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Post by yanmacca on Jul 24, 2017 13:23:32 GMT
I don't know why they bothered writing such stuff, I mean someone has to type the bugger out and then get it printed as every officer must have a volume, what gets me is officers who formulate this stuff because this must come from high office and a bunch of officers must have sat down a compiled the manual.
I think the mistake I am making here is that these manuals may have been read by the older boys on this site and my thought process is one of walking down memory lane in an effort to show them something they may have not seen in fifty years.
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Post by deadwoodgultch on Jul 24, 2017 13:49:46 GMT
Ian,
You are right about the officers, maybe job justification. The typists also had a primary MOS, not being used at the time. God bless the Government Printing Office they spend their lives banging out superfluous stuff. They may be the second biggest killers of trees in the USA.
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Post by yanmacca on Jul 24, 2017 14:05:49 GMT
Tom there are loads of these manuals knocking around on the net, so you are correct, they are the second biggest killer of trees.
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Post by quincannon on Jul 24, 2017 14:50:40 GMT
This is becoming a bit overblown as to importance of the manual itself. Because:
1) Every officer did not need or have a copy. That was not necessary.
2) There may have been one copy in a regiment, or separate battalion at most, and that copy used by the appropriate level logistics officer, at whatever was the appropriate level.
3) This manual was used by a logistics staff at various levels to compute levels of supply. In this case the portion of the chapter shown dealt with ammunition levels.
4) Tables of ammunition levels are used to compute basis levels of ammunition required for various "type" units. These tables changed often based upon various factors, experience and the introduction of new weapons to name a few.
5) I want to stress once again that they are for the use of logistical staff. The average officer at platoon through battalion level has no need for them, to consult of them, or to do anything more than, when in need say send me more ammunition.
6) Likewise that same officer needing ammunition when he needed something else would say send, food, batteries, replacement radios, medical supplies, a specific spare part(s) etc.
7) It is exactly the same process for Tom giving his ration count to his logistics people, then expecting so many chickens, so many pounds of potatoes etc. to show up, per the master menu, to feed that ration count.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on Jul 24, 2017 15:45:43 GMT
Hmmmm,
Remember my conventional army experience quite limited, spent most of my time in units with god awful management.
The manual you cite is not aimed at platoon leaders and company commanders. It is aimed at supply officers.
There is a term I have fuzzy memories of, from officer basic and advanced course, maybe even CGSC. Unit of supply, or something like that. The idea is a unit in combat uses X amount of ammunition a day, based on what they are doing: attack, defense, fishing. So supply guys use the figure from manuals to plan resupply.
Because if you have a unit on Tarawa having unexpected needs, it does not help that the ammunition resupply is on Fort Dix, New Jersey.
In 2003ish, an SF unit ran into this problem, Ed Reeder bought class V from local black market (Uzbech, but really Russia) to help out the indig forces who were fighting. I don't mean a magazine or two, was something like 50 million rounds. Lawyers had an heart attack, looks like 7th Group broke a few hundred laws. But he won the fight and the campaign. Think he was punished by being promoted to BG. One of the finest officers I have ever known.
Manuals need to have planning factors. Idea is have appropriate levels of supply at battalion, regiment depots, but more importantly close the gap from factory to theater. I may not be explaining this well, to folks not familiar with military culture. The target of the manual is not the shooters, it is the support guys.
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benteen
First Lieutenant
"Once An Eagle
Posts: 406
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Post by benteen on Jul 24, 2017 17:30:36 GMT
Col Montrose,
Yes Sir. You explained yourself very well. I forget now, but I believe it took 2 or 3 men in support for every man on the front line. The helicopter made it a lot easier. Heck, they even brought the mail, and every soldier serving away from home knows how important that letter from home meant.
They would not bring mail if it was a hot LZ (Landing zone under fire) but they would come in to get the wounded.
As a sidebar... I dont think these helicopter crews are given enough credit for their courage under fire. There are a lot of Marines/Soldiers that owe their lives to their bravery.
Be Well Dan
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Post by quincannon on Jul 24, 2017 17:48:25 GMT
You are only partially correct Benteen
The accepted ratio for a so called division slice is 2 to 1. In other words for every 15,000 man division you have the support structure must be on a two for one basis. 15,000 in a division means a support structure of 30,000 for a total division slice of 45,000. Using those ratios then if your total force is capped at 450,000 you can expect that force to contain ten divisions or less, but no more than ten.
If on the other hand you are trying to figure out what size support structure you need for only the Infantry shooters in a division, the ratio climbs to the neighborhood of ten to one. You specified in your post "every man on the front line" which suggests to me you are talking Infantry shooters, so the second figure of 9 or 10 to one applies. That only counts military personnel. When you count in the civilian work force the ratio rises to somewhere above 25 to 1.
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Post by yanmacca on Jul 24, 2017 19:47:07 GMT
M1923 cartridge belt had ten pockets and could hold an eight round clip in each, which totals 80 rounds, so why issued them with only eight clips? The only thing that I can think of is the weight, kind of lighting the load while not in combat, but still being armed so to speak. Once they go into action, they double up on clips plus extra rounds in the bandoliers.
Apparently this belt was issued to troops armed with the M1903, that used five round clips, so they put two clips in each pocket, giving a total of 100 rounds in 20 clips.
The M1937 ammunition belt for the BAR, could hold a dozen magazines, which would give the gunner 240 rounds in 20 round in each Mag. Did anyone notice the different types on offer to the standard infantry man? It looks like each man was issued with; 10% AP 20% Tracer 70% Ball
I have some stats on the AP round and it could penetrate 8mm of armour at 100m.
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Post by deadwoodgultch on Jul 24, 2017 21:42:27 GMT
Ian,
We primarily discuss history on this board, witness your post about ammunition and Chucks thread elsewhere regarding infantry regiments/units. We often discuss the cost, the cuts 1866&1869, and after every major war or police action, but little discussion about today. We have been involved in the GWOT since prior to the murders at the Olympics in the early 70's and we are still learning how to fight it and fund it poorly,
We have placed an unduly large burden on our Special Ops folks as has your nation.
Simple Numbers from here:
8,000 is the approximate number of our Special Operators currently deployed. 138 is the number of countries in which they were deployed in 2016. 70 countries were the number of countries in which they were deployed in in 2016. 2% of the Pentagon's budget and manpower are allocated to Special Operations.
What is wrong with this picture, these are the folks that are giving us our leg up.
Where is Royal Welsh when I need him, I think I have said that before.
Regards, Tom
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Post by quincannon on Jul 24, 2017 21:56:49 GMT
Ian: I do not think you have been paying attention to what has been said. Those tables are irrelevant to the average Infantryman. They are for use by logisticians for planning purposes.
The M1923 cartridge belt had ten pockets because that belt could not accommodate any more then ten pockets and still be a one size fits all belt/ You cannot afford to design separate belts for skinny guys, another for fat guys, and still another for people of average girth. Therefore 10 pockets were the average, and the belt designed for the average man.
Again the types of rounds available were for planning purposes, planning by logisticians. If I found a rifleman that had a tracer round in any M-1 clip he would not have to worry about the enemy killing him, I would do it for them. A rifleman using a tracer is like hanging out a neon sign over his position, saying -- I'm here - shoot me.
The same goes for AP rounds unless there is some special need, and frankly I can't think of one, that would require a rifleman to use AP, that ball would not do just as well.
The difference between being in combat and not is measured many times in fractions of seconds. When an American Infantry soldier goes anywhere near the enemy. and by that I mean when he can hear the sound of artillery, which you can normally hear 20 or more miles off, and he is not loaded down like a pack mule with every bit of ammunition he can beg, borrow, or steal, I truly believe his sanity is suspect.
Bandoliers in those days were made of cotton cloth and contained pockets for five clips of eight rounds each. BAR men were issued boxes of 20 rounds, that required inserting in magazines before use. No BAR gunner that I ever knew ever filled his magazine with twenty rounds. It was always somewhere between 17 and 19, depending upon the gunners preference, and the reason was the danger when you loaded twenty of the lips of the magazine being bent by the full twenty and causing a stoppage. As the M14 and M16 came along the practice was continued. Never load a magazine to capacity - Never.
Infantrymen learn things by experience. Logisticians never do.
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Post by quincannon on Jul 24, 2017 22:25:11 GMT
The one thing I greatly regret, in what I consider one of the highlight assignments of my career is buying into the idea that a "light" division was a worthwhile enterprise for the long term.
We tried to make things light so that they were rapidly transportable, artillery, helicopters and all. When they got to where they were going though they did not have the same capability as the average medium Infantry division, and had nowhere near the sustainability.
The fact is that we already had this "light" capability in the Army in our Special Forces Groups, who could get there faster, insert with a great degree of stealth, and build local light forces around their basic structure of the 12 man SFOD - A. They have to be employed a little differently. They must be employed sooner rather that "light later" but the precepts of what the light divisions were based upon is being there, being light, being lethal, and being more sustainable in smaller packages. Special Forces Groups fit that mold.
We don't have light divisions anymore, nor do we have light brigades. We bought off at the time on a European vision of Jaegers, which we modeled the LID's on, but what is good in Europe does not necessarily mean that they are good anywhere else. We are not a European oriented Army any more. We are an "anywhere else" Army, and as much as I really hate to admit it, we built five divisions worth of stuff that had limited value, whereas we could have invested more in Special operations Forces, particularly Special Forces Groups and been much better off for it in my opinion.
If John Wickham ever reads this, and finds out my real name, I would be crucified, drawn and quartered probably. He fully believed in that concept, and he was right until the Iron Curtain fell. After that, not so much.
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Post by yanmacca on Jul 25, 2017 13:01:28 GMT
Chuck, I think what I was referring to, is the way these officers in high office, whether they are supply or what, actually think, I mean could you actually see an officer enforcing this protocol of having three different types of ammo.
I wonder the date of this document had anything to do with the nature of the ammunition mentioned? If it was date 1940, then the prospect of a .30 AP would make some sense, as German light armoured cars (Sd.Kfz. 221s & 222s) and half-tracks (Sd.Kfz. 250s & 251s) had only 8mm armour max. Japanese tanks had around 12mm max armour, but were really lightly armoured on the sides and rear (5-7mm).
I suppose they thought that an infantry platoon could hit these vehicles with enough of these AP rounds, that it either knocked them out or forced them to retire, don't forget there was no bazookas issued at this point and so other than rifle grenades and .30 AP rounds, an infantry squad had very little to fight enemy armour.
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Post by deadwoodgultch on Jul 25, 2017 15:05:31 GMT
Ian, .30 AP must be pretty fair, I guess, I got my hands on some quite a few years ago. I asked the owners of Fishpaw's Towing and Junk Yard if I could try them out in his yard. He lined up 5 vehicles in front of a hill, two of which were 40's era Packards. From side to side it went through 3,5 vehicles. Front to back through the grill, radiator, and destroyed the water pump. The owner took a turn and he split 3 solid concrete blocks lined up side to side. If I recall correctly those blocks were 4" each. Bear in mind I can split one of those blocks, easily with a .44 mag FMG.
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Post by yanmacca on Jul 25, 2017 15:45:57 GMT
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Post by yanmacca on Jul 25, 2017 15:49:14 GMT
I don't know why that post came out yellow, because I certainly didn't change the font in anyway.
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