Military Members post pics of you in your uniforms.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Originally Posted by ndicki

Who heard me complaining about being an infantryman? The only thing to be! Everything else is just support...

Lets see this is what I did every day as a Support guy in the War:

1. Insterted Sniper Teams so they could kill enemy snipers so that everyone else could be a bit safer while in there Camp and so they could kill assholes trying to place road side bombs to kill our convoys.

2. Inserted Special Forces and Navy SEALS into enemy camps and villages on combat airassaults so they could take out the bad guys.

3. Inserted whole Infantry Companies in to Samara and Falujah for combat offensives.

4. Extracted wounded soldiers who were on the verge of dieing because the Medivacs were allready at there full capacity.

5. Patroled supply roughts and roads by flying along them to prevent people from laying mines and bombs.

6. Evaded Missles and small arms fire directly fired at my aircraft.

7. Engaged those people who fired those weapons at my aircraft.

8. Rescued downed airman who were shot down.

Yeah Support guys as you call them dont just sit around support the infantry. Thats why were called a COMBAT AVIATION BRIGADE.

I somewhat understand the attitude of the infantry but it pisses me off because they think they are gods greatest gift to the military when in reality they are just either:

A. To Dumb to do anything else in the Army because there test scores were to low.

B. To smart to be in the Infantry and they chose it only because it had the smallest enlistment time and they needed there college paid off.

I choose to think they are just jealous they dont get to fly around in the coolest damn helicopters to take the sky every day...

Basically what I am getting at here is the Infantry aint **** without mobility in todays Army and that includes Army Aviation!

I dont care how much of a bad *** infantry you think you are, you go to Iraq and try walking for days through the desert just to reach a destination 50 miles away. Aint gonna happen...

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Originally Posted by ndicki

The two most important pieces of technology the infantryman has are his rifle and his radio; not necessarily in that order. (And if you want my opinion, people who ride into battle in armoured vehicles are not real infantrymen; they are more, say, Panzer Grenadiers. I have two feet, and they hardly ever have mechanical failures!)

Maybe in yesterdays military, not in today. The infantryman can not function with mobility today. Todays wars are being fought over vast areas. You can not walk a hundred miles and fight in the desert. You have to get there by either HUMVV, helicopter or APC. Todays infantry has gotten with the program...

[mkloby]

Hey Adler I think he meant that all in good fun, and didn't mean anything offensive (I hope) by the everything else is just support comment. I hear where you're coming from, I too catch a lot of **** too for training to be a pilot rather than ground combat arms. Our modern day combined arms doctrine would collapse whether you take out the ground elements - including infantry, or the air elements. Every MOS is essential to the way we wage warfare - take out one and the whole doctrine collapses.

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Originally Posted by mkloby

I must say I am not sure what that means! I will say that we have foot slogging infantry, as well as Light Armored Recon infantry - essentially a battalion equipped with LAV-25s. However - infantry will often deploy with Amphib Assault Vehicles, and would be fully mech. However, they would be used more as an APC not an Infantry Fighting Vehicle. The new Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle is being designed to act as more of an IFV.
Battalion motor pools have been built up as well due to the use of mounted recon in Iraq - so there are also ample 7 tons and armored humvees organic to that unit to provide transportation. Not to mention our air assault capabilities - CH-46s and CH-53, even could use hueys, plus we have our own C-130s. There are many ways that Marines can hitch a ride - although much of our training involves humping.

And that goes with what I said up there. A mobile force has the most advantage. Just hoofing it around with a ruck sack and your gun and radio will not win wars.

The USMC and the US Army have figured that out...

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Originally Posted by mkloby

I hear where you're coming from, I too catch a lot of **** too for training to be a pilot rather than ground combat arms. Our modern day combined arms doctrine would collapse whether you take out the ground elements - including infantry, or the air elements. Every MOS is essential to the way we wage warfare - take out one and the whole doctrine collapses.

I agree with you fully! 100%

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Originally Posted by mkloby

Hey Adler I think he meant that all in good fun, and didn't mean anything offensive (I hope) by the everything else is just support comment.

I hope so too, because comments like that if they are serious really piss me off, because me and my comrads dodged missles and bullets every day and risked our lives every day doing our mission and I have lost friends who were shot down.

That goes for many many different kinds of jobs that are not infantry.

[ndicki]

All meant in good fun - no intention to do anything other than harmless tweaking. Of course I know that the whole thing fits together into one machine, and that if any part fails to perform, the machine as a whole breaks down.

There is some truth in what I said though, because the final end to any conventional war is to occupy the enemy's terrain and/or country, and the number one tool for that is the infantryman. But I admit (against my hard-fought habits) that he can't really do it alone, and that he is not the only one up the sharp end, by any means. No slur was intended to anyone who gets in harm's way.

A lot of the stuff I did was non-mech, in a different approach to a different kind of war; and I'm very glad that I'm not stuck in the middle of Iraq, as you say.

So don't take it too seriously, and when I get the chance, I'll stand you a beer!

BTW, in the British Army, the ones who get the HIGHEST scores are admitted to the Infantry. Just out of interest. Also, I'd just ask the all-mech types what they'd do in the Falklands? While people trained as leg-infantry will be capable of using vehicles, I'm not sure the opposite is necessarily true.

[mkloby]

Hey ndicki, i'll throw something at you. All US Marines are trained as riflemen, and trained in infantry platoon level ops. They even use squadrons to do patrols, both foot and mounted, in Iraq. While the grunts spend their whole time training for ground engagements, other units can prove up to the task as well.

All Marine officers go through 6 months of ground training, including infantry off/def, SASO, urban, patrolling, engineering, etc. before they even go to their assigned MOS.

Just a thought - some of the most major problems that the Wehrmacht faced in WWII was it's lack of mechanized/motorized units - particularly acute in the early war years. This really bacame a problem in Barbarossa, as infantry slowed the advance of the fast moving panzer divs. Hitler refused to allow panzer armies to continue ahead of the infantry - he tethered them to the slow moving infantry.

Just something to think about - in a conventional war nonetheless.

[ndicki]

I think that in fact we're all making the same mistake - believing that 'our' style of war is the only one there is; in fact, they are all out there somewhere, just waiting for us to get caught up in them.

Those who were in the Iraq War see that as being "real war" - and it is. Meanwhile, those who were in the Falklands see something else; the Vietnam veterans, something different; the Rhodies yet another war, and so on. All of them are right. And to cap it all, unless you're bloody lucky, the one you get is the one you didn't train for - so you train for the hardest.

Just a word, though, to those who preach mech war - it didn't work so well in Vietnam, it wouldn't have worked in Rhodesia, and it didn't work in Somalia. It is not the only way to do it, and the way it needs to be done depends on a lot of factors that are out of our control.

That's one of the things I like about the USMC - the fact that you are first Riflemen, and only then, whatever else you are. That is something I believe we share, in that, for example, all British (and come to that, Commonwealth, as far as I've seen) Officer Cadets train as Infantry Officers, and go to 'To-Arms' training only after thex receive their commissions. Much the same thing goes for British O/Rs, too; basic training assumes you are an infantryman, rather than, say, a tankie or a lorry-driver.

BTW, this may amuse you...

Telegraph | News | US calls in Paras for Baghdad secret war

Just out of interest (tongue firmly in cheek!)

[mkloby]

Well I think of it like this. Mobility and speed are arguably the most important factors in a fighting force. In fact, USMC doctrine is based upon this. Sometimes that mobility may be acheived by APCs, sometimes trucks, sometimes C-130s, and sometimes helos. Mech had problems in Vietnam, but air assault became a cornerstone. Brings me to another point - adaptability. It's a great asset - a great tool to have these various capabilities. Obviously no one solution will work for all problems. Then there are times when you need lots of boots on the ground - which does not mean that leg inf does not coexist with all these other means. We do extensive cross training and combined arms exercises so whatever the threat is - there's a way to bring the hate and discontent.


BTW ndicki - your Royal Marines are awesome. We had them out in Quantico where we do our officer training - and one of those guys was walking around the barracks naked because he threw his cammies in the washer - I thought it was hilarious but a female officer who witnessed it did not.

[ndicki]

Genuine story, for what it's worth: (we used to train on the facilities at CTC Lympstone from time to time, and came into close contact with RMs and RMRs) Also used to run recces on them on Woodbury Common, Dartmoor, etc - all areas where armoured vehicles would get you about ten yards before bogging in...

USMC Officer, eying the letters "RM" worn on a Royal's shoulder slide: "Say, what do those letters RM mean?"

Bootie: " Real Marines, Sir."

(Also to be taken as a joke!)

When I went through first the cadets, then Officer training, etc etc, the British Army was going through a difficult phase - the ancient, worn-out FV432 APCs we had in Germany basically didn't work, and were there just to keep the Tech/Mech people amused. We only used them when we wanted to start walking from a previously undetermined point...

Once we paid a farmer 5 Pounds to carry the platoon in the back of his farm trailer!

[DerAdlerIstGelandet]

Originally Posted by ndicki

Once we paid a farmer 5 Pounds to carry the platoon in the back of his farm trailer!

But does that not mean that you were not walking?

We did that one time when were doing evasion training. A helicopter dropped us off out in the middle of the German country side and we had to get a predetermined point so that the Medivac could pick us up. We went into a farm field and hid in a farmers trailer because the OPFOR was close to getting us. The farmer found us and since I spoke German I showed him on the map where we had to get to and he took my crew to the destination where we called for extraction and they got us.

[pbfoot]

I picked one guy up that was doing the EE excercise and drove him in the trunk of my car a few miles further away from his destination

[ndicki]

Most useful piece of kit to smuggle on an EE effort was the visa card!!!

Incredible what a warm welcome you can get in pubs when you've got one of those...

Of course, I expect in Canada, they really CAN drop you miles from anywhere!

[k9kiwi]

You can fly over ground.

You can drive over ground.

Until a GRUNT "Stands on it and Stays" it isn't yours.

Simple as that.

And no offence meant to any trade, it is the single fact of war.