A Soldier's Load, and His Lack of Mobility

[ghost squire]

Which explains why only Korea and WWII show similar results -- the same man did both.




But they aren't ad hominem. They are comments on the work, not the man. The criticisms focus on the fact that Marshall's notes do not support his claims, that he spoke to no one about his findings until after the war, and so on.



How do they "support" them? The Army is in the business of fighting wars -- the Marshall business is long behind us.



Depends on the environment. During the Spanish American War we made a boo boo -- we had an observation balloon, whose ropes were held by troops in the front of the advance force. The Spanish shelled the ground under the balloon. We haven't forgotten that -- things that fly can give away your position.

Actually it explains nothing, from a supporter of Marshalls point of view it says he is right. But that wasn't my point when I wrote that, I was saying that I believe during Korea when he was carrying on his work collecting data, he was a general, a Brigadier General. I got that and the US Army supporting Marshall thing from one of the sites that you provided I think. Possibly from the one I found myself.


About the UAV thing: I don't you can really equate a 10 foot long UAV flying 50 feet above the ground with a blimp. These could provide resupply during battle. I think they could also provide resupply to platoon strength incursions into enemy territory, I don't know much about it, but can a platoon move with much stealth anyway?

What about a situation such as that found in Mogadishu, perhaps this UAV could have supplied the stranded soldiers with water, ammunition and medical supplies. Think of the possibilities, it could have flown in a belt fed with ammunition, or a laser designator, among other things.

 

[Delobius]

A little known trick outside of commo circles: THe creamer is actually useful as a signalling device if modern comm goes down. Upend the packet about 2 or 3 feet over a lit flame and you'll get a flash of flame almost 4 feet tall out of it. It's simply a combustible powder--you just have to make sure you get the powder far enough away that it's actually in a cloud by the time it hits the flame.

-Teuf

Whoa...I'm surprised no one has commented on this yet! I'm so going to try this next time I'm at drill and have an MRE handy...

(And you thought the MRE heater was dangerous!)

 

[Jeff White]

ghost squire asked;

Hmm could this be because the army doesn't even have its own fixed wing combat planes anymore for CAS?

The Army hasn't had armed fixed wing aircraft since 1948, when the Air Force became a separate service. There is an interserve agreement that says the Army can only have armed helicopters.

Why could we have timely CAS in Vietnam but not now?

CAS was not always timely in Vietnam. One of the reasons it seemed more timely then it is today is that the Air Force and Navy were conducting an air campaign and CAS assets were often divirted from other missions to support the troops on the ground.

CAS can never be as responsive as the ground commander needs. There are only so many airframes and very many competing requirements for their use. A ground commander who is supported by artillery can have steel on target in two or three minutes of his call for fire. A commander depending on CAS for his fire support may wait hours to get steel on target. That's not especially effective considering that the targets often move. There aren't enough fighters or tankers to keep CAS on station 24/7. CAS is limited by the weather. CAS cannot keep up a steady rate of fire. The aircraft comes in, drops it's ordinance and leaves. The enemy comes up out of his hole, shakes the cobwebs out of his head and continues to fire.

About the UAV thing: I don't you can really equate a 10 foot long UAV flying 50 feet above the ground with a blimp. These could provide resupply during battle. I think they could also provide resupply to platoon strength incursions into enemy territory, I don't know much about it, but can a platoon move with much stealth anyway?

I can't envision a 10 foot UAV that could handle the weight and cube of a platoon resupply. 7.62x51 linked weighs about 8 lbs per 100 rounds. Water is 8 lbs per gallon. 5.56x45 weighs 1.35 pounds per loaded 30 round magazine. Say you're bringing your platoon 1500 rounds of 7.62x51 linked that's 120 pounds. Say 15 gallons of water (three 5 gallon plastic water cans) that's another 120 pounds. A new basic load of 5.56x45, just for purposes of our example, lets say 35 men times 210 rounds, that's 7350 rounds of 5.56x45 weighing in at approx. 330.75 pounds. You're up to 570.75 pounds just for ammunition and water. Figure in MREs, medical supplies, batteries and all the other little nitnoid things a platoon needs and you are looking at a vehicle much larger then a 10 foot long UAV.

What about a situation such as that found in Mogadishu, perhaps this UAV could have supplied the stranded soldiers with water, ammunition and medical supplies. Think of the possibilities, it could have flown in a belt fed with ammunition, or a laser designator, among other things.

How long do you think it would have lasted under fire. It certainly would have had to fly slow enough to unload those things on target.

Jeff

 

[ghost squire]

I can't envision a 10 foot UAV that could handle the weight and cube of a platoon resupply. 7.62x51 linked weighs about 8 lbs per 100 rounds. Water is 8 lbs per gallon. 5.56x45 weighs 1.35 pounds per loaded 30 round magazine. Say you're bringing your platoon 1500 rounds of 7.62x51 linked that's 120 pounds. Say 15 gallons of water (three 5 gallon plastic water cans) that's another 120 pounds. A new basic load of 5.56x45, just for purposes of our example, lets say 35 men times 210 rounds, that's 7350 rounds of 5.56x45 weighing in at approx. 330.75 pounds. You're up to 570.75 pounds just for ammunition and water. Figure in MREs, medical supplies, batteries and all the other little nitnoid things a platoon needs and you are looking at a vehicle much larger then a 10 foot long UAV.

Actually I was envisioning a little fleet of them.

Quote:
What about a situation such as that found in Mogadishu, perhaps this UAV could have supplied the stranded soldiers with water, ammunition and medical supplies. Think of the possibilities, it could have flown in a belt fed with ammunition, or a laser designator, among other things.


How long do you think it would have lasted under fire. It certainly would have had to fly slow enough to unload those things on target.

Good point... Maybe the best solution to that problem would be to not get stranded in the middle of a hostile city... Not that it was the soldiers fault.

Allright then what about a situation like Takur Ghar (sp), wasn't 10th Mountain pinned down and without any method of resupply? These UAVs definately could have helped there.

 

[NMshooter]

In all seriousness a mule train would have worked better.

Just having a few more cargo/utility vehicles available to carry supplies would have been nice.

Either option would have required additional transport capability to get it all to Afganistan, and then the OpArea. In country transport was mostly Chinook helicopters, which were scarce before they started getting shot down. The Army had to purchase several civilian CH-47s and have them upgraded to MH-47s just to replace losses in that engagement.

Not to mention the C-5/C-17 aircraft to get the MH-47s in country, unless you want to ship them to the nearest port.

It all adds up, straining a logistical system that is already heavily taxed.

And then we have the soldier, who has to carry more weight, because we cannot guarantee more supplies when he needs them, moving so slow that he cannot pursue a lightly equipped foe who is following trails with prepositioned caches for supply.

Which was why conventional forces did not do as well as they could have in that country, and why special operations forces, often on horses, ATVs, or smaller 4x4 unarmored vehicles, were more mobile. Not to mention being fewer in number easier to supply by airdrop.

 

[Jeff White]

NMshooter,

It was CH-47Fs that were being sold to other countries under the Foreign Military Sales Program (which means we gave those other countries the money to buy them from us) that were converted to MH-47s after we started losing them.

This brings up another issue..strategic logistics. Our current weapons systems are so expensive and complicated to build that we don't have the capacity to rapidly replace our combat losses. We've let the industrial base that we would need to support long term combat operations be sold off. If we ever got into a mid to high intensity conflict with an enemy that actually would stand and fight, we'd run out of high tech munitions in about 45 days. Formations would be combat ineffective after not much more time then that because we we don't have the capability to replace M1A2s, M2 and M3 Bradleys, or any of our aircraft in a timely manner.

ghost squire,
Mules or locally aquired vehicles would do a better job of combat resupply then your high tech UAVs. Sometimes the simple solution is the best solution.

Jeff

 

[John_Sprague]

None at all. But I trust his studies, and unless you show me evidence that shows he was wrong, I will continue to trust them.

Please see the following articles:

"S.L.A. Marshall and the Rate of Fire" - Roger J. Spiller/Royal United Services Institute Journal, Winter 1998, Pgs 63-71

and

"The Secret of the Soldiers Who Didn't Shoot" - Frederic Smoler/American Heritage magazine, March 1989, Pgs 36-45

The bottom line of both of these articles is that Marshall fabricated his data. Through thorough review of the "research" notes and interviews with Marshall's assistants, it was determined that he never asked the question about firing. Marshall did not practice simple bad statistics, he manufactured data whole cloth to suit him, for whatever reason.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Please see the following articles:

"S.L.A. Marshall and the Rate of Fire" - Roger J. Spiller/Royal United Services Institute Journal, Winter 1998, Pgs 63-71

and

"The Secret of the Soldiers Who Didn't Shoot" - Frederic Smoler/American Heritage magazine, March 1989, Pgs 36-45

The bottom line of both of these articles is that Marshall fabricated his data. Through thorough review of the "research" notes and interviews with Marshall's assistants, it was determined that he never asked the question about firing. Marshall did not practice simple bad statistics, he manufactured data whole cloth to suit him, for whatever reason.

Absolutely -- the attraction of Marshall's work is the statistical basis. And he made it all up.

 

[Lebben-B]

I read with interest the entire 4 (so far) pages of this thread. I've spent the vast majority of my career on the light side of the house, mostly in ABN/AASLT units. As a former RTO in a LRS unit in Germany I can certainly agree with Jeff White's comments about ruck weights. Winters in Germany always presented this choice - After packing all my mission essential items I had enough room left over for food or snivel gear, so it all came down to choosing between freezing and starving.

"I carry 100 pounds of light weight gear." One of my Soldiers was fond of saying that. It's a funny saying but there's a lot of truth in it. A few ounces here, a pound there and it all starts to pile up. One of the major problems with our gear is that it's introduced piecemeal. There is no "unified field theory" to procurement. Often times new items are looked at individually (with concern to weight) without considering how much they add to the Soldier's overall load.

A Viet Nam veteran can look at one of my grunt's today and know, in general, what each bit of his kit is for. Our load carrying gear hasn't changed much in 30-40 years. Changes have been incremental and evolutionary in nature rather than revolutionary. Civilian backpacking equipment has changed radically in the same time frame. While I agree that much of it would not be robust enough for what the Services would demand of it, surely some of it could be "hardened" for military use.

Mike

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Many years ago, I was involved in a study on how to carry the Dragon anti-armor missile. Everyone agreed the gunner needed to carry the sight and at least one missile. These were equipped with straps, so he could sling them.

Someone asked, "But how the hell does he carry his ruck?"

A long pause and someone said, "He puts it on the ground in front of him and kicks it along as he walks."

Then there was Crazy Jim Channon, who invented the boxhole. This was a trailer the infantryman could pull along behind him. None were ever built, but in Crazy Jim's mind, the boxhole weighed nothing, never got hung up on stumps or brush, and could be dug in with a couple of shovels-full of earth.

Once dug in, the infantryman climbed inside and there was a shower, a wetbar and a jacuzzi.

 

[Lebben-B]

Crazy Jim

Wasn't he the guy that came up with all these "Outside the box" ideas and tried to sell them to the military?

Mike

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Wasn't he the guy that came up with all these "Outside the box" ideas and tried to sell them to the military?

Mike

We're probably thinking of the same guy -- the "battalion band" -- which was a boom box towed behind a jeep. The songs would be "training-related."

The gas tube connected to the
Bolt Carrier
The bolt carrier connected to the
Op Rod

He wanted to hire writers to write fictional stories about units, and sell them in the PX.

 

[Lebben-B]

Yep. Same guy.

Mike

 

[Jeff White]

Vern Humphrey said;

Many years ago, I was involved in a study on how to carry the Dragon anti-armor missile.

So you're the guy to blame! Were you still around when the night tracker was fielded? It came with it's own large ALICE.

I also seem to recall a Humphrey writing into to Infantry magazine challenging an author who proposed eliminating the bayonet and issuing a sealed 10 round magazine for emergeny use in it's place to a real test of his concept. That wasn't you by any chance? Would have been mid to late 80's.

Jeff

 

[BullfrogKen]

David Grossman was a Permanent Professor at West Point -- which is to say, a college professor who wears a uniform. He's never been in combat.

Grossman in his book tries to rank the ease/difficulty of taking the life of another. Mostly he uses distance and crew served weapons as justifications for relative ease, contrasted close proximity and direct engagement as barriers to killing. He makes a flippant judgment that men serving the role of a sniper find killing easier due to distance.

Right there, at that very point, I thought, "OK, either here's another commander who misunderstands his sniper assests like every other one does; or, he has no idea what he's talking about period , and all this is nothing more than war college theory book babble.

The further I read and learned his conclusions, I chose option 2. Snipers get quite intimate with their target, sometimes having observed an area, or man, for intelligence reasons for great lengths of time. In most scenarios, the time of this man's death is determined by the sniper; this man is absolutely no immediate threat to him, they are not engaged in mutual combact. It takes a select breed of men who have the ability to kill a man under such circumstances, and not let it plague his conscience - OR - not be flippant about it. Those completely unaffected by the act sometimes display entire personality flaws that enable him to take too many risks and make bad decisions.

The selection schools today try to find balanced, mature, grounded men for such duty. Shooting skills and fieldcraft can be taught, intangible character traits are instilled and affected outside sniper school. Grossman's "relatively easy" ranking of the sniper's kill displays his ignorance of even talking to these men. Many an experienced team talk of allowing an enemy soldier to finish breakfast, or a cigarette, or a piss, before taking his life. That comes across to me as personal.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Vern Humphrey said;


So you're the guy to blame! Were you still around when the night tracker was fielded? It came with it's own large ALICE.

Actually, it was a former company commander of mine, General Burton Patrick.

I also seem to recall a Humphrey writing into to Infantry magazine challenging an author who proposed eliminating the bayonet and issuing a sealed 10 round magazine for emergeny use in it's place to a real test of his concept. That wasn't you by any chance? Would have been mid to late 80's.

Jeff

That would be me.

The author offered to fight anyone who favored the traditional bayonet -- with him using his sealed 10-round magazine. I took him up on it -- his rifle was to be the one with the stuck case and broken extractor.

I also wrote a long series on winning at the National Training Center.

 

[Vern Humphrey]

Yep. Same guy.

Mike

The Army had a great idea at one time, the Delta Circle. The most brilliant minds were members, and they circulated and critiqued ideas. The intent was to allow people to think freely, discuss openly, and see what happened.

Crazy Jim joined the Delta Circle, and everyone else left.

 

[Lebben-B]

Crazy Jim joined the Delta Circle, and everyone else left

I can imagine how it all went down. Crazy Jim sitting at the table with America's best and brightest, puffing on a cigarette of dubious origin (insert best Dennis Hopper voice here) "Ya see, man...what the troops REALLY want is tunes, man..."

The Dragon night tracker brings back a lot of memories, all of them bad. Probably an old joke, but at the time the quip was, "Hey - do you know why it's called the Dragon? After humping it a click or two your tailbone is dragon the ground."

I much preferred the M67 RR to the Dragon. Shorter arming range and a variety of ammunition types.

Mike

 

[Jeff White]

Don't even get me started on the Dragon One time a very young and unPC SGT White asked a McDonnell Douglas tech rep if they had enough people in his section to deploy a tech rep with each squad to make sure the thing worked....Had to go talk with the CSM after that .

Vern,
I found your series on winning at NTC very useful when it was our turn to do a rotation.

Have you seen Making a Case for the Military Shotgun in the Sep/Oct 05 issue? I'm thinking of writing a rebuttal article.

Jeff

 

[Thin Black Line]

I can imagine how it all went down. Crazy Jim sitting at the table with America's best and brightest, puffing on a cigarette of dubious origin (insert best Dennis Hopper voice here) "Ya see, man...what the troops REALLY want is tunes, man..."

We all had MP3 players in Iraq --however, we had to BUY them ourselves

 

[Lebben-B]

Yeah. If Viet Nam was the helicopter war, then Iraq will become known as the I-Pod war. It seems everybody has one of those things over here (Even yours truly).

Mike

 

[Vern Humphrey]

I can imagine how it all went down. Crazy Jim sitting at the table with America's best and brightest, puffing on a cigarette of dubious origin (insert best Dennis Hopper voice here) "Ya see, man...what the troops REALLY want is tunes, man..."

The Dragon night tracker brings back a lot of memories, all of them bad. Probably an old joke, but at the time the quip was, "Hey - do you know why it's called the Dragon? After humping it a click or two your tailbone is dragon the ground."

I much preferred the M67 RR to the Dragon. Shorter arming range and a variety of ammunition types.

Mike

The Dragon was not an improvement over the M67, no matter what anyone says. The Javlin, now, is another matter all together.

 

[Lebben-B]

The one thing I have never understood about the Army and man-protable AT systems is the obsession with range. Yes, it's generally good to engage tanks from as far away as possible - provided you're in another tank. As an infantryman, I'm not going to engage tanks on ground favorable to tanks if I can help it. I'm going to engage them on ground favorable to me. Built up areas, forests, and mountains are preferable. Of course, I'm preaching to the choir on this.

I would trade 100m of effective range on the M136 for a warhead big enough to put down a current generation chinese MBT.

Mike

 

[Vern Humphrey]

It really isn't a possible trade-off. The problem is that armor protection is winning the race against chemical energy warheads. So the solution isn't to make the warhead bigger (and the range shorter) since a warhead effective against frontal armor, with applique and reactive tiles would be huge. Instead, options like top attack are the way to go.

 

[Lebben-B]

And we smoothly merge back into the crux of this thread.

I agree with you that armor is winning the race against ordnance and that an AT system that is top attack capable is the way to go. But at what physical cost to the grunt? The Javelin system is man portable...sort of. And so we pile yet more stuff on the back of Joe Snuffy. In addition to all his other mission essential gear (And I'm talking truly mission essential and not what the BC thinks is mission essential as his ruck gets loaded into his humvee and driven out to the DZ) he's now humping CLU's and smart missles.