The Military Thread

The guy crossed into North Korea at the Joint Security Area, not some forest in the DMZ. The boundary is clearly marked and guarded there, so it's not like you can just stumble across.

Edited by minseok42 on Jul 18th 2023 at 8:28:31 AM

@eagleoftheninth

The purpose of 6.5 Creemoor is to have something lighter than a 7.62x51mm, not to have something heavier than a 5.56.

.338 is the same situation.

If a military issue vehicle isn't rated against 7.62x51mm, certainly after so many years of the GWOT, you would literally be caught dead in it if you were anywhere near a combat zone. Thousands upon thousands of Humvees were 7.62x51mm rated, the Tigr is 7.62 rated, the Eagle, systems adopted across France, UK, Poland, South Africa, ect ect are all 7.62x51mm rated. APCs most certainly, armored cars absolutely.

7.62x51mm won't rip through an engine block, not even with multiple rounds on target. It also, at least out of infantry rifles, has an effective range around 600mm.

If the 7.62x51mm was good enough, we would've have had special forces trying to carry by foot-mobiles, a M2 Browning.

You need to be thinking about how much lighter the weapon and ammunition is compared to the M2 Browning, but also how much more capable the weapon is than 7.62x51mm.

Yes, and the .338 cartridge achieves those capabilities by being almost twice as heavy◊ as the 7.62x51mm cartridge. A 100-round belt of .338 would weigh half again as much as a fully-loaded M4.

That might be a worthwhile trade-off for certain vehicle-based or specialist uses; it's a rather more questionable one for an infantry support weapon that gets rucked long distances on foot maneuvers, though you could certainly come up with a more weight-optimised weapon than current MAG derivatives to shoot it out of.

Also, do you happen to have any handy links on SOF units carrying M2s on foot? I'm not particularly familiar with that aspect of their employment.

There's evidence of Spetsnaz types lugging Kords around in Syria to fire on people from very creative positions from far away.

But Kord is much lighter and easier to move than any variation of the M2

I know tripod M2 exist, but I don't think there carried around and instead used as static defence...

More on the US soldier who crossed into North Korea:

Yonhap news reports that because of this incident, the guided tours of the Joint Security Area are canceled. Yonhap also reported that it is likely that the soldier planned in advance to defect to North Korea, as those who want to go on a tour of the JSA are required to sign up in advance as they have to go through a background check.

The South Korean broadcaster SBS reported that Pvt. Travis King, the American soldier who defected to North Korea, was sentenced earlier this year to a fine of 5 million KRW (about USD 4000) for vandalizing a police car. Last October, he was arrested after getting into a fight while drinking at a nightclub in Seoul's Hongdae neighborhood and punching a Korean civilian in the face multiple times. While being taken away in a police car, he damaged the back door of the car by kicking it multiple times while yelling "Fuck Korean, fuck Korean army [sic]". The victim of the assault did not want him to be punished, so he was only tried on vandalism charges.

I think @Trying is referring to the typical method of carrying and manuevering the M2. Not as an individual weapon or even a two man but as part of a gun crew. USMC infantry can and do carry around M2 HB systems. The key word is system which includes the T&E, tripod, optics, and spare barrels. This is usually a gun crew type movement. They aren't exactly hauling and firing it like a MMG. As far as I know SOF is no different in that regard.

This kind of movement is common to move a gun from position to position or port it through terrain it is not practical to send one via vehicle. This is one of the reasons the US Army keeps revisiting a lighter .50 BMG gun system.

The Kord system without ammo is around 88lbs with the infantry tripod, 72lbs with the bipod. They are still smart and carry the extra as a team which means the extras are carried by a crew. Still, it is a reasonably portable weapon system. The infantry use 50 round belts of ammo which is another 24lbs of weight per 50 round belt.

You want range you are hauling weight.

Edited by TuefelHundenIV on Jul 19th 2023 at 8:54:04 AM

I feel this is why robot mules are the annual army toy.

Why don’t they use real mules?

Real mules require care and feeding even when they're not being used. They also do annoying things like "have a mind of their own" and "react poorly to gunfire and explosions in their vicinity".

Of course, but with the need/want of more and more small unit carrying capacity, maybe their cost/benefit should be re-evaluated.

There is precedent in the modernized army, c.f. Sergeant Reckless in the Korean War. But that appears to be a one-off situation of specific circumstances. (Full disclosure, what I know about her comes from the Citation Needed episode about her, so I'll defer to someone with more normal means of knowledge.)

Edited by megarockman on Jul 19th 2023 at 11:56:52 AM

They tried in the middle east.

And realized why they dropped the idea in the past.

Mules are the only thing on the planet that can out-stubborn a Marine.

You kinda need the robot if you want it to be viable.

Edited by Imca on Jul 19th 2023 at 11:23:41 AM

Or maybe better breeding. This would take considerable time however, to get less stubborn (stupidier) mules.

Edited by Smeagol17 on Jul 19th 2023 at 12:43:48 PM

Drone supply drops!

Mules and other animals are a big logistical footprint that can be comparable to a human operator. The only thing they don't need is pay but their handlers sure do.

The USMC did make use of the K-Max Helicopters operated as drones to deliver supplies to mountaintop bases in Afghanistan. The project as a whole was a notable success. I have also made a few posts in the Sci-Fi threads about other systems including paragliders and guided steerable parachute drop systems. There is a small array of ideas centered on both reusable and disposable drones for resupplying troops in remote areas.

Edited by TuefelHundenIV on Jul 19th 2023 at 3:50:02 AM

"Amazon Ammunition—when it absolutely has to be there overnight."

Mules and other pack animals require fodder, veterinary care and can be disabled by even minor injuries or illness. There's a pretty common misconception that because mules and horses can graze, they can easily live off the land, which isn't really true. Mules need less grain than horses and can survive off grass hay, but even that takes up more relative bulk on the logistics train than engine fuel or batteries.

Also mules bite.

So, one thing that keeps showing up over in ukraine is explosive packed remote controled ground vehicles.... every thing from RC cars, to fullblown explosives packed tanks.

It makes me wonder why apperntly if the idea works so well, the concept was abandoned by formal military development after the Goliath.

Seems like a niche for the land torpedo must exist if it keeps being used.

Edited by Imca on Jul 20th 2023 at 1:56:52 AM

Does it work so well, though? My impression was that they do little damage especially relative to the effort. Quite unlike, say, mines and trenched.

There have been quite a few documented instances of remote-controlled VBIEDs employed in Syria and Iraq. These things can carry enough explosive payload to make an artillery battery blush; the very largest ones, built on truck or armoured vehicle chassis, can carry several tonnes and wipe out entire city blocks when they go off. They're also usually up-armoured with steel plates to protect against small arms fire.

One major drawback is that the operator has very little situational awareness compared to an in-vehicle driver. That and hardware/connection issues meant that more ideologically extreme actors, like ISIS, usually preferred using a suicide driver instead. In a state-to-state conventional conflict, they're also a lot more likely to encounter things that can stop them well short of their target, like mines, ditches and ATGMs.

From Jim LaPorta: US Army Report Details Soldier’s Crossing Into North Korea. Some interesting tidbits:

• The alleged defector, Pvt Travis King, had served 50 days of hard labour at a ROK detention facility following his assault case and was released on July 10th.

• King booked a tour of the JSA with a private company before his confinement. He missed the date, but was able to book a second date after his release.

• He was then escorted by US and ROK military personnel to Incheon International Airport, where he was to take an American Airlines flight to Fort Bliss, Texas, and face disciplinary action.

• His escorts witnessed him going through the customs. Much later, the personnel at Fort Bliss notified his chain of command in Korea that he hadn't arrived and wasn't responding to texts.

• King arrived for his tour the next day. The tour company submitted its manifest to the UN Command Military Armistice Commission (which oversees the JSA) and got an approval.

• An hour into the tour, King walked away from his group, sprinted past the border and entered a van, whereupon he was driven away by North Korean troops.

Edited by eagleoftheninth on Jul 20th 2023 at 3:08:20 AM

If he got into a van he definitely planned this out ahead of time.

Are they alleging he successfully contacted North Korea beforehand? Given his profile, I find this a bit unlikely. But stranger things have happened…

Edited by Smeagol17 on Jul 20th 2023 at 5:57:04 PM

Considering that we breed aggression out of horses and then had to breed it back in for warhorses....

Have they tried making mules, but using horses that are basically war-horses as the horse parent and looking around for the bravest donkey's for the donkey parent?

We can get horses to charge into spears, but we can't get a donkey to not run off if gunshots happen?