gun chiefs were doing it, but I don't believe it was true; they were only drawing the weapons out of the arms room and taking them along on field exercises.

All the talk that was going around at the time about lieutenants listening to their NCOs, or that one of an NCO's main jobs was to train lieutenants, was true in the abstract (especially when it pertained to the WW II and Korean War generations of NCOs, not as much with the Vietnam ones), but de facto it sometimes meant shut up and don't bother us ell-tee, with the practical effect of making weak junior officers even weaker.

Later at Fort Ord when I told my battalion commander that many of our soldiers probably couldn't disassemble and reassemble our M60s properly he acted as though the problem wasn't the deficiency, but rather my blunt way of of stating it, as though him having a subordinate like me might undermine the image of "outstandingness" and "excellence" he thought we should be trying to cultivate. Some decades later after my time the Army got PowerPoint and now there's the "show biz" element entered into the equation.

I wasn't the best Army officer that ever served, but I was far far from being the worst, and IMHO these kinds of things prevent the Army from being better trained than it is. One of our finest forum members has railed about the inadequacy of Army training so I thought I'd back him with my own personal experiences.

[Pete]

When you get military organizations where the officers want to be seen as being "outstanding," "excellent," and moving onward and upward, and on the other hand have an NCO corps that regards supervision as being undue interference in their "NCO business" you get shaky outfits. When placed in combat units like that will probably muddle along but they're not all they could be, like in the TV recruiting ad. Even though my service was a long time ago I still feel like a kid about these issues -- perhaps it was ever thus, and the units that landed on the beach on D-Day were just like that.

[Stan]

Pete,
Back when I joined in the early 70s we had several issues with Vietnam-era NCOs. But most of the platoon leaders I had were real sharp and spent as much time learning as they did teaching. One of the things I noticed was that most of the enlisted had yet to complete high school. That put them in some meaningless jobs and MOSs. It wasn’t until 1985 that most would have to complete HS and retake their ASVAB. A lot of folks left the Army that year on Aberdeen, but the change and impact on a professional NCO Corps was necessary and profound.

I think only the Navy E7s are responsible for nurturing junior officers (by regulation that is). By 1980 as an E6 I rarely saw my 1LT and when he did show up it often meant something was wrong, or, he just got his ass chewed.

Of all the field exercises and training, none were more rewarding that the firing range

[Pete]

One of my battalion commanders who was also a Mustang like I was didn't think very highly of me and the efficiency reports he gave me show it. I was da*ned with faint praise. It wasn't that he thought I was incompetent as much as being lacking in the "bust a*s" quality that he wanted to see in his officers, having subordinates who treat every little task, no matter how trivial, as though their lives depended on it. His temper tantrums were awesome. He retired as a two-star, but when he commanded his battalion he turned the place into a U.S. Army Separation Point for all ranks, high and low. It was during the early 1980s when the Army was making a deliberate effort to get out of the post-Vietnam doldrums. That needed to be done for the good of the service, but a lot of the careers of good guys were collateral damage while it was happening.

Most guys wouldn't admit to having had something something like this happen to them on a public forum but it has a lot to do with that vague concept of "The good of the service." I was a soldier once and true.