The title, “Sloppy fire discipline is now a matter of doctrine” and your closing paragraph, “But the doctrine is different today. It is wasteful, and probably cowardly, but it works. The grunts are not aiming any more, it is too dangerous. They just stick out their rifles from behind cover and spray in the general direction of Charlie…” Describe, after a fashion, a situation that existed during the conflict in Southeast Asia. It does not describe the situation now, or even the last 30 years.

Suppressive fire is not “Sloppy fire discipline”. It is a tactic employed in its modern sense, for almost a century, and an extremely effective one. Even though you clearly understand the use of suppressing fire in the context of a fire team, you mistakenly relate it to the individual rifleman’s fire control discipline.

“The grunts are not aiming any more”

“Most men don’t aim, they just fire in the general direction of the enemy.”

“They just stick out their rifles from behind cover and spray in the general direction of Charlie”

In the context of today, which is specifically what you refer to in your title, and closing paragraph, those statements are ridiculous.

After the move to the All Volunteer Force, 39 years ago, the US Military began an effort to address many institutional deficiencies from the 1960’s and early seventies.

One area where they actually succeeded was in individual marksmanship, and fire control discipline. The problem was never the quality, or bravery, of war fighters during the selective service period. It was the tempo of training cycles, necessitated by the draft. The flow of recruits through basic, and boot camp, overwhelmed the system, resulting in degraded training, putting those recruits at even greater risk.

With the advent of the All Volunteer Force, (AVF) again, 39 years ago, a significantly reduced flow of recruits presented an opportunity. The USMC led the way, by reinventing itself, modeled on it’s successes of WWII.

During the first and second World Wars, the Marines stressed individual marksmanship, and fire control discipline. Those qualities were brought to the forefront in training, and over the next 10 years, re-instilled in its culture.

During the 1980’s, USMC official doctrine was modified, making everyone in uniform, cook, truck driver, admin., pilot, etc., a combat rifleman. They adopted Close Quarter Battle tactics. (Special Operations forces originated this. Pre-engagement, the rifle is held in a constant ready fire position, buttstock to shoulder, strong hand on receiver, and weak hand on forestock. Post engagement, the weapon is held in an aiming position and the Fire Team moves as a unit, each rifleman covering complimentary sectors of fire.)

This, in combination with the revived WWII “one shot, one kill” philosophy, was so successful, the Army adopted the same training.

Fire Teams vary in size and composition, depending on the military organization, and the order of battle. The number of riflemen attached may vary, but a USMC Fire Team generally consists of “X” number riflemen, a team leader, who functions as grenadier, and one, sometimes two automatic riflemen, referred to as “AR” man.

In an infantry engagement, the “AR” man’s job, whether carrying a BAR, an M-60, or in current times, an M-249 SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon) is to lay down fire in order to suppress the engaging force, while riflemen maneuver to flank and kill that force. (Depending on the nature of the opposing force, they might instead employ the M-203 grenade launcher, a shoulder fired AT-4, or wait for a fire support mission)

In the nightmare of combat, anything can happen. There are grim stories of our forces being overrun by the enemy, in the past, and in current conflicts. On such desperate occasions, modern marksmanship, and fire control discipline would be more important than ever.

I’m not saying that training never breaks down, and in a horrible panic, a soldier or Marine doesn’t move the select fire switch on an M4-Carbine to full auto, and fire blindly. That goes without saying.

Here’s what I am saying.

You are absolutely incorrect in your premise, and specifically in these two statements:

1. “Sloppy fire discipline is now a matter of doctrine”

2. “But the doctrine is different today. It is wasteful, and probably cowardly, but it works. The grunts are not aiming any more, it is too dangerous. They just stick out their rifles from behind cover and spray in the general direction of Charlie…”

A couple of unrelated points:

You’re absolutely right about the Kalashnikov. I would just add that in combination with the equally legendary RPG-7, it forms the perfect insurgency weapon system, astoundingly effective to this day.

The Kalashnikov’s only weakness is the 7.62×39mm projectile. Crappy ballistic design hampers its effectiveness beyond 300 feet. (Still very deadly at 400 yards, if you’re in the way)

My only gripe with the M-16, (now M-4 Carbine) is again the round. The 5.56mm (.223 cal) is devastating at very close range, and extremely accurate. But the very high muzzle velocity that makes the tiny round so effective in CQB, diminishes far too rapidly, leaving our troops with a substandard weapon.

That could easily be remedied, by switching to the 6.8 mm Remington SPC cartridge. It has slightly more knock down force than the AK-47, and approaches the .308 NATO round in ballistic performance.

Discussed elsewhere in this thread, the characteristic “Ting” produced by the automatic ejection of the M-1 Garrand’s stripper clip, after the last round is fired, works both ways.

GI’s quickly learned to pocket a few of the spent clips, which littered any battlefield. In a firefight, they would flick one of the decoy clips in the air, and when the enemy responded to the artificial stimulus, blow them away.

End of problem.

This is supported by countless testimony from WWII veterans, and even documented in the films ‘The Longest Day’ ‘Battleground’ and the old 60’s TV series ‘Combat’.

M-1 Carbine: A real piece of crap, only issued to officers, as a harebrained replacement for the 1911 model sidearm.

Afghanistan’s only sin was to refuse to turn over a man without due process of anything. And for that thousands and thousands of Afghans who never heard of OBL have been killed, maimed and tortured. By Americans, because their government followed something called “due process”.

By the same token, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice haven’t been turned over to the governments of Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Greece, France or other governments who would prosecute them successfully for war crimes and crimes against humanity. Due process.

According to you it would be fair for them to lob a few nukes our way.

However, Afghanistan is still occupied and Iraq is filled with US troops and mercenaries. BIN LADEN IS DEAD, AND THAT’S STILL GOING ON. WITH WHAT EXCUSE? IF THE PURPOSE OF THE INVASION WAS TO KILL OBL, NOW THAT HE’S DEAD IS SHOULD BE OVER. UNLESS OBL WAS JUST AN EXCUSE.

Now the capper, the ultimate hypocrisy. Bin Laden was found in Pakistan. A neighbor of Afghanistan. Sovereign country. Why haven’t Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore been obliterated?

Let’s get serious. Saudi Arabia was responsible for WTC, we invade Iraq while protecting Saudi Arabia.

We waste Afghanistan for years, OBL is in Pakistan. We protect Pakistan. In fact, Reagan ensured Pakistan got nukes, protected Pakistan from the US CIA and the US State department so that it could acquire nukes. Even supplied some technology and supplies. Knowingly.

So where is the sense in your “my neighbor was killed, I get to kill anyone and everyone I care to, and torture the rest!” Explain that to me in the context of whatever morality you would care to. There are some moralities which can justify that, and I’d like to hear that if it’s the case.

My point to Bowser is we had every right to react violently against those who proudly claimed responsibility for the atttack (Al-Quaeda) and those who openly sheltered them (the Taliban).

My point to you is the attack on Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, it was all about the Cheney/Bush strategy to use the WMD excuse to insert American power into the region to intimidate our enemies, protect our friends, and guarantee our sources of cheap energy so that our extravagant and profitable “American Way of Life” could be extended indefinitely.

It failed.

And sometimes, the true drivers of the process are not even clear to the participants. People have an infinite capacity to rationalize their interests as being the only rational and decent thing to do, and to conveniently cast their rivals in the role of demon. Like I’ve said before, we all deal with the subjective universe we’ve constructed for ourselves, usually with the best of intentions
and the strictest application of our reason.

Still, you have to choose sides sometimes. There may be no ultimate good guys and bad guys, but in any conflict, there is always one side who is more in the right than the other.

BTW, I edited my post to Bowser while you were posting your question to me, so you might want to review it if you choose to answer.

Ever watch “Reilly, Ace of Spies”? The world has always been a battleground for corporations; countries and ideologies are just excuses to get kids to enlist and old farts to pay taxes.

Actually, you can probably trace it farther back than that. But it doesn’t matter who started the fire, its burning now and we have to play the hand we’ve been dealt. History is a process, not a contest. Sure, you can cherry pick history to make it look like a contest between good and evil, that’s what the conservatives love to do whenever their business plan calls for someone elses resources or some new market.

But regardless of who you are, you don’t let someone attack your country because maybe, according to them, they might feel they have justification. If that were the case, we’d be killing Anglos and driving them out of the South West so the Mexicans could have it back. And then we’d have to kill the Mexicans so the Indians could have their country back.

I was 6 years old when the CIA coup deposed Mossadegh and had him murdered so we could put our thug in charge, someone who would be friendly to OUR oil companies, not BP or Royal Dutch Shell. But I had absolutely nothing to do with it, honest. I’d be willing to bet no one in the WTC had anything to do with it, either.

OK. “You attack me, I get to attack you.” We have attacked them many, many times before WTC. According to you, the attack on WTC would have been justified. “We attack you, you get to attack us.”

Next, “you attack me, I get to bomb the shit out of you.” It was Saudi Arabians who planned, funded, manned and carried out the attack. You ignored that point. Saudi Arabians. According to your logic, you get to go bomb the shit out of, hold on, here it comes, right behind door one, be sure you are sitting down, (trumpet flourish), Saudi Arabia. Some of the funds were traced directly to the wife of the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the US.

Now by your logic, you get to bomb the shit out of, kill, maim and torture hundreds of thousands of, hold on again, this is a surprise, this follows “you attack me I get to bomb the shit out of you”, here it comes, the people you “get” to kill are Iraqis. Not Saudi Arabians.

Justify that and we can move on to the next part of the discussion, how I object to our side doing ugly things on a careless, mass scale. We’ll discuss Agent Orange, a WMD, white phosphorous, killing, raping, maiming, torturing innocent people simply for the hell of it. But that’s next. We need to come to an understanding of your position that we get to attack Iraq because Saudi Arabia perpetrated an attack on WTC.

(And don’t say it wasn’t “Saudi Arabia”. It was their people with money funneled through their government. It wasn’t Iraqi people with money funneled through their government.)

You believe that just because our side does ugly things, we never do any good things, and the other side is incapable of any ugliness of its own. That’s not the way the world works. It’s only the exact mirror image of what conservative ideologues think, and they are just as wrong as you are. We cannot afford that kind of exceptionalistic arrogance any more. We can do better, that’s what makes us better than they are. But sooner or later, we have to pick a side and fight.

It is our duty as human beings and citizens to try to see our opponent’s point of view as best we can, and to accomdate it if we can and if it is reasonable, and also to be ready to criticize our side when it overreaches or acts unfairly or selfishly. That is how I interpret Liberalism, and it is my major criticism of Conservative jingoism in foreign affairs.

But we also have the right of self-defense, especially against those who use deliberate brutality (terrorism) against us. And if that means dropping an occasional bomb into a wedding or barbecue, then so be it. As long as we do so because we have legitimate reason to believe the Beast is hiding there.

Collateral damage is what war is all about. Most casualties in all wars are innocents, once we decide to fight we are going to have to accept that. We can do our best to fight fair, in fact, that’s always a good strategy, for purely practical reasons. After all, when the Nazis realized it was time to surrender, they scurried West, not East. And it must be admitted, Germany was not treated fairly at Versailles by the Allies. She was maliciously screwed. It doesn’t excuse Hitler, but it sure as hell explains him.

But war is the only response we have when someone decides we are the only cause of their problems, and anything they do is justified by god.

We did not have to fight the Mexican War, in fact we were the aggressors. We were clearly the aggressors in the Spanish-American War, Vietnam, and Iraq II. We had every reason to fight in WWII, Korea, Iraq I and Afghanistan. I still can’t imagine why we (or anyone else, for that matter) got involved in WWI.

Sometimes, we just have to pick sides, even if we don’t have god on our side.