The Military Thread

@Barkey - You have my respect, good sir.

Ekranoplanes are cooler.

Barkey: I want to see the vid of your happy ass getting zapped. Also that exercise sounded fun to me.

On the vessel. Why does the Army need em? Seems more like a Marine Corps thing to me.

Because the USMC is just a Second Army, making the Army the First Marines. Or some such crazed logic, it doens't make any sense to me, either.

Let the USMC have that stuff, and let the Army stick to jumping out of planes, helicopters and the back of trucks.

Going back to the shotgun discussion, I was actually surprised to find out that the military uses shotguns. I'd heard the term "Combat shotgun" before, but that was playing Syphon Filter and I dismissed it as a fictional thing. I always figured you'd always want to have a rifle.

edited 7th Sep '12 5:14:00 PM by GameChainsaw

Sorry for interrupting, but I have a question.

In US Army, how old are average captains?

edited 7th Sep '12 5:17:09 PM by dRoy

This was what I found googling. Basically it seems to "open up" around 26-27.

I've no idea how long Captains usually remain captains before either promotion to Major or retirement.

edited 7th Sep '12 5:26:06 PM by GameChainsaw

Chainsaw: Shotguns have a history in military use. They saw use in the American civil war. The U.S. soldiers in WWI extensively used shot guns. The Winchest M1897 Trench gun is famous in the military, LEO, and civilian circuits.

Before he got fed up doing P5 stuff Martello did a good analysis of Short-Range Shotgun. The other famous shotgun is the Mossberg 590. Also the Remmington 870.

edited 7th Sep '12 6:05:29 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Regarding Army use of the proposed landing craft, although the jarheads got all the glory, the Army got a lot of action during the Pacific campaign during WW 2, being better equipped for longer-term operations compared to "shock troop" forces like the USMC whose basic focus is to kick in the door, plant their boots on a particular bit of geography, and hold it against all comers until relieved.

Getting in supplies for Army forces may not absolutely need high speed delivery systems in the way the Marines do, but in general the faster you get the shit to the troops, the sooner they can use it to support putting boots to opposition asses.

I've read/watched shows about that. they were more involved in larger islands especially.

Additional thought: There's also Operation Neptune (Normandy) on the other side of the world. The landings were completely an Army operation, both US and UK armies, as were the landings in Italy earlier (IIRC on the latter).

If you follow military affairs for long enough, you'll find that redundancy is a bit of a running theme here in the States. I remember reading an article about how the DoD wants to move to the cloud in order to cut back on redundant IT stuff.

Re: Anime — I wonder if military moe will become a new "trend" with an obligatory entry in every season the way they seem to churn out Pretty Cure or romantic comedies. I'm referring to Girls und Panzer, which got me thinking, but it didn't catch on with Strike Witches so I doubt it will catch on now.

Re: the Army in the Pacific Theater — I copied this little history lecture from Youtube. I thought it was a little entertaining and relevant to the discussion:

A little rude, I thought, but that's par for the course on You Tube.

edited 8th Sep '12 12:14:14 PM by HouraiRabbit

Honoraui: That entire blurb is full of butt hurt and likely a fair amount of bs. Then again it is from youtube. Also reaks of excessive selection bias.

Yes the army was there, so was the navy, and coast guard.

Funny the 1st Mar Div was part of the New Guinea campaign.

edited 8th Sep '12 12:33:41 PM by TuefelHundenIV

I'd love to see the Coast Guard angle. Don't hear much about them during the War. Or at all, really.

their most famous for when They drove the landing craft on D-day. I havnt heard about much else, though I know they did coastal patrol and other actions.

"During the war, Coast Guard units sank 12 German and two Japanese submarines and captured two German surface vessels."

they also did search and rescue with a flotilla of 60-ft cutters for D-day,

edited 8th Sep '12 12:32:58 PM by Joesolo

RE:shotguns

There's also the M1014, a semi-automatic job.

Apart from all the Royal Marines. No. 47 (Royal Marine) Commando went ashore on Gold Beach, while No. 45 Commando went ashore on Sword.

If I was given the choice of fighting in Europe or island-hopping in the Pacific, I would pick neither. Both had their fair share of crap, more than enough to go around.

My dad's father and uncle fought in the Pacific and Europe, respectively. Neither would talk about their combat experiences at all, leading me to believe that it was nasty no matter where you were. My grandpa was an See Bee, so he got to pave runways and stuff so the island-hopping could, well, hop. He'd only talk about how neat it was to run around and do stupid stuff with the CO's jeep on unauthorized liberty, having a guy in his unit able to forge fake orders to search warehouses when he was in Japan shortly as part of the occupying force (how he got the Type 99 Arisaka that I'd love to take shooting) and other shenanigans.

But never any mention about combat. He did drink a lot, though. A small miracle that their marriage survived 50 years.

edited 8th Sep '12 1:42:05 PM by pvtnum11

They did SAR missions a lot. They also assisted in landings in the Pacific. They ferried supplies and munitions ashore when they could. The puddle pirates accquitted themselves rather well.

See Pic here◊

I gotta pick apart that comment it is just so full of shit. I already know the corps is guilty of tall tales but so is every branch the army is equally guilty.

The Marines were part of the New Guinea Campiagn Specifically the 1st Mar Div. They chewed the same dirt as the Aussies and U.S. Army. New Guinea was a lot of the same turf the Marines were fighting on already. Nasty, fetid, hot, disease filled jungle islands filled with psychotic fanatics ready to fight nearly to a man.

Army and Marines fought and died chewing the same dirt several time over. Last I checked most vets who fought side by side from the two branches quite honestly don't give a shit. They only care that they were there together.

If we want to talk losses the Marines only had 669,000 men total. The army had over 11 million total. Apply the 10-1 rule and you get a rough idea of how bad it was for Marine Corps combat arms. Total casualties for the army at large dead or MIA 2.8 percent. Yeah quite a few of our guys died. The Marines 3.6 percent. Yeah nothing to sneeze at either.

There were also a couple chiefly Marine Corps Ops. Okinawa had 88,000 thousand marines. That is nearly half the the total force for the island. It was also the bloodiest battle in the Island Hopping Campagin.

Marines helped secure army airfields on islands that still had enemies present.

As for D-Day. May not have been a marine led show but the marines trained the army in Amphib operations in Africa, Sicily and even for Normandy. Marine observers were with the army when they hit the beaches, Marines working with the OSS helped mess with the Germans to help the landings.

I have shared this article before

The real root of the animosity is the leadership chiefly the generals. Big surprise the Politicians at the top fuck up a good thing.

edited 8th Sep '12 1:44:10 PM by TuefelHundenIV

Whoo, celebrating weekend pass by getting drunk as hell at 1530.

After all the bullshit this week, it is necessary.

Mark: Lol. Have fun man.

Awesome. Have fun, sir.

"From their lofty perches, the riflemen fired at and detonated floating mines as the ships moved in"

that is so badass

Tuef and dRoy: am doing so and will do so, gentlemen.

Nothing helps melt the stress of getting punished for shit you didn't do like Jameson.

Mark: Aint't that the fucking honest truth brother.