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Ed. You are correct, but our military doesn't help with the NBC label. I try to keep editorials short and didn't have space to explain all. Several military retirees wrote they were far more concerned about health care than terrorist attacks. Bioscam I am continually running into otherwise intelligent and educated people who assume NBC weapons are some sort of cheap terrorist device, rather than the product of billions of dollars in organized R&D. As a result of this scare/scam, the US Congress is considering a rather expensive plan to have all mail opened off-site and scanned in for electronic distribution. Given the interests of the likely contractor, it seems that mail using stamps will go into a bin for opening later, so God only knows when your letter to your senator will ever be read. Name Withheld Buy 8-inch guns Thank you for publishing Mr. Clarke's thoughtful article on naval firepower modernization. My only suggestion or addition would be that instead of using the 155-mm Future Gun System (FGS) we should cancel both the 5-inch ERGM and FGS programs and instead update the Mk 71 8-inch gun. The goals we want to achieve are easier if we go with a larger-caliber weapon (e.g., miniaturization would be easier, etc.). I also wonder about the viability of reactive armor at sea (corrosion). But I do think this idea should be explored. I write a lot of letters to Congress and the Pentagon, and you and your associates provide a lot of great information. While there is so much work to be done, we have succeeded in places. For example, the DD-21 was canceled, and plans to buy more DDG-51 destroyers for ballistic missile defense also apparently got the axe. Phillip E. Park Pegasus patrol craft are deadly William
Clarke’s article was one of the more interesting reads I’ve consumed in a
long time. The
Longbow system is an utterly amazing hunk of military hardware. This would allow multiple Pegasus crafts to conduct rapid and lethal
raids using coordinated strikes against both land and sea targets. I’d
hate to be the Harbor Master that sees a squadron of them swiftly approaching.
There wouldn’t be a harbor left
after just a few minutes work. Hellfire
missiles are devastating and just thinking of 30 or 40 of them ripple fired
into enemy coastal strongholds is just frightening. Should we be forced to throw down with
China,
such a tool would be ideal for reclaiming the However,
I’d rather not totally lose the long range anti-ship punch that the Harpoon
missile gives you. Instead of
refitting both racks, just refit one of them. The Hellfires are easily and quickly
reloadable. Even on the bouncing deck of a fast attack patrol craft. Mountain units are needed Mike Sparks is right, 10th Mountain should have been based at Fort Carson, Colorado from the beginning. Its basing at Camp Drum, New York was a congressional decision to give a boost to the then sagging northern New York economy (can anybody say "jobs program"). I was an Infantry officer with 10th Mountain from '88 - '92, my Battalion Commander was "Buster" Hagenbeck, the current 10th Mountain Commander. We had some of the best NCOs to be found anywhere in the army at that time and while I thought we were a pretty decent infantry unit (unlike today, back then all we did was PT, foot march and live fire), we were by no means a mountain division. We all knew that our mountain title was only a historical reference to the true 10th Mountain Division of WWII which was largely comprised of civilian volunteers who possessed a wide variety of mountain related skills. Mountain troops must be mentally and physically tough in dealing with an adverse environment. Fort Drum, New York is a miserable place with copious amounts of snow and cold and that does help make soldiers there more mentally and physically tough (at least if their commanders make them train in it). Beyond the snow and cold, there is nothing at Fort Drum which will prepare soldiers for mountain combat. It is as you described, mostly flat, rocky, swampy land which while unsuitable for farming was found quite suitable conducting live fires back before WWII. We did do some training in cross country skiing and snow shoeing, but the closest thing we had for developing technical skills in mountain climbing etc was a small climbing school in Vermont.One of the huge problems we had to overcome was the lack of housing for our soldiers. Prior to becoming Fort Drum, Camp Drum was just a place for non-resident units (reserve and national guard) to come do live fires. Soldiers were spread out in the civilian community, some over an hours drive away. Additionally we had no strategic deployment airfield, the nearest was Griffis Air Force Base over an hour and a half away with parts of the drive on two lane roads. Add a blizzard to all that and you have a rapid deployment force that can't even begin to be wheels up in 18 hours. That could quite possibly be a problem with a Fort Carson based mountain division as well, at least they would be acclimated to the altitude though. Perhaps the specialization required of being a true mountain division is incompatible with being part of the rapid deployment force. I was shocked to read about soldiers from my old battalion (1-87) going out without any sleeping bags. I don't know what the circumstances were, but any idiot knows you don't send soldiers on overnight patrol with temps in the teens (and well below that with wind chill) without a sleeping bag per two men. Sounds like they were darn lucky not to have cold weather casualties. Regarding the effectiveness of weapons, in that our guys had pop guns compared to Al Qaeda, there are a lot holes in that story. Where were the M240B machine guns? or the battalion snipers? Both of these systems would be an easy match for RPG and PK machine gun armed cave dwellers. Regarding our people being out of shape for the conditions and not acclimated to the altitude, let me just say altitude will kick your ass, I don't care how fit you are. Ask any elk hunter, you work out for weeks looking forward to a hunt and when you get up in that high country you feel like an old man with emphysema. This obstacle can be overcome, but it generally takes about a month to adjust to the change in available oxygen. We had plenty of time to get our guys into a 10,000 foot environment and train up for a few weeks, perhaps in our own Rocky Mountains, the question is why we didn't do that? Reid Smith Fort Huachuca training How about a composite Mountain training Brigade at Ft. Huachuca. Most of the Garrison Area is over 5800FT in elevation. The Huachuca Mountains go up to 9000FT and are almost entirely on the military reservation; barracks, motor pools, helo ports, ranges and support facilities for approx 4500 soldiers are empty. Scrub high desert to alpine meadows to vertical crags above the tree line. Two or three battalions from each of the light Infantry Divisions; Army and Marines at all times. Given our areas of operations in the last two decades, the desert mountains are a smarter choice than the Colorado Rockies.
Robert FItts In the USAF fighters in the 60s we had Global Survival kits. In the kit was an arctic bag, vacuum packed in a fiberglass butt-contoured container that was the base for the foam seat cushion. In order to get more stuff in the kit we took the bag out of its hard-pack container and used it for the seat cushion, replacing the foam. It was about 2 x14x16 inches. Later we found a good shop vacuum could reshrink the things, like the stuff bags sold on TV nowadays. I still have 2 of those bags, and they work just fine here in Colorado. Mules- I believe the US Army mules in WW2 were de-brayed by a simple vocal cord operation. They were used extensively in Italy and in Burma. Bill Mauldin even drew a cartoon about one- it is shown being led down a steep hill, a wounded soldier astride, and the medic leading the mule is saying "I call her Florence Nightingale". Mountain Division - I can assure you the real citizens hereabouts would welcome the 10th or any mountain troops back up at Camp Hale (north a bit from Leadville). A columnist for the Denver Post, Ed Quillen, who lives in Salida, not far from Camp Hale, agrees with me. So screw the pampered princes up at Vail, let them ski someplace else. Bjorneby Walter US Army Urban Warfare Tactics
I've just been having a read about the US Army new
urban warfare tactics at
http://155.217.58.58/cgi-bin/atdl.dll/fm/3-06.11/appc.htm
and two things strike me -the comment that the M2/3 is nearly as wide as a M1,
and the mention of "heatshields used for towing" by the M1A1
tanks. The Bar armour racks I propose (http://www.angelfire.com/art/enchanter/m60z.html#m60z) Phil West World Policemen, except on US Borders I keep hearing news reports of the reported hatred of the U.S. as a meddling world policeman at the Monterey, Mexico talks by seemingly all countries. Why the hell don't we mind our own business and return all our "peacekeepers" and military personnel back to their families in the United States? I admitted before I am a beginner at this so do not chastise me yet for being ignorant!
I see several positive benefits to this overly simplified solution:
1. It brings thousands of military personnel home and gives us the capability to
use them on our own soil to defend "The American Way" by: transferring
them to police units to decrease crime in our cities, closing the many loopholes
along the Mexican border and stopping illegal immigration, giving more personnel
to the cause and change the policy on drugs and get the govt. to actually want to stop the illegal drugs in our country and lastly make sure we are
completely secure from lunatics who see capitalism as evil and want to blow us
up! 2. With all the (now) foreign trained people coming home the
U.S. would be able to use them in the civilian population to help the success of
our own country by finding our own oil and other fossil fuels necessary to keep
up with the newest V10 and V12 motors coming out of Detroit. 3. We would
save kajillions of dollars on having these personnel here instead of over there
(wherever over there is). Use that money to improve public schooling, social
programs for the elderly and maybe just maybe have a retirement plan worth
something when I get to that age. 4. After their overseas experience we
could incorporate them into our citizens again to rectify/fix/solve many of our
own systematic issues regarding INS, immigration, tracking of terrorist
activities and generally fix whatever else needs to be fixed. 5. It would
also relieve us of the wonderful opportunity to blow Afghanistan and others back
to the stone age and then send them billions of dollars to help rebuild the
countries. This is absolutely bizarre to me! It reminds of the
adage "Don't kick a man when he's down", but what we are doing is
helping him get back up and dusting him off so he can kick our butts another
day! Why would we do that?
The bottom line is that we cannot force our democratic positions on the world.
Many do not see the value in our system, even as screwy as ours is sometimes.
Many foreign countries citizens like the way their government is treating them
or at least do not recognize how they are being treated. But why is it our
job to step in first every time when in the past it truly has gotten us nowhere
except increased national debt and increased hostility towards us that makes
people include killing Americans in their religion as a way to get to heaven and
say "Howdy do" to their maker? Ed. Bush is a corporate front man, and they want as much cheap labor flooding the USA as they can get. They think American workers are greedy because we want heath care benefits and at least $10 a hour. |