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FMguru posted:Is the Manchester biography of MacArthur ("American Caesar") worth reading? Nothing Manchester wrote is worth reading.
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Oct 3, 2022 23:35
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Defenestrategy posted:Do the American army learn their lesson from this and in times of relative peace try to maintain some semblance of institutional knowledge and dudes who are actually good at their jobs rather than dudes with no other options? I guess the time periods for that would be between Vietnam and Gulf war, and then Gulf War and Afghanistan. Something to keep in mind is that even the dudes with no options frequently have a lot more options after a few years in the military, if nothing else because of skills they learned there. Obviously more true of someone who becomes a mechanic than someone who goes into the infantry, but even there you've got more options than you would sitting on the farm (or at the bar or on your couch etc) for 4 or 8 years. My grandfather joined in 1940 because it was free food, free rent, and he could send his paycheck back to his new wife. He finished out a sergeant in an artillery unit. They offered to let him stay in peace time but he said gently caress no for three reasons: 1) he had enough with killing, having seen a lot of it in the Pacific. Artillery on Okinawa was a bit more up close and personal with the enemy than, say, a battalion level battery in Europe. 2) he wanted to spend time with my grandmother, and wasted absolutely no time in producing my dad and his siblings. 3) he had an entire stack of job offers, both from people my grandmother knew back home and via friends and connections he'd made in the army. He also had an entire war's worth of combat pay (he'd been on a boat from Hawaii to the Philippines on Dec 7 that got turned around, lucky for him) and just wasn't the same flat on his rear end broke sharecropper that he was in 1940.
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Oct 3, 2022 23:37
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ilmucche posted:I know nearly nothing about guns, what's up with this? The US was ahead of the curve with adopting a semi-automatic service rifle, as Cyrano mentioned. It was initially envisioned as being chambered in a proto-intermediate cartridge (so called as they are smaller than full rifle rounds like .30-06, 7.62x54r, .303 British, etc while packing substantially more punch that pistol ammunition), akin to the rounds that modern assault rifles use. We could have been a good 40 years ahead of the curve on that one, but no. IIRC the primary arguments for sticking with .30-06 were logistical, as the round was shared with the Browning Automatic Rifle and the M1917 machine gun, and economical: Congress already wants to cut budgets to the bone, and have heartache about fielding a new rifle, and you want them to pay up for an entirely new cartridge when we have piles and piles of the same old round? Other countries cottoned on to the utility of intermediate cartridges later on in and after the war, Germany with the 7.92 Kurz in the STG-44 and the Soviets with 7.62x39 in the SKS and AK47. Meanwhile the US obstinately continued to push .30-06 well past its time, developing the M-14 and even pushing NATO to adopt it as the standard round, again ignoring an intermediate round candidate, before abruptly about facing when the establishment finally came to their senses and adopted the 5.56x45 cartridge, which we use to this day. Arrath fucked around with this message at 23:45 on Oct 3, 2022 |
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Oct 3, 2022 23:39
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Defenestrategy posted:Thank you for making me aware of this. He did get a surprising number of things right.
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Oct 3, 2022 23:42
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Arrath posted:The US was ahead of the curve with adopting a semi-automatic service rifle, as Cyrano mentioned. It was initially envisioned as being chambered in a proto-intermediate cartridge, akin to the rounds that modern assault rifles use. We could have been a good 40 years ahead of the curve on that one, but no. Yep, it was the stockpiles of .30-06 that had been made for WW1. Given the political situation of the day it was the right call, but I'll always be a bit miffed.
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Oct 3, 2022 23:45
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wiegieman posted:The ability to attack an enemy while simultaneously threatening to envelop him and while sustaining fewer casualties or a parity in casualties because you hold the initiative is the mark of a good strategist (also, remember that leaving troops in place was a good way to get them to die of wretched diseases during this period.) Grant was a superior general. That is not an accurate assessment of Grant imo. Many of the casualties inflicted occurred when he sieged and took a lot of Confederates captive or faced off against Confederate forces which were severely undermanned in the area. In major battles in which he fought a respectable force, he wasn't exceptionally brilliant tactically. His strength was his ability to correctly identify key targets which would force the Confederates into battle where he was competent at the task and knew that in the long run (as many others on both sides knew), the North would exhaust the South. His management of Vicksburg remains a testament to his willingness to take risks to get the job done though, severing his army from land-based supply lines to meet up with Federal naval forces controlling the river to get at Vicksburg from an unexpected direction.
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Oct 3, 2022 23:46
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Arrath posted:before abruptly about facing when the establishment finally came to their senses and adopted the 5.56x45 cartridge, which we use to this day. Let me tell you about .277 Fury. Phanatic fucked around with this message at 23:58 on Oct 3, 2022 |
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Oct 3, 2022 23:56
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Arrath posted:The US was ahead of the curve with adopting a semi-automatic service rifle, as Cyrano mentioned. It was initially envisioned as being chambered in a proto-intermediate cartridge (so called as they are smaller than full rifle rounds like .30-06, 7.62x54r, .303 British, etc while packing substantially more punch that pistol ammunition), akin to the rounds that modern assault rifles use. We could have been a good 40 years ahead of the curve on that one, but no. So the shift was away from longer and wider bullet to a smaller one? What makes those better from a utility standpoint? I spoke to a guy who had been in Afghanistan and he said that their rifles were outranged by whatever the locals had. I guess what are the advantages/disadvantages as you go from the .30-06 (like a hunting rifle or something from wwi?) to say the 7.62x39 (ak47 as you say) to 5.56 (nato, M16/c8/f88?)
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Oct 4, 2022 00:04
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ilmucche posted:So the shift was away from longer and wider bullet to a smaller one? What makes those better from a utility standpoint? The idea is that there's no point carrying around a weapon that can reach out and kill someone with aimed fire at 1000 yards when most of your guys aren't capable of putting accurate fire on things that far away and when most of your engagements are in towns and forests and things that mean you don't see anything that far away anyway. So a smaller, lighter round that is capable of killing things at typical combat ranges means each of your guys can carry more ammunition for a given weight. Experience in Afghanistan suggest that maybe the M4 carbine is a bit too far to other extreme. The odd bit is that the Army is currently replacing that with a new rifle firing a full-length 7mm cartridge that...can reach out and kill someone with aimed fire at 1000 yards.
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Oct 4, 2022 00:11
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snip, answered
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Oct 4, 2022 00:33
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Phanatic posted:So a smaller, lighter round that is capable of killing things at typical combat ranges means each of your guys can carry more ammunition for a given weight. To emphasize how much of a big deal this is, a combat load for an M1 garand was 10 8 round en bloc clips, giving you 80 rounds. 88 if you assume the rifle is loaded in addition to what's in the belt. That was about 6.5 lbs of ammo. Of course you could take an extra ammo belt etc, but that was the book definition of a combat load. Meanwhile iirc the basic combat load for a M4 is six mags, plus the one in the gun. 7 mags, 30 rounds per, 210 rounds total. A loaded 30 round magazine weighs slightly over a pound (1lb 2oz iirc) so you're right around the same 6.5lbs for the 6 rounds in the pouches. Same basic loadout as far as weight goes, but the guy carrying the M4 has about 2.5x more ammo on him.
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Oct 4, 2022 00:36
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In WW2 most squads also had submachine guns in 9mm or 7.62mm pistol calibre. Very handy at close ranges like built up areas and forests, but lacking in range. The intermediate calibre made this an unnecessary niche, just give AK's to all.
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Oct 4, 2022 07:06
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Nenonen posted:In WW2 most squads also had submachine guns in 9mm or 7.62mm pistol calibre. Very handy at close ranges like built up areas and forests, but lacking in range. The intermediate calibre made this an unnecessary niche, just give AK's to all. Were/are SMGs always designed for pistol rounds?
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Oct 4, 2022 08:24
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Fuschia tude posted:Were/are SMGs always designed for pistol rounds? E: to expand on this, the "next step up" would be Personal Defence Weapons, like the famous P90, which are pretty much "SMG but a bigger/more effective cartridge without going carbine size with full-intermediate cartridges" Loezi fucked around with this message at 08:46 on Oct 4, 2022 |
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Oct 4, 2022 08:33
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Loezi posted:IIRC that's a key part of any definition one would come up for an SMG this. Otherwise it'd be machine gun, right?
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Oct 4, 2022 08:52
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Mr. Fall Down Terror posted:republicans especially like to point at him because he clashed with new deal democrats and argued very strongly that the communists could only be brought to heel through nuclear arms 'This guy is great because of instead of winning a Cold War without WW3, he'd have given us WW3' is a hell of a take.
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Oct 4, 2022 09:45
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Cyrano4747 posted:To emphasize how much of a big deal this is, a combat load for an M1 garand was 10 8 round en bloc clips, giving you 80 rounds. 88 if you assume the rifle is loaded in addition to what's in the belt. That was about 6.5 lbs of ammo. Of course you could take an extra ammo belt etc, but that was the book definition of a combat load. so this ties into another question i had about combat in general, how does ammo get distributed in combat? like in wwi there was downtime or whatever so people could wander around the trenches but in the middle of a battle if someone runs out of ammo (is that a realistic concern? how long does 210 rounds last?) do they try and retreat to get ammo from somewhere else or is there a dump that gets set up if it's possible or is there a dude running around throwing ammo at people? I guess once contact is made the lines end up settling down even if people are still shooting so other people can be brought up/rotated out etc?
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Oct 4, 2022 11:36
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ilmucche posted:is that a realistic concern? how long does 210 rounds last? M4 carbine posted:Rate of fire: 700–950 round/min cyclic the rest of your question is kind of open ended, there's lots of differences in doctrine even within a given nations military. generally speaking if you're talking about US (or NATO, or NATO-adjacent) forces the infantry will have probably gotten to the firefight in a vehicle, which will probably have extra ammunition stored in it. on a long-range special forces foot patrol? carry extra ammo and shoot straight. guarding a base? reach down to the crate of magazines you prepared earlier. thatbastardken fucked around with this message at 12:26 on Oct 4, 2022 |
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Oct 4, 2022 12:09
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ilmucche posted:so this ties into another question i had about combat in general, how does ammo get distributed in combat? like in wwi there was downtime or whatever so people could wander around the trenches but in the middle of a battle if someone runs out of ammo (is that a realistic concern? how long does 210 rounds last?) do they try and retreat to get ammo from somewhere else or is there a dump that gets set up if it's possible or is there a dude running around throwing ammo at people? In WWII (and I believe Korea too) the amount of ammo and supplies a given unit was expected to run through in a day was a pre calculated number generally called a “unit of fire.” It was moved from storage in the rear in support of planned operations and staged closer to the front so it could be brought up as needed. Here’s a good page on the concept http://pwencycl.kgbudge.com/U/n/Unit_Of_Fire.htm
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Oct 4, 2022 12:19
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Scratch Monkey posted:In WWII (and I believe Korea too) the amount of ammo and supplies a given unit was expected to run through in a day was a pre calculated number generally called a “unit of fire.” It was moved from storage in the rear in support of planned operations and staged closer to the front so it could be brought up as needed. Here’s a good page on the concept http://pwencycl.kgbudge.com/U/n/Unit_Of_Fire.htm that's a cool article, thanks.
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Oct 4, 2022 12:30
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I can't take seriously any suggestion of MacArthur's competence when he was submitting plans to attack Rabaul head on at the expense of the European theatre.
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Oct 4, 2022 12:34
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Cyrano4747 posted:Something to keep in mind is that even the dudes with no options frequently have a lot more options after a few years in the military, if nothing else because of skills they learned there. Obviously more true of someone who becomes a mechanic than someone who goes into the infantry, but even there you've got more options than you would sitting on the farm (or at the bar or on your couch etc) for 4 or 8 years. I want to expand on this a little. One of the reasons you see post WWII Vets get so many offers was partly due to the The Veterans Preference Hiring Act. With it, about half of the federal employees being former vets by 1950. But this gets picked up by lots of private employers and is the basis for a lot of veteran preference that we see today. I have no idea if this was a factor in your Grandfather's life but it was for a lot of vets. It may be one of the few times we handled a demobilized army well.
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Oct 4, 2022 13:36
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Fangz posted:I can't take seriously any suggestion of MacArthur's competence when he was submitting plans to attack Rabaul head on at the expense of the European theatre. How foolish of a commander in the Pacific theater to want the Pacific theater to be given priority?
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Oct 4, 2022 14:55
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Tias posted:this. Otherwise it'd be machine gun, right? SMG: Full auto, pistol-length cartridge Assault rifle: Full-auto, intermediate length cartridge Battle rifle: semi-auto, full-length cartridge Machine gun: full-auto, full-length cartridge These are all colloquialisms and definitions can vary by context (As a matter of law, in the US anything that fires more than one round per pull of the trigger, or the frame or receiver of such a weapon, or a collection of parts that can be assembled into such a weapon, or a part that enables such function, is a machine gun), but the SMG one is pretty universal.
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Oct 4, 2022 14:58
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Yeah I think a lot of MacArthur's successes came despite MacArthur, not because of him. Like he was more than happy to throw overwhelming force head on into an entrenched enemy because it was there, not necessarily because it needed to be done.
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Oct 4, 2022 15:01
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I don't see why this has to be some sort of binary "he was a great commander, incapable of error" / "he was the biggest fool to ever wear a uniform, utterly inept" choice. He did some things very well - Cartwheel, Inchon - and was an rear end in a top hat elsewhere.
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Oct 4, 2022 15:05
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thatbastardken posted:probably you aren't going to dump all 210 rounds in under a minute, but running out of ammo remains a realistic concern for the modern infantryman, yes. The quote I heard was "you can carry too little ammo, not enough ammo, and still not enough ammo but I can't lift any more". ilmucche posted:So the shift was away from longer and wider bullet to a smaller one? What makes those better from a utility standpoint? The Soviets considered 300 meters to be a critical range in infantry combat, which was too far for their 7.62x25 pistol round, but the 7.62x54r rifle round was way overkill for that. 7.62x39 was designed to be effective at a shorter range than the full rifle round, but you could carry a lot more of them. The locals could have been using absolutely anything, complaining that the other guy's gun is better than yours is a standard soldier's pastime since time immemorial.
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Oct 4, 2022 15:14
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Ensign Expendable posted:The locals could have been using absolutely anything, complaining that the other guy's gun is better than yours is a standard soldier's pastime since time immemorial. Definitely true, but this is a very interesting read nonetheless: https://apps.dtic.mil/sti/pdfs/ADA512331.pdf quote:Operations in Afghanistan frequently require United States ground forces to engage and destroy the enemy at ranges beyond 300 meters. These operations occur in rugged terrain and in situations where traditional supporting fires are limited due to range or risk of collateral damage. With these limitations, the infantry in Afghanistan require a precise, lethal fire capability that exists only in a properly trained and equipped infantryman. While the infantryman is ideally suited for combat in Afghanistan, his current weapons, doctrine, and marksmanship training do not provide a precise, lethal fire capability to 500 meters and are therefore inappropriate.
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Oct 4, 2022 15:19
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Cessna posted:I don't see why this has to be some sort of binary "he was a great commander, incapable of error" / "he was the biggest fool to ever wear a uniform, utterly inept" choice. Ah, you're new to the internet I see. 
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Oct 4, 2022 15:49
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The consensus is that MacArthur screwed up the defense of the Philippines, right?
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Oct 4, 2022 15:52
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Phanatic posted:While the infantryman is ideally suited for combat in Afghanistan, his current weapons, doctrine, and marksmanship training ... are therefore inappropriate. "This tool is ideal except nearly everything that defines that tool" is a pretty funny construction
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Oct 4, 2022 16:00
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Elyv posted:The consensus is that MacArthur screwed up the defense of the Philippines, right? Not really. I mean, I'm sure there's poo poo he could have done better, but he was in a pretty disadvantageous situation from the get go. When he set up the series of fall-back lines across central Luzon culminating in the retreat into the Bataan peninsula he was following a plan laid out before the war. He pulled that off pretty well and avoided the kind of encirclement and destruction of his forces that he probably would have faced if he had tried to hold the whole island. The other alternative was to dig into Manilla, but holding Bataan / Corregador achieved the same goal of denying Subic Bay without forcing urban combat. IIRC he declared Manilla an open city and it escaped too much damage until it was re-taken. The Japanese very much did NOT declare it an open city. The only semi-major controversy I'm aware of is the disorganization with the air force out there and how they managed to ineffectively flail and get a chunk caught on the ground despite the warning about Pearl Harbor. But that's kind of small potatoes given how flat footed the entire US military establishment was caught on Dec 7. edit: really the only way the Philippines ever had a chance of being held were if they got relieved from the sea. The forces there just weren't sufficient to hold the islands. That's the whole reason they had the contingency plan to retreat to Bataan in the first place - deny the enemy Subic, hole up in a stronghold, and wait for the USN to arrive with supplies and reinforcements. Actually pretty similar to what he successfully pulled off with Pusan now that I think about it. Of course post Dec 7 the USN wasn't in a condition to push to relieve them, and the decision not to was made at way higher echelons. Probably correctly, imo. Pushing the carriers into the Philippine Sea in early 1942 is probably one of the better ways to not be able to contest the Pacific into 1943 at the earliest. Cyrano4747 fucked around with this message at 16:07 on Oct 4, 2022 |
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Oct 4, 2022 16:04
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Elyv posted:The consensus is that MacArthur screwed up the defense of the Philippines, right? Letting the Far East Air Force get destroyed on the ground on day 1 despite like 8 hours of warning that war had begun was a screw-up by MacArthur's HQ, but if you put them in the air that's still not meaningfully changing the course of the campaign. The retreat to and defense of Bataan went about as well as could be expected.
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Oct 4, 2022 16:15
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Scratch Monkey posted:In WWII (and I believe Korea too) the amount of ammo and supplies a given unit was expected to run through in a day was a pre calculated number generally called a “unit of fire.” It was moved from storage in the rear in support of planned operations and staged closer to the front so it could be brought up as needed. Here’s a good page on the concept http://pwencycl.kgbudge.com/U/n/Unit_Of_Fire.htm This was an interesting read, thanks! Ensign Expendable posted:The quote I heard was "you can carry too little ammo, not enough ammo, and still not enough ammo but I can't lift any more". thanks for all the answers on this stuff folks
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Oct 4, 2022 16:15
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Tulip posted:"This tool is ideal except nearly everything that defines that tool" is a pretty funny construction Ideal compared to alternatives - mech infantry, tanks, navy...
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Oct 4, 2022 16:21
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Ensign Expendable posted:The locals could have been using absolutely anything, complaining that the other guy's gun is better than yours is a standard soldier's pastime since time immemorial. I'm curious - are there reports of US infantry complaining that German rifles were better than the Garand?
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Oct 4, 2022 16:40
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Tomn posted:I'm curious - are there reports of US infantry complaining that German rifles were better than the Garand? More in regards to "those loving machineguns they have all over the place" IIRC
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Oct 4, 2022 16:41
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Cessna posted:How foolish of a commander in the Pacific theater to want the Pacific theater to be given priority? Pretty foolish, given he knows that Europe First was the agreed on doctrine. And his positions created conflicts with other Pacific theatre commanders. Fangz fucked around with this message at 16:47 on Oct 4, 2022 |
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Oct 4, 2022 16:43
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^^ buddy I got some bad news for you about the concept of administrationTomn posted:I'm curious - are there reports of US infantry complaining that German rifles were better than the Garand? Not US but Mikhail Kalashnikov was so bitter about the Stg44 that he became practically synonymous with assault rifles as a concept.
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Oct 4, 2022 16:45
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Did the "Garand ping" myth originate with soldiers who carried them? (I don't mean the myth that the clip goes "ping" when it ejects, but rather the myth that this is a disadvantage on a battlefield when all hell is breaking loose because your enemy will hear that ping and kill you when you reload.)
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Oct 4, 2022 16:50
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