Archive for the 'Army' Category

DoD.

The training, provided by the U.S. Army Tank-Automotive and Armaments Command, gave the small-arms repair Soldiers an opportunity to get a hands-on feel for the new systems and learn the details of operating and maintaining them.

“An instructor came here from TACOM and went over the whole weapons system for the M17 and M18 pistols, breaking down the weapon understanding how it fires,” said Staff Sgt. Ryan Daly, platoon sergeant with 632nd SMC.

The instructors also covered all the different trajectory, how to disassemble not only the weapon but also the magazine and how to properly clean it, Daly said.

[ … ]

The maintainers ended the training having gained confidence in their ability to provide the Division and tenant units the quality support the Sustainment Brigade is known for.

“For an SMC, this is an important opportunity because it helps Soldiers basically cross train with some of the tenant units and the units we support here on Fort Stewart,” said Capt. Jessica Richardson, commander, 632nd SMC. “We are the only ones that are going to be maintaining them on Fort Stewart and it gives our Soldiers an opportunity to fulfill their military occupation specialties.”

Provider Maintainer.  Is that what the Army calls armorers now?  Is that an actual MOS?  Does this go along with all the sensitivity training they get now?

Have any of you gunsmiths heard of this MOS?

NRO.

Wisconsin governor Tony Evers ordered 125 National Guard members to the city of Kenosha on Monday, following riots that erupted after police shot a black man while responding to a domestic violence call on Sunday.

The guard members will be charged with “guarding infrastructure and making sure our firefighters and others involved are protected,” Evers told reporters.

Ridiculous … depending upon the answers to the following questions.

1. Are they under arming orders?
2. Who signed the arming orders?
3. Have they been qualified at the range and given a pre-job brief by commanding officers?
4. What is the ROE/RUF?
5. Did they get a briefing from military lawyers on their ROE?
6. Will they be issued ammunition or will their magazines be empty, in which case they are only window dressing?

You see, we’ve been here before, where NG was deployed to the border, but no arming orders issued.

First, there is this news from Military.com.

Guard members are carrying rifles, sidearms and ammunition in response to a “credible threat” aimed directly against them as reported by the FBI, Army Maj. Gen. Jon Jensen, adjutant general of the Minnesota National Guard, said in a phone briefing with reporters.

So regular readers know I’m a wonk for such things.  This means that there were arming orders.  There had to be, or else they would have had no ammunition or weapons.

Next up, via David Codrea, this interesting news.

Townhall’s Julio Rosas is on the ground in Minneapolis this week, reporting on the protests and riots. Tonight he’s reporting that the riot police and the National Guard have abandoned a perimeter they had set up earlier in the day, chased away by the rioters.

[ … ]

Minutes ago Rosas, who’s a tough Marine, by the way, tweeted video of the protesters/rioters cheering as police and the National Guard abandoned their post near the third precinct, which rioters torched on Thursday night.

So much for arming orders.  So much for weapons and ammunition.  So much for ROE.  I guess it’s better to let looters destroy businesses, throw bricks, smash windows and hit people over the head with boards.

From The Drive.

Great idea.  Put the explosion closer to the shooter’s ear and cause even more hearing damage.

In the mean time, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the M4 or M249.

So much for the highly heralded 6.8mm, caseless, not-battle-tested whatever it is thingamajig.

The U.S. Army Contracting Command will soon release its final request for soliciting and award up to two, 5-year firm fixed price – Indefinite Delivery Indefinite Quantity (IDIQ) contracts for M16A4 5.56mm Rifles.

In a notice posted on the U.S. government’s main contracting website on 27 September, the Army Contracting Command announced that the Government intends to evaluate proposals and award up to two, (but not necessarily two), contracts without holding discussions with offerors for delivery of 215,000 5.56mm Rifles (maximum quantity).

Also states that a license agreement between Colt’s Manufacturing LLC and the U.S. Government requires the items procured to be manufactured in the United States Territory.

Perhaps Colt pulled back from the civilian market because they expect to get awarded a new *.mil contract.

Whatever.  I hope their deal with the devil was worth it. Or not.

This is a strange article anyway.  Why would a license agreement between the FegGov and Colt be pertinent to award of a new contract, especially if Colt wasn’t going to be involved?

So we may learn from this that FedGov is going to Colt yet again for M4s.  Not DD, not Rock River Arms, not BCM, not FN, but Colt.  Quality?  Maybe not so much.

American Rifleman:

Heckler & Koch (H&K) is gearing up to deliver between 5,000 and 6,000 complete rifle weapon systems to the U.S. Amy, which plans to deploy them as M110A1 Squad Designated Marksman Rifles (SDMR). The rifle will be a variant of the 7.62×51 mm NATO G28/HK417, and will be manufactured by H&K in Oberndorf, Germany, before arriving at the H&K-U.S.A. facility in Columbus, Ga., in early 2020. There, scopes and mounts purchased under a separate agreement will be installed, as well as accessories from 12 other U.S.-based manufacturers. H&K will additionally provide spare parts, support and training.

Because presumably there aren’t any manufacturers in American that know anything about building firearms.

The National Interest:

The U.S. Army’s standard infantry weapon repeatedly overheated and jammed during a bloody 2008 battle in Afghanistan. The Washington Times reported last week on the reported failure of the M-4 carbine during the fierce firefight in Wanat, during which the Taliban nearly overran an Army outpost.

A direct descendant of the Vietnam War-era M-16, the more compact M-4 is the Army’s standard-issue weapon. The ground combat branch has half a million of the semi-automatic weapons in service and has signed contracts for 120,000 more.

The Army and manufacturers are improving the M-4 to reflect battlefield lessons, but it’s unclear whether these upgrades will prevent another near-catastrophe like occurred at Wanat.

In the early morning hours of July 13, 2008, a Taliban force of between 100 and 200 fighters attacked an American Forward Operating Base guarded by 48 soldiers of 2nd Platoon, Chosen Company—part of 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment.

The paratroopers had just arrived in the area five days prior. The Taliban had been watching—and attacked before the platoon could finish setting up its defenses, which typically include walls, razor wire and machine guns.

Firing machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and mortars, the Taliban swarmed the American position. The U.S. soldiers called in Apache attack helicopters, 155-militmeter howitzers and even a B-1 heavy bomber to pound the attackers.

The Americans held their ground. But nine soldiers died and 27 suffered wounds. Around 50 Taliban died and evidence suggests 40 were wounded.

In stand-up fights like Wanat, whichever side is able to generate fire superiority—in other words, throw out more lead—has the advantage. This is particularly important for the defenders, as sheer firepower can slow the attackers’ advance until help arrives.

The paratroopers had brought to the outpost two heavy machine guns, two automatic grenade launchers and an anti-tank missile. These were supposed to be the linchpins of Wanat’s defenses, but accurate Taliban fire disabled most of these heavier weapons early in the battle.

Fire superiority fell to the M-4s. In the Army’s report on Wanat, one soldier described alternating between three M-4s, using each until it jammed.

“My weapon was overheating,” another soldier said. “I had shot about 12 magazines by this point already and it had only been about half an hour or so into the fight.” In other words, the soldier fired approximately 360 rounds in 30 minutes. That’s 14 rounds a minute—one every four seconds.

This one was originally published by War is Boring.  In my experience The National Interest produces click bait and nothing more.  Most of their articles are un-serious.  When they publish someone else in entirety it’s usually better, but in this case I cannot believe they are publishing this claptrap this late in the game.  There are so many errors in this commentary it’s hard to believe they went ahead with it.

To begin with, the Taliban force was near Battalion size, not 100 to 200 fighters.  They fielded nearly 600 fighters.  The Taliban weren’t just watching them as they set up the COP, they knew a full one year in advance what was going to happen and where it was going to be based on the felt-need of the Army to get “permission” from tribal elders.  Contrast this with the USMC in the Helmand Province where they would go in and set up a COP overnight with no permission from anyone.

This wasn’t a “stand-up” fight.  No one was standing (at least, not U.S. forces unless behind barriers).  The majority of the heavy losses were suffered at Observation Post Topside, which was poorly positioned and improperly manned.  The US force size was too small.  It was in a valley.  They had no CAS, the ring-knockers from Joyce let them down while they sipped coffee or played video games.

Blaming it on the M-4 is the stupidest thing they could have done, and articles written that way are looking to place blame somewhere other than squarely on the shoulders of flag and staff officers.  Finally, how many videos of run-to-failure full automatic fire with AR-15s do we have to show you to convince you that no one needs a piston AR, and that the direct impingement Eugene Stoner design does just fine.  How can we post videos of ARs shooting full auto for 800 rounds before the barrel melts without a single FFT / FTE before they stop blaming the rifle and start blaming upper command for the failure at Wanat?

By the way, I’m still proud to have three URLs associated with the Army report on Wanat.  PDF warning.  Page 255.

Prior: Battle of Wanat (category)

The Drive:

For one, the Reaper did reduce strain on a soldier’s arms when carrying a weapon. But it also increased fatigue from the awkwardness of firing and moving with the system on their back.

“The soldier’s breathing motion was exaggerated by the RSACS,” one report says. “This forced the soldier to tense his entire torso in order to effectively release each burst, thus significantly increasing the soldier’s overall fatigue.”

The change in high-mounted weight distribution also made it harder for troops to run and the pole made it impossible to get into a prone firing position.

[ … ]

Not surprisingly, the pole and cord also had a habit of getting caught on both foliage and other objects, as well as the user’s other gear. The system notably interfered with troops using helmets with night vision googles attached to them. It also made it difficult for machine guns with the F89 machine gun to open the top cover to reload or clear jams.

I’m sure glad the U.S. military isn’t stupid enough to do something like this for the benefit of girl-troops in the infantry.

Breitbart:

In October 2017, one instructor asked his students to show up for physical training the Thursday before a four-day weekend. When only three students showed up out of 40, he called another mandatory training session that weekend. Two hours later, he was fired.

Poor babies.  I feel so sorry for them.  I’m glad the USMC wouldn’t have done anything so wicked to my son when he was in the fleet.

Maybe we could have the officers and NCOs arrange for catered meals, back rubs and lacy underwear for them all?

Breitbart:

Two Army Green Berets are fighting for their military careers after being associated with an anonymous email that accused their commanders of lowering standards to enable more soldiers — particularly female — to graduate from its prestigious Q-course.

The anonymous email, signed, “A concerned Green Beret,” accused the leaders of the school of “moral cowardice” for lowering the standards, and weakening instructors’ ability to discipline students as they look to get further through the pipeline.

“[The school] has devolved into a cesspool of toxic, exploitive, biased and self-serving senior officers who are bolstered by submissive, sycophantic, and just-as-culpable enlisted leaders,” the email said. “They have doggedly succeeded in two things; furthering their careers, and ensuring that Special Forces [are] more prolific but dangerously less capable than ever before.”

One of the specific complaints was that the Special Forces Qualification Course (SFQC), commonly referred to as “Q-course,” was restructured so that there were “no physical barriers to earning the coveted Green Beret.”

[ … ]

The Marine Corps, which was the most resistant, has made recent headlines for integrating a female platoon into a previously all-male battalion at Parris Island, S.C., and for its first female Marine officer graduating from the Scout Sniper Unit Leaders Course.

As I’ve said before, the communist project is nearly complete.  And the country’s leadership was and continues to be a willing and culpable partner.