US infantry individual infantry skills

Military History \| How To Make War \| Wars Around the World	Rules of Use	How to Behave on an Internet Forum
Infantry Discussion Board
Return to Topic Page

Subject: US infantry individual infantry skills
Aussiegunner 11/11/2004 10:42:57 AM

I saw a TV news report tonight of a contact by a USMC foot patrol, which had just been bumped by a group of insurgents in Falluja. I have to say I was extremely un-impressed with the indivudual skills the Marines displayed on the contact. This corrosponds with actions I have seen on previous reports, though they have usually involved US Army personal. I'm suprised about this, because Marine Infantry training is generally more highly regarded than that of its army counterparts. Anyway, the specific concerns were, 1. On contact the soldiers bunched together, didn't take cover or move near a wall to limit their exposure to fire and didn't crouch or lie prone with nearly enough of a sense of urgency. 2. When they were scanning for the enemy, they didn't allow their weapons to follow their gaze, ie, "patrol their arcs" for an immediate shot on identification. 3. One USMC rifleman based on a roof to provide covering fire, did so by holding his rifle above his head while remaining under cover. There was no chance of proper target identification, let alone an aimed shot, so it was just pissing away ammunition while giving away his position and risking ricochets against any bystanders for no good reason. Note that there was a GPMG based on the same roof providing effective aimed fire, so there was really no excuse for the rifleman not to do the same. 4. One soldier sent around a corner to investigate where the fire came from described his experience. It went something like "I went around the corner and the insurgent in that garage took a shot and threw a frag at me. I ran back, tripped over a dead body(one of theirs, not ours), and came back here. For Christ sake, hadn't he ever heard of looking around the corner with a mirror, before walking around!?! Lucky the insurgent was a rotten shot! 5. An insurgent ran across a roof, bobbing above a ledge, about 100 metres away from our rifle squad. The Marinesl, still bunched together so one RPG would kill about six of them, fired with half aimed automatic bursts and some semi-automatic fire from their M-16's. At this point I must say that I've never seen a properly aimed shot from anything smaller than a 120mm tank gun from the US military in these reports. Do they teach proper marksmanship during US basic training nowdays? 6. Anyhow, something managed to hit the insurgent, because he ended up wounded between two buildings behind some sort of a barrier. So, one of the Marines pops his head over the barrier and shoots the insurgent. He's lucky he didn't get his head blown off. A grenade is the weapon of choice in such a situation, IMHO at least. I note that the news reports are claiming about a 3 to 1 kill ratio in favour of the US in Falluja at the moment. That isn't that flash giving a large numerical and a huge technological advantage. If this report is an indication of the general standard of individual infantry skills amongst US troops, no wonder this is the case. As citizen of an allied nation, I'm not trying to be smart or play one upmanship, but the US really needs to look at the way it trains its troops. Try looking at a few nations that use the British model, if you want some tips. It would be better at keeping your boys and girls alive, than all the high-tech wizardry you buy for them.

Quote Reply

Show Only Poster Name and Title Newest to Oldest

Pages: PREV 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 NEXT

kjetski RE:All Americans 6/23/2005 5:42:25 PM

All Americans 11/17/2004 6:33:55 AM I'm feeling really bad about appearing to unrelentingly bag your troops and have been looking hard at the news for examples of US soldiers using the right techniques. However, I just continually see them doing it wrong. Today, I saw two clips of troops neutralising insurgents in cellers with explosives and grenades. 6 or 7 troops outside were all just standing in a group, watching the fireworks. In a combat zone on such an operation, they should have been in all-round defence. The stress of being under fire was not an excuse in this instance, because they weren't. Sorry, these things just keep popping up but I'll keep looking for more positive examples. -snip- AG, Your posts are always of substance. I am not an expert in infantry tactics ect. I just have an interest in military stuff. I have actually picked up a few things from you and from alot of members on this board. Ground pounders from western armies are all good. Infantry training is infantry training. As has been pointed out the training sched for the US Army and Marine infantry are alike. They are both of very high quality. Likewise all of the EU infantry is good. Who knows what was on television.

Quote Reply

kjetski RE:John B 6/23/2005 5:52:50 PM

RE:John B 11/21/2004 10:32:50 PM Apart from the reasons for Commonwealth infantry skills being better that John has recognised, I think there are some basic doctrinal differences that have to be considered. From talking to Commonwealth soldiers who have worked with the US, they identify the US has emphasising massed firepower over individual skills. Commonwealth forces took much longer to adopt automatic individual weapons and in training you never get to fire your rifle on automatic(under pain of a charge for unauthorised discharge). They also used to only have one MG per section(what we call a squad), though they seem to be moving towards more firepower with two nowdays. This emphasis was demonstrated in Vietnam, with Australian infantry perfering to close on contact and engage with superior individual skills, whereas the US tended to call in the artillery far earlier. Apparently the VC would just slip away into the jungle or they would move right up close, so that the artillery couldn't be used safely. The Australian force in Vietnam completely cleared its AO of VC by the time it was withdrawn, which is pretty strong testament to its effectiveness in this type of war. That is is not to say that overwhelming firepower doesn't have its place, but that place tends to be in conventional conflicts, rather than gurrilla war. There are also some differences in the amount of training and responsibility given to junior leaders(eg, a Corporal commands a Commonwealth rifle section(squad), rather than a Seargent) and the emphasis put on drill to install discipline (a BIG part of Commonwealth basic training). The British model has also emphasised aggressive patrolling, to give superior tactical awareness while denying it to the enemy and to sap their moral, and provide a visible presence to the civilian population in a counter-insurgency campaign. This, combined with more discriminatory use of firepower near civilians, goes a long way towards winning the hearts and minds. I believe these factors combine to produce a more capable unit at squad level, the key to success in counter-insurgency type warfare. However, in a major conventional war, the US forces sum to greater than the value of their parts and are extremely effective. Previous Comment -snip- Physical laws apply all over the universe. Not just to OZ, France, or the UK. Good combat tactics would seem to be the same world over. The United States Marines, US Army Infantry ect are all good at there jobs. If they were not, more would be dead.

Quote Reply

132456 RE:Real world situation 9/20/2005 7:34:50 AM

In what measure returning fire affect g.i.'s aim respect his performance in mout?

Quote Reply

GOP The kill-ratio in Fallujah was about 10-1 or 15-1 9/20/2005 1:59:04 PM

The USMC is a well-trained force. Maybe not as good as the British, but they are well-trained and effective. We have started to get more and more serious about training, especially since Rumsfeld has been the SecDef. We are learning from our experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq, and we are getting more and more serious about training our troops, especially in MOUT scenarios. Soon we will be as well-trained and experienced as any nation on earth

Quote Reply

shek RE:The kill-ratio in Fallujah was about 10-1 or 15-1 9/20/2005 2:19:08 PM

GOP, We have always been serious about training our troops. This is a post-Vietnam legacy when TRADOC was created and tasks, conditions, and standards became the linchpin of our training. This was further developed through the creation of the Combat Training Centers: NTC, JRTC, and CMTC. MOUT training began in earnest in the conventional forces starting in 1993 during Somalia, with the SOCOM community training conventional forces such as the 10th MTN DIV in their techniques. This training was reinforced through members of 75th Ranger Regiment during their assigments to conventional units as well as through the construction of better MOUT live fire facilities and the use of training aids - blue tip SRTA, Simunitions, etc. Our ability to operate in low intensity conflict scenarios has been honed through JRTC rotations, which always include a light/heavy element, and through our real world experience in Kosovo and Bosnia (developing targeting processes, HUMINT/intell capabilities, and working with people). All of these skills have accumulated throughout the Army over the past decades, and what Iraq and Afghanistan has done is to push this knowledge from some specific communities to the entire Army communinity. So, it hasn't been a matter of getting serious, but a matter of disseminating these lessons throughout the entire Army. Where we have benefitted over the past five years has been increased training funds and the wake up call in the support community that they have to know how to fight as well - this is the one area where I would agree with an assessment that the CSS community wasn't serious about warfighting.

Quote Reply

shek RE:Real world situation - 123456 9/20/2005 2:21:52 PM

Depends on whether it is effective fire or not (i.e. is it 5-10 feet over your head or impacting a few inches from you consistently). For ineffective fire for a soldier/Marine who has been under fire before, it shouldn't affect him at all. Effective fire or being under fire the first time will greatly reduce the ability to aim and fire effectively.

Quote Reply

AlbanyRifles RE:Real world situation - Shek 9/20/2005 2:34:22 PM

You are spot on about CSS units. NTC/JRTC/CMTC taught the FSB bubbas how to defend a place but not how to fight on the move. Probably the best thing Jessica Lynch did for the US Army was to open up a lot eyes that we needed to get serious about warfighting in CS & CSS units. I applaud GEN Schoomaker making sure that the resources are getting allocated to those units to help train them..... they are getting there...not there yet but close. I went high order off on the Leadership; Board about the "leadership" of the 507 MT CO....particulalry the warrant officers. Everyone fights......

Quote Reply

dirtykraut 5/22/2007 10:03:43 PM

An old post, but I am going to try and revive it, as this post is one of the many examples across the internet where keyboard warriors from all over like to bash US infantry. Much of what people described on this particular posts are myths, and I want to shed some light on them.

Myth 1: The US army infantry (and US military in general) get's it's recruits from getto's and lower class families.

Reality: The US military, including infantry, is solidly middle class, much like the civilian world in the US.

Myth 2: The majority of men and women who join the US military/army do so for college money, which the military will provide indefinately.

Reality: 2/3rds of the men and women who serve in the US military never see a dime of college money, and the other 1/3 recieves very little. Think about it, even the US military cannot front the bill for even half the men and women (who join the military) to go to college. College/University in the US is very expensive, add room and board, and other essentials, you will quickly see that the US military will not spend that kind of money for you to go to college. Besides, most of these kids can get grants and scholarships if they have a decent GPA, which isn't hard to get. Though they do spend a lot of money per soldier, it is mostly for training equipping and paying these men.

Myth 3: US infantry is not as well trained as their UK/commonwealth/other counterparts.

Reality: One of the most common things people use to make this point is that US Army infantry training is only 14 weeks. Yes, OSUT is only 14 weeks, but this is basic infantry training. Your real training is when you get to your unit. While there are certainly advantages to spending more time in a school environment (in that unfortunate incident in which one is assigned to a deployed unit), but the US military believes that one should be taught the basics, and should be expanded upon when one gets to his unit. The US military spends more per soldier than any other military in the world. US soldiers are not as well paid as their UK/commonwealth counterparts however with food, housing, and free health care (the kind you don't have to pay a 15% food and clothing tax and a 55% income tax for, and the kind where you don't have to wait 3 months to get a doctors appointment, 2 days for lab results, hold your guts in in the emergency room,), no offense to our UK/commonwealth friends. The US, as Shek and others mentioned also has NTC and JRTC, which gives US infantry another advantage. Not to mention, if one were to say that the British have much better trained infantry than the US because their CIC is 24 weeks long to the US OSUT's 14 weeks, than one would have to say that their is a similar quality gap between British and Canadian soldiers, as Canadian BMQ, SQ, MOC combined comes in at 33 weeks. Yet I doubt many British soldiers would speak of that quality gap, so you see, that kind of logic is faulty. Hell, Iraqi infantry has a 25+ week program. And we all know how good they are.

Myth 4: US personell retention is lower than that of UK/other countries.

Reality: The US and UK's per capita personell retention rates are roughly the same, with the UK's being admittedly higher (though, by a miniscule amount) The US, because it is a bigger country, may have more 1 term guys, but because it is a much bigger military. There are many reasons for this, US colleges are more expensive/harder to get in to, and not everyone goes to college here. There is a certain amount of truth to the fact that a European without a college education is somewhat like an Arab without oil. The sole reason for this is because Europe has little room and natural resources.

Myth 5: European/commonwealth militaries are smaller and are able to be more selective than the US military.

Reality: The UK has around 200,000 active duty personell in their military, with nearly the same number of reserces.. The US has a little over 1.4 million active duty personell and nearly 800 thousand reserves. Canada has 64,00 active duty. Keep in mind the populations of these countries, the UK: roughly 60 million, the US: roughly 300 million, Canada: Roughly 30 million. With the exception of the UK, which in proportion to the number of people they have, all commonwealth militaries have similar or even higher numbers of men and women serving in their armed forces. The UK, does not that smaller on a per population basis, so cannot be as selective as some think. Canadian PFT standards, for example, are much lower than their US and UK counterparts.

Now I'm not trying to start a "my country can beat up your country" thread, I am just pointing out some facts that we have ignored t

Quote Reply

ZealousZionist the IDF system 5/23/2007 5:42:38 AM

I think that there is a problem with basic training that lasts only 14 weeks. If you are dependant upon subsequent training after posting to your operational unit, that could very well be impacted by where your outfit is in the training/deployment cycle.

I think the IDF system is the best. Infantry recruits companies undergo 6 months basic at the infantry school, at which point they are deemed operationa. Then they are posted, as an integral company with the same NCOs and officers, to their parent brigade where they serve another 8 months before being broken up. Thus the company training regime lasts 14 months, of which 8 they are also deemed operational. The brigades operate on an annual trimester cycle of four months training - from individual level up to an ultimate live fire brigade exercise - followed by 4 months operational service, and then another four month training cycle.

After 14 months, the company is dissolved and the most promising go on to become NCOs and perhaps officers themselves, while the rest are posted to the battalion weapons company to serve out the remaining 22 months of their three year national service commitment.

Quote Reply

french stratege 5/23/2007 9:33:22 AM

I have direct answer of NATO officers europeans but also including a Morrocan colonel trained in USA and French armies.

I will compare to best infantries in Europe (British, French and Nederland Marines which are the best, then German, Swedish)

Overall general views is that overall US infantry is below man for man for different reasons:

*US army is very process oriented and rigid, and that they have difficulties to change schema when needed at on low level - their tactics are very stereotyped

*US army is very rich:

-so they rely a lot on their expensive tools: (for example to use helicopter to cross a ravine instead of old mean with cables)

-They spend too much ammunitions for a given result

-They rely much more on air support

*Units are less cohesive, has less disciplin, and train less on physical fitness:

again motivation of people who enter armies are different.Too much US army soldiers have entered for a question of money, education and so on.

Euro welfare system don't incentive this kind of people to go to armed forces .

So armed force recruit a bigger proportion of military minded soldiers.

Retention rate are also bigger in Europe and carreer are longuer in average.

US army which is larger in proportion of population, do not push training to Europe level because they are afraid they do not gain enough recruits or loose them.

I would point out that UK is 5 time less numerous and its army 7 time.

Old traditions of disciplin are also more maintained and enforced in Europe since there is far less liability problems and risk for the army to face a soldier (family) prosecution and mass media attacks.However it is not true for US Marines as their culture is close to a European army.

A last point is that US army is more concerned to human losses at war or training and think it is not necessary to drill soldier to the point they have to obey blindly to their officers or to assault a position relying only on baionnets and.guts and without air support.A french officer would not hesitate to sacrify a whole company of infantry in order to get a tactical advantage while it is almost unthinkable in USA.It doesn't mean they don't car of their men lives like in Russia, (they try to give the better training to save lives) but if necessity arise, they would do it.

SO at least 4 main factors which lead to a inferiority compare to best forces:

US army is too process oriented and rigid on tactics

US army officers corps has not the (militaristic) traditions and culture of Europe officers corps which still exist

US army is too rich and so too reliant on US techo/number superiority

US army is afraid to impose a too military minded way of life due to recrutment motivation, bigger turn over necessities of retention and too avoid liability problems

It is false that US army spend more on infantry training.Bigger spending is done for heavy weapons (fighters, SSN , tanks etc..) which cost far more than infantery.The annual training cost of a single fighter is on the same magnitude of an infantry company.

Quote Reply

PREV 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 NEXT