Time to Open a Can of Worms - Weapon Data in OOB's

[Suhiir]

Thanks Don, I knew that.
But as we agreed many months ago there is no hope of my work being used for anything official.

[MarkSheppard]

Many folks laugh a bit at the USMC claim "Every Marine is a Riflman" but it's true.

I'm one of them who laughs at the claim.

In most armies the clerks, supply types, and truck drivers have probably not fired their rifle in months, if not years. In the USMC EVERY Marine is required to qualify with their weapon yearly

That's because the USMC can afford to have it's logistics handled by either the US Navy (when they do amphibious landings), or by the US Army (when they're Army Junior, as in Iraq); so they look like they have a very high tooth to tail ratio.


Don:
Morale can be between +5 and +10 higher on average, again, it depends on the decade. And that was done years ago to make them " More special"

I've run across some very interesting statistics from past yearly annual DOD reports, they make for interesting reading; this is from the FY79 report



Desertion rates are a good eye into the "morale" of personnel, and it's very interesting to see that the USMC always has higher desertion rates than the Army; and it gets very pronounced in the late seventies; where the army goes down to 1.77 per hundred in 76, while the mAarines are at 6.92 per hundred.

[MarkSheppard]

As for your story; there's a reason the Army has emphasized heavy weight of fire when doing suppression; they found out in World War II fighting against the German Army that one of the biggest problems they had with brand new riflemen coming out of basic infantry training was that they had been trained in the States to emphasize accuracy; e.g. to fire at identified targets; and this was useless in the real world; where you did not see clearly identified targets. It took a lot of time to break the new arrivals of their habit of waiting for a target, and instead to randomly fire in the general direction of the enemy.

[DRG]

MarkSheppard said:Desertion rates are a good eye into the "morale" of personnel, and it's very interesting to see that the USMC always has higher desertion rates than the Army; and it gets very pronounced in the late seventies; where the army goes down to 1.77 per hundred in 76, while the mAarines are at 6.92 per hundred.

There's an old quote about " Lies, Damned lies and statistics" that applies here

First off, the number of personal in either service is not equal. Percentages are a waste of time what are the totals ? And are these combat desertions or people who just walked away from training becasue it was too tough ?

I could easily say all this proves is that the "USMC experience" is a little too much for some of recruits who thought they WERE "tough enough" but found out they didn't fit the mould as well as they though they would.

Don

[DRG]

Suhiir said:
In another instance an Army platoon ran into a Marine squad (do to some shifting of phase lines they wound up in the same place at the same time by accident). Since neither side knew about the other they had a little blue-on-blue action (no actual casulties tho as I recall). The Army platoon leader called back that he was under heavy attack by a company strength unit (due to the accuracy of the incoming fire) and began to withdraw. The Marines began to assault the Army position having suppressed it with their more accurate long range fire. About this time someone noticed both sides were American and the firefight stopped.
The Army guys absolutely could not believe that few rifleman could generate that level of accurate fire at that range.

Nice story. Here's an alternate interpretation

1]The "Army platoon leader " was green and green troops always think any fire is a "heavy attack " by a larger force and will report it that way so they will get support.

2} The "accuracy of the incoming fire" wasn't that "accurate" if it didn't cause any casualties so all that "be able to hit a man-sized target at least 50% of the time at 500m." rifle training isn't paying off as well as it should is it?

Don

[Suhiir]

Yup, your alternative interpretation is undoubtedly just as reasonable as any other.
Since chances are in 1983 everyone involved, except maybe the Army Platoon Sergeant, was green.
And the fact that no one was hit also proves the point that rifle range accuracy is not combat accuracy.

MarkSheppard said:
As for your story; there's a reason the Army has emphasized heavy weight of fire when doing suppression; they found out in World War II fighting against the German Army that one of the biggest problems they had with brand new riflemen coming out of basic infantry training was that they had been trained in the States to emphasize accuracy; e.g. to fire at identified targets; and this was useless in the real world; where you did not see clearly identified targets. It took a lot of time to break the new arrivals of their habit of waiting for a target, and instead to randomly fire in the general direction of the enemy.

Forgive me if I gave the impression I was claiming volume of fire didn't work as a method of suppression.
I was just saying accurate fire can do the same job with far fewer men and much less ammo.

That said, I'd expected this discussion to go pretty much as it has (why I titled it "Can of Worms"). On the off chance I was wrong I thought I should at least toss it out.
I'll stick to necessary changes to the Weapons tab (adding M249(3) SAW's and such).

Thank you all for your input.