MAJ Ehrhart - Increasing Small Arms Lethality in Afgh.

[Vojnik]

Different time. While daring action occurs on a small scale and locally today, it is not broadly tolerated in the west. Those days are gone, they were killed off by the politically correct movements of the 70s and are highly unlikely to return short of a major, existential war. Risk avoidance is all too prevalent today, a societal (and thus quite difficult to reverse), not a military impact.

Ken, I will respectfully disagree. In fact, when I was a young LT in the Army fighting in Iraq in 2003, my platoon single-handedly escorted the 82nd Airborne Division Chorus (see link) across Fallujah from Division HQ in Ramadi.

If a bunch of Soldiers in ascots singing and dancing doesn't epitomize "daring action", then I don't know what does.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1IjaJwLz58

My post is related to the topic at hand b/c I'm pretty sure every one of my soldiers wanted to shoot the Chorus with something larger than 5.56mm.

[Ken White]

My post is related to the topic at hand b/c I'm pretty sure every one of my soldiers wanted to shoot the Chorus with something larger than 5.56mm.

"...it is not broadly tolerated in the west."

(emphasis added / kw)

Friend of mine was at one time the CSM of the 407th S&T Bn and thus was the Godfather of the Chorus at the time -- and he wanted to shoot 'em.

I missed them. Fortunately, they came along after my time.

[davidbfpo]

As always an expert report on what happened on the ground from FRI; which rather demolishes the NATO footage of Macedonian & US rifle fire on the suspects:

I originally thought it was undisciplined fire from Afghan Security Forces who were shooting at ghosts, as there was only one spot in the city with active shooters. Turns out I was wrong. Most of the shooting The Bot was hearing came from the ISAF Headquarters where the Macedonian guard force joined by Americans from the HQ staff started shooting at a building 1000 meters away with AK 47’s (Macedonians) and M4 rifles (Americans). What they thought they were doing and where all those rounds impacted is a mystery to me. I can guarantee that none of them came close to hitting the 6 gunmen who were outside the effective range of ISAF battle rifles. Apparently the shooting from the ISAF HQ lasted over two hours and only stopped when they ran out of ammo..

There's more on:http://freerangeinternational.com/blog/?p=4475

That NATO public relations thought the footage was to ISAF's advantage is now to say the least embarrassing.

[Fuchs]

For several years, I have held the suspicion that

(1) Carbine/rifle firepower quality is being overestimated and it's still the machine guns and sniper rifles that do 80% of the job (~Pareto) - just as they did in the age of bolt-action carbines.

(2) Western infantry superiority is being overestimated due to plate armour, Medevac and non-platoon-organic support fires.

(3) Taliban are not as much into killing as into fighting, and thus consider many engagements a 'success' while ISAF/OEF does count them as a success, too.


P.S.:

How exactly do you set up and use a 82 mm recoilless gun INSIDE a building?
Does this probably explain the meagre amount of 82mm shells fired and meagre 'determination'?

[Kiwigrunt]

How exactly do you set up and use a 82 mm recoilless gun INSIDE a building?

The photo of the building from where the kickless cannon was fired shows the building to be in construction, with no windows. So air pressure as such should not be too much of a problem. I'd want to be wearing ear-muffins though!

[kaur]

HK's 5 cents.

http://www.hkpro.com/forum/hk416-hk4...8-now-g28.html

[kaur]

HK IAR

USMC M27 IAR Production Order Awarded

Last week HK Inc received the production contract for 3,300 M27 Infantry Automatic Rifles (IAR's) for full fielding in Marine infantry units. First deliveries are expected in November on the US Marine Corps birthday. This effort started in 1999 with a "Field Experiment" but has now been put to bed - or has it? Some believe this could lead to possible replacement of the USMC M16A2/A4 in service with the Marines as the Marine Corps is not officially signed on to the Army's ongoing Individual Carbine competition.

http://www.hkpro.com/forum/hk416-hk4...r-awarded.html

[JMA]

For several years, I have held the suspicion that

(1) Carbine/rifle firepower quality is being overestimated and it's still the machine guns and sniper rifles that do 80% of the job (~Pareto) - just as they did in the age of bolt-action carbines.

Agreed. So the logic is to increase the number of machine guns and move them forward, yes?

[Fuchs]

Agreed. So the logic is to increase the number of machine guns and move them forward, yes?

No.

"(1) Carbine/rifle firepower quality is being overestimated and it's still the machine gunners and snipers that do 80% of the job (~Pareto) - just as they did in the age of bolt-action carbines."

There, fixed it.

You cannot turn most riflemen into high firepower soldiers because competent armies select their best infantrymen for the high performance weapons and equip the low performance infantrymen with assault rifles (to suggest to them that they ain't more porters than anything else).
Low performance infantryman + high performance weapon = still low performance

You cannot kick all low performance infantrymen out of the infantry (just some real duds) quickly because that would be inefficient. You'd have too few infantrymen. It's better to choose your small unit leaders, machine gunners and scoped riflemen carefully and assign helper infantrymen to them.
It would take major personnel system improvements to solve this without resorting to a tiny all-SF infantry force.

Btw JMA, I already wrote about this a year ago.

[JMA]

No.

"(1) Carbine/rifle firepower quality is being overestimated and it's still the machine gunners and snipers that do 80% of the job (~Pareto) - just as they did in the age of bolt-action carbines."

There, fixed it.

You cannot turn most riflemen into high firepower soldiers because competent armies select their best infantrymen for the high performance weapons and equip the low performance infantrymen with assault rifles (to suggest to them that they ain't more porters than anything else).
Low performance infantryman + high performance weapon = still low performance

You cannot kick all low performance infantrymen out of the infantry (just some real duds) quickly because that would be inefficient. You'd have too few infantrymen. It's better to choose your small unit leaders, machine gunners and scoped riflemen carefully and assign helper infantrymen to them.
It would take major personnel system improvements to solve this without resorting to a tiny all-SF infantry force.

Btw JMA, I already wrote about this a year ago.

Your article is good as usual.

In cases of general mobilisation where you have little time and little ability to select you are correct (probably without reservation).

The problem I see is that the upward flow of training seems to be faulty.

I think we can believe that everything is built on the foundation of individual training. One understands that when a mobilisation takes place training gets shortened, less experienced and qualified instructors are used then the troops get to be commanded by rapidly promoted, probably poorly selected, under qualified and experienced officers (and probably also NCOs) in battle.

What are the basic skills required of basic infantryman?

Basically he gets trained in fieldcraft, minor tactics and all platoon weapons and equipment (including bits and pieces on map reading, medical, radio voice procedure, survival etc etc) - I have a 1979 18 week training programme somewhere.

All recruits do range firing classification on both their personal weapon (FN) and the platoon LMG (FN MAG) in week 9.

The whole guiding training design is to teach the recruit how to close with and kill the enemy using the tools of his trade.

Not to conduct presence patrols (while playing hop-scotch with the IEDs), handing out sweeties to kids, bandaging cuts on kids hands and feet, escorting veterinary services around the place and securing LZs for VIP visits (etc etc).

You take an 18 year old and you turn him into a killing machine. In a peacetime army his is a volunteer and in a general mobilisation you have no option. Giving this type of training to conscripts in peacetime has ethical connotations about which I have concerns.

After the basic training you concentrate on the next level from fire-team (or in our case the 4-man stick) to section and so on.

My read based on the information I have is that Brit independent platoon level operations are 50:50 while any independent deployment at section or fire-team levels is simply out of the question even against a mediocre enemy such as the Taliban. They have let something slip.

Remember with regular soldiers serving on 3/5/7 year contracts you have time to work on the even the dummies to bring them up to the acceptable standard and even beyond.

Remember the four steps of training... demonstration, explanation, imitation, repetition. Good instructors and good platoon sergeants will keep the repetition going until the required standard is met. (Officers tend to get bored too quickly)

I found the motivation of wanting to stay alive worked pretty well for the vast majority.

When you operate independently at fire-team (4-man stick) level you have the commander, the gunner, the stick medic and a buckshee rifleman. Normally the buckshee rifleman is a new kid fresh out of training and holds that position until he graduates up wards to one of the other three positions. You can hide a dummy there for a while but yes later he ends up blocking a spot reserved for feeding through the new kids.

Rhodesia was pretty unique in that it produced some fine young men (from good British stock) - and I am talking as a South African here. I little known fact is that 42% - yes 42% - of Rhodesian second world war volunteers ended up commissioned in the British Military and despite many entering the Air Force as pilots it remains a pretty impressive statistic. So we had them coming through as conscripts. Amazing material for a small country.

Finally, I have always said that platoon weapons must be like the commander golf bag, he makes his selection of what he needs according to where he is, what he is meant to do and who he is up against. Select you clubs for the shots you need to make and leave the rest in the bag.

Good article! Worth a thread of its own.