snood wrote:Any attempt I've ever seen to characterize with a broad brush military people and their mindset falls short of reality.
Do you think it is too broad a brush to characterize the US military personnel in Iraq as (mostly) jingoistic killers?
Hey...... I said "mostly".
A close friend of mine served in Iraq, as a Navy Corman, and never would have used his weapon except in defense. I know there must be others like him.
echi wrote:snood wrote:Any attempt I've ever seen to characterize with a broad brush military people and their mindset falls short of reality.
Do you think it is too broad a brush to characterize the US military personnel in Iraq as (mostly) jingoistic killers?
Yeah I think it's broad brush. And what purpose does it serve to characterize them that way, anyway? Especially since you have no way of knowing what is in the minds of the men fighting in Iraq.
It's my understanding that most troops will never fire their weapon in combat, so I can see that it may be too broad of a generalization.
On the other hand, I assume that most people who join up believe it's a noble calling, so, given the chance, I think most probably would not hesitate to fire on the enemy.
But, you are right. No one really knows.
echi- Have you ever seen any studies about how many Marines DO fire their weapons in combat? Or, for that matter, members of the 101st or 82nd Airborne? I don't really expect support troops to fire their weapons very often. But Marines do and so do the airborne. Do you know anything about these two groups?
Or do you think the writer of this article lies?
Is it time to replace the scout/sniper rifle?
Are we properly equipping our scout/snipers with a weapons system that enables them to provide the supported unit commander with the most effective precision fire in support of combat operations? There are indications from Marine snipers who participated in Operation IRAQI FREEDOM (OIF) that we are not. After-action reports from operations conducted by Marine snipers during OIF suggest that the M40 bolt-action sniper rifle performed well, but there were numerous requests for a sniper weapons system that could potentially enhance the Marine scout/snipers' capabilities on the battlefield.
At the request of 1st Marine Division, the Marine Corps Warfighting Laboratory (MCWL) sent a four-man team to visit Marine units in Kuwait, Iraq, and California for the express purpose of conducting detailed discussions with the warfighters who took part in combat operations in Iraq and to determine the applicability and validity of tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP) that are the bedrock for the basic urban skills training program that was developed and taught by the members of MCWL PROJECT METROPOLIS. (See MCG, May02.) As part of this team I was assigned to focus on the infantry platoon and squad, as well as the scout/sniper platoons from each of the five infantry battalions with whom we had discussions.
In these discussions with the scout/sniper platoons, one recurring theme was that during OIF Marine snipers were often employed against multiple threats in rapid engagement sequences. The M40 rifle, with its limited five-round magazine capacity, could not keep pace with the number of potential targets that presented themselves.
To correct this deficiency, many of the Marine scout/snipers suggested that a semiautomatic sniper weapons system, capable of delivering precision fire on multiple targets, could have increased their combat lethality. By increasing their magazine capacity to 20 or more rounds with a semiautomatic weapons system, they expressed belief that they could have inflicted more casualties on the enemy, provided better force protection and overwatch of maneuver elements, and could have had greater psychological impact on the enemy.
Furthermore, many of the snipers suggested that a semiautomatic weapons system should possess a rail system such as the Military Standard 1913 Picatinny-style rail that allows for the quick attachment and detachment of day and night optical aiming devices. They also suggested that their weapons system should have a night engagement capability that does not require the removal of the day optic, nor should it require a separate zero. One sniper platoon in particular heavily stressed the requirement for a noise suppressor. Some of the snipers from this platoon were very adamant about this need when they told me their personal account of firing the M40 from a particular building and experiencing enemy mortar fire being returned in close proximity of the location from where they had fired the M40. They suggested that the noise signature of the M40 without a noise suppressor was such that the Iraqi forces could identify their position and target it with mortars and direct fire weapons. This makes a strong case for enabling our snipers to suppress their weapons system when the mission dictates the need.
The concept of semiautomatic sniper rifles is not new. In fact, the Marine Corps Combat Development Center (MCCDC) has in its combat development tracking system (CDTS) an operational requirements document (ORD) for a designated marksman rifle (DMR)?-CDTS number 93116DA, dated 4 April 1998, stating the requirement for a semiautomatic 7.62x51mm NATO rifle. The ORD goes on to state the operational concept for the DMR is that it:
. . . will be located in infantry battalions, employed by scout/sniper teams, to provide commanders with an economical 7.62 semiautomatic small arms capability that will complement the operational capabilities of the M40A1 sniper rifle and the M16A2 rifle.
The ORD also states that:
. . . the DMR will complement the manually operated, bolt action M40A1 and the M16A2 rifle by adding flexibility and survivability to the two-man scout/sniper team concept. The 7.62mm DMR will not replace all M16A2 rifles in scout/sniper teams, but will be selectively employed when mission requirements and the commander dictate a 7.62mm semiautomatic, alternate DMR capability.
The ORD also suggests that engagement ranges for a sniper in urban terrain are typically 500 meters or closer. These ranges were fully validated by the after-action comments I received from the snipers who participated in OIF. The ORD states:
At these closer urban engagement ranges, the required manual operation of the bolt action of the M40 may adversely affect sniper survivability. This is another mission area deficiency where a medium range, self-loading, suppressed rifle would serve a valuable role, especially during counter-sniper missions in MOUT [military operations on urbanized terrain] operations.
The distribution plan spelled out in Annex A of the ORD denotes eight of the semiautomatic rifles would be distributed to the infantry battalions throughout the Corps as well as to the sniper schools and to other selected units. Marine Corps scout/sniper platoons never received these semiautomatic rifles to augment their capabilities on the battlefield despite ORD calling for this to be a weapon used by the members of the scout/sniper platoon.
U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCom) forces, as well as forces from other militaries around the world (United Kingdom, Israel to name a few), have exploited the capabilities of semiautomatic sniper rifles. Additionally, the U.S. Army has formally identified this deficiency and has requested for industry to provide market information on a 7.62x51mm semiautomatic sniper system for potential procurement.
Several suitable commercial off-the-shelf weapons systems are available today that meet the characteristics of those suggested by the snipers who where employed during combat operations in support of OIF. Many of these weapons meet the accuracy standard of the M40 and are comparably priced.
We should consider the benefits realized by USSOCom and other countries around the world, and like the U.S. Army should plan to procure a state-of-the-art, semiautomatic sniper weapons system. Such a weapons system will achieve the accuracy desired, increase the sniper's ability to engage multiple targets, increase his rapid reload capability, and would be employed day or night using a noise suppressor when such a capability is required to accomplish the mission. A semiautomatic sniper weapons system could potentially increase the lethality of our individual snipers and could enable the advent of more effective sniper TTP. Both the primary and secondary sniper/observer in a conventional two-man sniper team could be armed with a semiautomatic weapons system. With this construct, the scout/sniper team could provide more effective overwatch and force protection for maneuver elements, could potentially inflict more casualties, and could have a greater psychological impact on the enemy while also providing the sniper the ability to defend himself. If we do not explore the procurement of such a weapons system, Marine snipers will continue to train with and employ a weapon that does not maximize their potential as a valuable combat multiplier. If Marine snipers are again employed against multiple threats in rapid engagement sequences like during OIF, they will remain less effective and potentially at greater risk.
>Author's Note: A universal needs statement has been drafted by the MCWL project reconnaissance, surveillance, and intelligence team and has been forwarded up the MCWL chain of command for submission into the MCCDC CDTS.
>Capt Von Herbulis is an 0203 (ground intelligence officer), a former reconnaissance platoon commander, a graduate of the Marine Corps Basic Scout/Sniper Course and the Scout/Sniper Employment Officer Course, and is currently serving as the reconnaissance and sniper project officer at MCWL.
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Snod says that no one knows what is in the minds of soldiers fighting in Iraq? Does anyone know what is in the minds of anyone except through their actions? I know what was in the mind of the slimy Cassius Clay when he changed his name to Mohammad Ali to avoid the draft. He was thinking, I ain't going to put my black as on the line for these racist whities. I'm a Black Muslim. Typical!
Very astute commentary, possum. And so relevant. Everyone needs to hear what you think Muhammad Ali was thinking in 1967. And it is so pertinent to whether the soldiers in Iraq are jingoistic murderers. Everyone can clearly see the connection. You continue to amaze with the consistent depth and clarity of your prolific posts.
I think any country that parades goose stepping soldiers and missiles through the town sqaure should be nuked. But that's just MO. I hate goose stepping.
Like war?
Do you like war? Do you believe nuking people is the answer?
Then check this site out. It's right up your....alley. The photos are something you won't see on CNN, etc. Can't damage the American psyche by showing them what their expensive bombs really do, now can we?
I doubt any of you war mongers have the courage to view the following.
The WE News Archives
www.thewe.cc/weplanet/news/americas/us/welcome_to_war.html
U.S. Plan for New Nuclear Weapons Advances
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 20, 2006; A11
The United States took another step yesterday toward building a new stockpile of up to 2,200 deployed nuclear weapons that would last well into the 21st century, announcing the start of a multiyear process to repair and replace facilities where they would be developed and assembled and where older warheads could be more rapidly dismantled.
Thomas P. D'Agostino, head of defense programs for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), told reporters that the "Complex 2030" program would repair or replace "inefficient, old and expensive [to maintain]" facilities at eight sites, including some buildings going back to the 1940s Manhattan Project that built the first atomic bombs. He said the sites -- primarily in California, New Mexico, Texas and Tennessee -- "are not sustainable for the long term."
Yesterday's announcement comes as the Bush administration is pressing its allies to take harsh steps to halt nuclear weapons programs in both North Korea and Iran that it says are violations of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. That same treaty calls for the United States and other members of the nuclear club to eliminate their own stockpiles, but it gives no deadline by which that should take place.
The Bush administration plan would replace the aging Cold War stockpile of about 6,000 warheads with a smaller, more reliable arsenal that would last for decades. It would also consolidate the handling of plutonium, the most dangerous of the nuclear materials, in one center that would be built at a site that already houses similar special materials. Another part of the plan would be to remove all highly enriched uranium from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, D'Agostino said.
Key to the Bush plan is an expected decision in December by the NNSA on a design for the new "Reliable Replacement Warhead" (RRW). The nation's two nuclear weapons laboratories, Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore, are competing for the new warhead design. Before going ahead with any new warhead, however, the NNSA would have to get Congress's approval to move into actual engineering development.
A requirement of the new design is that it must be based on nuclear packages tested in the past so that it will not require the United States to break the moratorium on underground tests to make certain the RRW will work.
The process initiated yesterday will provide the public the first chance to give its views on the Bush nuclear program. To carry out the rebuilding of the complex, the agency must prepare updated environmental-impact statements for the eight sites, including public comments, and hold hearings at each location.
Although the administration has decided to go ahead with the Complex 2030 plan and sees the RRW as a way to have a more reliable weapon, the public will also get a chance to comment on two alternative plans for handling the nuclear stockpile -- plans that the administration has rejected.
The Bush option, titled "Transform to a More Modern, Cost-Effective Nuclear Weapons Complex (Complex 2030)," would call for stepped-up dismantling of older warheads, a process that has been slowed by the aging of some facilities and by efforts to refurbish other deployed warheads.
The second option to be placed before the public is called the "No Action Alternative," which is described as "the status quo as it exists today and is presently planned," according to yesterday's notice in the Federal Register about the upcoming environmental-impact hearings. That approach would keep the current programs going and defer decisions on the future of the nuclear stockpile.
The third option, titled "Reduced Operations and Capability-Based Complex Alternative," could draw support from arms control and anti-nuclear activists.
Under this approach, the NNSA would keep its current technologies for manufacturing weapons and its production facilities would not be upgraded. The production of plutonium triggers for current weapons, called pits, would remain limited at about 50 per year. Under the Bush plan, the new plutonium center could produce 125 pits a year, a number D'Agostino said would satisfy current planning for the 2,200 RRW stockpile of the future.
echi wrote:Any you A-bomb defenders ever consider what might have happened if the US had dropped one off the Japanese coast? Einstein thought it was a pretty good idea. I'd say he had a bit more vested interest than you guys.
Had that happened, the Japanese military would have argued that we were faking the bomb -- that we had just dropped a large conventional bomb off the coast. They would also say that even if they were wrong and the bomb wasn't faked, the fact that we had not used the bomb on a Japanese city showed that we were too weak to use it, and therefore they had nothing to fear from it.
A few days later the second bomb would have been dropped on Hiroshima.
pachelbel wrote:First, Iran has the right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to enrich uranium to three percent - the concentration needed for nuclear power.
No such right. However, they did have the right to nuclear power.
With their illegal nuclear program, they have forfeited even that right however.
pachelbel wrote:NO INTELLIGENCE AGENCY CLAIMS THAT IRAN IS MAKING WEAPONS-GRADE URANIUM (83% CONCENTRATION).
Source?
pachelbel wrote:and oralloy, where do you think you'll be in a nuclear winter? In your safe bomb shelter eating canned beans? You'll be vaporized, man, in a flash. So will your kids & grandkids.
That presumes two things. One, that someone would nuke us. And two, that I'd be near a target.
The first is unlikely, and the second is impossible (I live in farm country, well away from any city or military installation).
pachelbel wrote:This whole incident is about Euro dollars versus US dollars - Iraq wanted to go Euro and so does Iran - but America can't allow that.
No one here cares if people buy and sell oil in Euros.
blueflame1 wrote:U.S. Plan for New Nuclear Weapons Advances
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 20, 2006; A11
Hope they go with higher yield warheads. There's no excuse for a nuclear yield below one megaton, IMO.
Re: Wrong again oralloy
pachelbel wrote:oralloy wrote:pachelbel wrote:First, Iran has the right under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty to enrich uranium to three percent - the concentration needed for nuclear power.
No such right. However, they did have the right to nuclear power.
With their illegal nuclear program, they have forfeited even that right however.
Excuse me? You're completely wrong.
No I'm not.
pachelbel wrote:Iran HAS signed the NPT.
That is what makes their nuclear weapons program illegal.
pachelbel wrote:However, ISRAEL, Pakistan, and India have refused to sign it.
That's what makes their nuclear weapons programs perfectly legal.
pachelbel wrote:Why does the US look the other way with these countries?
Because their nuclear weapons programs are perfectly legal.
pachelbel wrote:oralloy wrote:pachelbel wrote:NO INTELLIGENCE AGENCY CLAIMS THAT IRAN IS MAKING WEAPONS-GRADE URANIUM (83% CONCENTRATION).
Source?
Look up the IAEA or read the above ~s l o w l y ~ and maybe you'll get it. I would not argue with the IAEA; but then, you're such an expert.
I see. You have no basis for your claim that no intelligence agency claims Iran is making weapons grade uranium.
Oralloy is 93.5%, not 83%, by the way.
pachelbel wrote:It makes a great deal of difference to those in power, which you are not. If Iran decides to trade their oil in Euros rather than American dollars.....well, maybe even you can figure that one out? There are about 450 million Europeans who use the Euro, compared to about 300 million yanks who use the American dollar. It would make the American dollar irrelevant; the American dollar would no longer be the standard.
Balderdash!
blueflame1 wrote:U.S. Plan for New Nuclear Weapons Advances
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, October 20, 2006; A11
The United States took another step yesterday toward building a new stockpile of up to 2,200 deployed nuclear weapons that would last well into the 21st century, announcing the start of a multiyear process to repair and replace facilities where they would be developed and assembled and where older warheads could be more rapidly dismantled.
Thomas P. D'Agostino, head of defense programs for the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), told reporters that the "Complex 2030" program would repair or replace "inefficient, old and expensive [to maintain]" facilities at eight sites, including some buildings going back to the 1940s Manhattan Project that built the first atomic bombs. He said the sites -- primarily in California, New Mexico, Texas and Tennessee -- "are not sustainable for the long term."
Yesterday's announcement comes as the Bush administration is pressing its allies to take harsh steps to halt nuclear weapons programs in both North Korea and Iran that it says are violations of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. That same treaty calls for the United States and other members of the nuclear club to eliminate their own stockpiles, but it gives no deadline by which that should take place.
The Bush administration plan would replace the aging Cold War stockpile of about 6,000 warheads with a smaller, more reliable arsenal that would last for decades. It would also consolidate the handling of plutonium, the most dangerous of the nuclear materials, in one center that would be built at a site that already houses similar special materials. Another part of the plan would be to remove all highly enriched uranium from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, D'Agostino said.
Key to the Bush plan is an expected decision in December by the NNSA on a design for the new "Reliable Replacement Warhead" (RRW). The nation's two nuclear weapons laboratories, Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore, are competing for the new warhead design. Before going ahead with any new warhead, however, the NNSA would have to get Congress's approval to move into actual engineering development.
A requirement of the new design is that it must be based on nuclear packages tested in the past so that it will not require the United States to break the moratorium on underground tests to make certain the RRW will work.
The process initiated yesterday will provide the public the first chance to give its views on the Bush nuclear program. To carry out the rebuilding of the complex, the agency must prepare updated environmental-impact statements for the eight sites, including public comments, and hold hearings at each location.
Although the administration has decided to go ahead with the Complex 2030 plan and sees the RRW as a way to have a more reliable weapon, the public will also get a chance to comment on two alternative plans for handling the nuclear stockpile -- plans that the administration has rejected.
The Bush option, titled "Transform to a More Modern, Cost-Effective Nuclear Weapons Complex (Complex 2030)," would call for stepped-up dismantling of older warheads, a process that has been slowed by the aging of some facilities and by efforts to refurbish other deployed warheads.
The second option to be placed before the public is called the "No Action Alternative," which is described as "the status quo as it exists today and is presently planned," according to yesterday's notice in the Federal Register about the upcoming environmental-impact hearings. That approach would keep the current programs going and defer decisions on the future of the nuclear stockpile.
The third option, titled "Reduced Operations and Capability-Based Complex Alternative," could draw support from arms control and anti-nuclear activists.
Under this approach, the NNSA would keep its current technologies for manufacturing weapons and its production facilities would not be upgraded. The production of plutonium triggers for current weapons, called pits, would remain limited at about 50 per year. Under the Bush plan, the new plutonium center could produce 125 pits a year, a number D'Agostino said would satisfy current planning for the 2,200 RRW stockpile of the future.
'That same treaty calls for the United States and other members of the nuclear club to eliminate their own stockpiles, but it gives no deadline by which that should take place.'
So, the pot is calling the kettle black, here. Let's see the US honor the treaty by eliminating
their stockpiles and quit picking on Iran. Iran has cooperated and they have signed the NPT.
Israel has not signed the NPT, nor have they cooperated when questions arise about their enrichment program. Ditto Pakistan and India.
