US infantry individual infantry skills

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AlbanyRifles Aussie Gunner 11/17/2004 9:49:50 AM

Hope I didn't come across too strident. I usually respect your views......unless we are discussign the merits of OHPs!!! :-)

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Aussiegunner RE:All Americans 11/17/2004 10:00:54 AM

"Bottomline, I don't see any evidence of a systemic problems with docrine or training." I hate to say this, but that is probably the problem.

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Aussiegunner RE:Aussie Gunner 11/17/2004 10:13:12 AM

Nah, you weren't any more strident than I would in all likelyhood be if the situation were reversed and I didn't agree with the critisism of our training. In any case, I try to live by what a great American once said, "If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen". PS, We are currently renovating our OHP's with SM-2's and Sea Sparrow, so for the first time in their history they will be remotely useful in the air defence portion of their role. All it took was a little bit of Aussie common sense to package a lot of US high technology into something remotely useful. Perhaps we could apply the same to your infantry training program, then you could truely hold your heads high ;-).

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Old Grunt MOUT problems 11/17/2004 12:04:26 PM

I have been training and leading infantrymen for over two decades now (both conventional and special ops) and MOUT doctrine has not changed. It is sound and simple. What has changed is the way in which we train that doctrine. You often hear the worn out phrase "We train the way we fight" what Aussigunner and others are seeing is the reality that we fight the way we train. I have been to many training events as part of O/C teams and have often witnessed soldiers executing what we lovingly refer to as "suicide drills". When asked why they chose to violate doctrine and use such bad technique, the standard answer is "Because LT/CPT/LTC Bonehead said we had to do it that way". When the identified Bonehead is found and queried you find that he either a) made it up all by himself ("ain't it cool?") or b) read, or had someone tell him, this was the worlds best technique ("This is how all the elite SWAT teams do it"). Also we don't execute MOUT exercises as continuous operations. Each phase is treated as a stand-alone operation. It builds an expectation that once you take your "piece" you get to relax and watch. There is very little replication of bad guys that roam around in small teams looking for an opportunity to kill you after you have cleared and secured your squad/platoon objective. After years of training this way, Joe just does it without thinking. Too often the focus of training is "get it done" rather than "teach them to win and come home". Before I forget, the goal is to mass fires, not firers. We call that technique "Bunching Up". It?s a favorite of enemy mortar and machinegun crews.

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Mike From Brielle RE:US infantry individual infantry skills 11/18/2004 11:40:31 AM

I haven't read this whole thread but I would just like to point out that the Marines smallest tactical formation is not the squad but the fire team (Max 4 Men- sometimes broken into two teams of two each depending on terrain, sometimes three men teams depending on conditions, like one of our football plays). Typically 3 fire teams to a Squad but the exact mix is not set in stone. The Army say they use fire teams but in reallity they usually just have a left half and a right half of a squad, two fireteams of six men which is fairly static in makeup but sometimes I believe they substitute a track for a fire team and then you'll have a base and manuever team.

These men that you were watching were operating in broken terrain so perhaps they were useing the cover that the terrain provided rather than sticking to strict adherance to formations (I did,nt see the video that you saw so I don't know)

I kinda' think of the way the Marine's use their fire teams is more akin to the Roman Legion maniples versus the Greek Phalanx of squad and Platoon deployments.

Incidently I believe the current casulaty ration between the Marines and the Terrorists/Bathists is running roughly better than 50 to 1 not 3 to 1.

Did the Marine who had the Terrorist/ Bathist cornered have a Grenade?

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Mike From Brielle RE:US infantry individual infantry skills 11/18/2004 1:49:53 PM

One more point the editors who are deciding what gets shown at night with our dinners maybe picking out the shots with what I think they call the most composition (more stuff going on in the picture) naturally this would include the shots where there are the most Marines/ Soldiers grouped together. This may be a very low sample of the actual footage taken but if the editor finds it more interesting, then thats the stuff that gets shown. More so than the more typical picture of troops deploying more correctly. Another thing that may be hapening is that the editors are cutting and pasting as if their making a movie and isolated instances may be get coupled together in a fashion that makes things appear differently than whats really going on.

The points you make about marksmanship are more disturbing to me because as a former Marine I know the amount of training devoted to marksmanship is extensive.

Just My Opinion

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Aussiegunner RE:US infantry individual infantry skills 11/19/2004 12:29:01 AM

"Incidently I believe the current casulaty ration between the Marines and the Terrorists/Bathists is running roughly better than 50 to 1 not 3 to 1". Yes, the three to one stats were early in the battle, before they got right into Falluja and found out how many the planes and artillery had killed. You can't exactly count 50 to 1 as the kill ratio of the marine infantry though. The bulk of it goes to fire support(as is usually the case). "These men that you were watching were operating in broken terrain so perhaps they were useing the cover that the terrain provided rather than sticking to strict adherance to formations (I did,nt see the video that you saw so I don't know)" No, they were definately just standing around like sore thumbs. On the other parts of the thread which you may not have read, I have alluded to other videos with the same sort of thing happening, though there was some evidence of good fire and movement and marksmanship as well. "Did the Marine who had the Terrorist/ Bathist cornered have a Grenade?" I assumed so, because all Australian soldiers go into battle with grenades. It would be a bit of a worry if a Marine going into an urban battle, or at least one of his squad, didn't have one, as they have their greatest degree of utility in that environment.

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Mike From Brielle RE:US infantry individual infantry skills, ref: Aussie gunner 11/19/2004 11:07:07 AM

"The bulk of it goes to fire support (as is usually the case)."

Do I detect a tad bit of artillery parochialism?

As I stated previously I am a former Marine and I find it hard to fathom how you have gotten an accurate breakdown as to how all the various casualties of our enemy were generated. Yes usually its artillery (and for Marines Air) that does the preponderance of the damage but its the Infantryman that has to put his A$$ out on the line to give the Artillery and Air something to shoot at.

As to troops standing around in a circle jerk; yes that occurs and it shouldn't but the overall casualty ratio would indicate to me that it doesn't happen much or is even a contributing factor in what casualties do occur (It is somewhat reminiscent of some old Soviet doctrine about channelizing enemies into defensive Kill zones). From the description of the action that I have seen the enemy is incapable (For fear of artillery and Air probably) of mounting anything larger than a squad counter attack (~platoon maybe). When you see large groups of troops together it could be because of the way the video is being edited as I delved into in the other thread below.

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AlbanyRifles Aussie Gunner 11/19/2004 11:51:44 AM

Mea Culpa I finally saw some newer video last night......you are right. Those guys were too bunched up. I don't know the source, but the video I saw were soldiers from the 1 ID. Hope it is an isolated case. I did see when that showed some troops stackked up outside a door...but I could also hear a Bradley close by that was not shown on the video (once you command a company of them, you ALWAYS know that sound!) Keep on keeping me straight!

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JohnBarry RE:Aussie Gunner 11/19/2004 12:08:18 PM

If US infantry skills are lacking compared to the Commonwealth forces whats the main reason? Is it the US high tech firepower system? Did the US individual rotation system cause it- no institutional memory is built up in the units. Isn?t this a problem even in the USMC system, they build up the MEU as a team but don?t they then break them up after the rotation is over. How much is a system wide problem and how much is a leadership problem?

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