Article

2003-11-28 Iraq

Army Commanders Felt Iraq Ammo Was Short

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Posted by Steve White 2003-11-28 3:07:19 AM|| || Front Page|| [2 views since 2007-05-07] Top

#1 On a related point, I've goggled what was supposed the new US "Xm-8" rifle mentionned some time ago, and was very surprised that the US Army is going to simply choose a standard-if-modern german design, and throw away 50 yrs of expertise and a awful lot of money... instead of upgrading the M16 family and using new ammo/changing caliber to solve its lethality problem, and spent the saved money on what's really needed for the troops.
Btw, this site (courtesy of a seemingly very disgruntled airborne trooper who doesn't seem to like marines much) blast a lot of US army projects (OICW, Stryker, X22, "tofflerian" toys, see also the article on the 21st century rifle); I really don't know what it is worth, but the writers do make some very interesting points (ie go for the practical & common sense instead of trying to find solutions for non-existent problems). Perhaps (ex-)military type here will be more informed.
http://www.geocities.com/equipmentshop/index.htm

Posted by Anonymous 2003-11-28 7:58:10 AM|| 2003-11-28 7:58:10 AM|| Front Page Top

#2 ``Every attempt to gain the ammunition assets resulted in some agency or another denying requests, short-loading trucks or turning away soldiers,ââ the report said. ``The entire situation became utter chaos. ... The division crossed (into Iraq) short the ammunition it had declared necessary to commit to combat.ââ

Why is in every single aspect of life there is always one freaking clerk/b'crat/paper pusher who if they worked for the Cartoon Network couldn't prevent a "Time For Bennie Marathon" from being aired. If this is really true and not BS al Guardian dragged up the officer responsible should be court martialed and thrown into Levenworth

Posted by Anonymous 2003-11-28 8:22:42 AM|| 2003-11-28 8:22:42 AM|| Front Page Top

#3 "REMF"(rear echelon moth$%r f^%$ers)The Bane of front-line troops since the begnning of orginized warfare.
The oil industry use to require oil field enginiers to spend a miniuim of 1 year working in the oil fields.The military should follow this example.Make every-one of these REMF's serve at least one year with front-line units.

Posted by Raptor 2003-11-28 10:15:12 AM|| 2003-11-28 10:15:12 AM|| Front Page Top

#4 ``Every attempt to gain the ammunition assets resulted in some agency or another denying requests, short-loading trucks or turning away soldiers,ââ

Sgt. Highway sez:

"The Marines are fighting men, sir. They shouldn't be sitting around on their sorry asses filling out requisition forms for equipment they should already have."

Posted by Raj 2003-11-28 10:31:07 AM|| [http://angrycyclist.blogspot.com] 2003-11-28 10:31:07 AM|| Front Page Top

Based on everything else I've heard, from talking to retired Air Force logistics people, we were having trouble moving enough supplies through Kuwait to keep the divisions we did have in the field supplied. Kuwait just didn't have the port facilities, and it's hard to run that much supplies by air.

Draw your own conclusions about all the people saying we needed to invade with more troops.

Posted by Phil Fraering 2003-11-28 12:43:32 PM|| [http://newsfromthefridge.typepad.com] 2003-11-28 12:43:32 PM|| Front Page Top

#6 The c*cksuckers from the guardian are still pissed that the entire thing didn't turn into the Battle of Stalingrad. Like all good little commies, they were devoutly hoping to us lose a few hundred thousand troops to the heroic baathists. Now all they can do is try to smear their turds around in an attempt to stink the place up.

As far as logistics goes, what commander thinks those candy-ass REMFs from J-4 are EVER giving them enough supplies? Usually, the guys on the ground AND the feather merchants are both correct, the supply line is a complete SNAFU, and the troops usually have to pay for it.

Posted by Anonymous 2003-11-28 1:45:18 PM|| 2003-11-28 1:45:18 PM|| Front Page Top

#7 "Kuwait just didn't have the port facilities..." Well, we should have gone in through another country, too. Wait a second...weren't we supposed to go through one of those other countries? But then they went back on their word? Because they were scared that Al-Q would attack them for helping us?
Well, since they didn't help us, Al-Q hasn't bombed them......right?
What country was that again? I can't recall...

Questions, questions, questions

Posted by LeftEnd 2003-11-28 2:36:23 PM|| 2003-11-28 2:36:23 PM|| Front Page Top

#8 What country was that again? I can't recall...

Heh heh
I like how they asked for the $25 million or so ANYWAY, even though we had to send the 4th ID all the way to Kuwait. Almost gallic in their chutzpah.

Posted by Anonymous 2003-11-28 2:52:30 PM|| 2003-11-28 2:52:30 PM|| Front Page Top

#9 Resolved: That all service academy graduates are required to serve one to two years active duty as enlisted personnel before receiving their commission.

Some of them come to the academies with prior enlisted service.

However, I doubt this would achieve what you want, snellenr, unless they were serving in a shooting war.

Almost gallic in their chutzpah

Well, they DID have French influence on that decision not to allow us to go in from the north.

If we had, not only would the supply lines be easier but we most likely would have been in the Sunni triangle before certain people had a chance to regroup there.

Posted by rkb 2003-11-28 4:01:04 PM|| 2003-11-28 4:01:04 PM|| Front Page Top

#10 Every attempt to gain the ammunition assets resulted in some agency or another denying requests, short-loading trucks or turning away soldiers...
If the ammo was there and not distributed, the supply clerks and their bosses need to be court-martialed, and summarily tossed out of the military. If the ammo WASN'T there, we need to know why, and fix THAT problem. Part of it could have been because of the 4ID not being offloaded in Turkey, part of it might have been confusion on the parts of shippers, or whatever. It's a problem, it's been identified, and it needs to be fixed - regardless of the reason it existed.

Make every-one of these REMF's serve at least one year with front-line units.
Won't work. What will work is something I recommended twenty years ago to the Air Force - every member of the Air Force should be forced to enter as an enlisted member, and be trained as a cop. Once they've gone through that training (best thing the AF has to combat training), then let them be trained in something else that's needed. That would eliminate the weaklings at the very beginning, give every member of the Air Force a common point of experience, and force people to recognize the fact that the only reason for the existence of any military service is the protection of the Constitution and the people it represents. Of course it got shot down - "too expensive, people won't go along with it, yadda yadda yadda..." Only the Marines train everyone first as a rifleman, then as a specialist. The Marines are a quality force, and this is one good reason for it.

Resolved: That all service academy graduates are required to serve one to two years active duty as enlisted personnel before receiving their commission.

They need to serve two years BEFORE GOING to the military academies. I speak from EXPERIENCE, as a 17-yo fresh-as-new-grass kaydet that learned the hard way what the military is all about - AFTER I washed out of the Academy for medical reasons.

The military needs to change. It's still designed to fight a WWII-type war. Equipment, weapons, and capabilities have changed so drastically such warfare is not likely to ever happen again. The only way to change the military is to get rid of the dead-head generals that learned only one way to fight a war, and sit in judgment over today's military policies. We may not need a totally-clean sweep, but there are enough asshats that need to be fired to satisfy most of us if they were to be flushed.

Posted by Old Patriot 2003-11-28 4:49:34 PM|| [http://users.codenet.net/mweather/default.htm] 2003-11-28 4:49:34 PM|| Front Page Top

#11 Every attempt to gain the ammunition assets resulted in some agency or another denying requests, short-loading trucks or turning away soldiers...
If the ammo was there and not distributed, the supply clerks and their bosses need to be court-martialed, and summarily tossed out of the military. If the ammo WASN'T there, we need to know why, and fix THAT problem. Part of it could have been because of the 4ID not being offloaded in Turkey, part of it might have been confusion on the parts of shippers, or whatever. It's a problem, it's been identified, and it needs to be fixed - regardless of the reason it existed.

Make every-one of these REMF's serve at least one year with front-line units.
Won't work. What will work is something I recommended twenty years ago to the Air Force - every member of the Air Force should be forced to enter as an enlisted member, and be trained as a cop. Once they've gone through that training (best thing the AF has to combat training), then let them be trained in something else that's needed. That would eliminate the weaklings at the very beginning, give every member of the Air Force a common point of experience, and force people to recognize the fact that the only reason for the existence of any military service is the protection of the Constitution and the people it represents. Of course it got shot down - "too expensive, people won't go along with it, yadda yadda yadda..." Only the Marines train everyone first as a rifleman, then as a specialist. The Marines are a quality force, and this is one good reason for it.

Resolved: That all service academy graduates are required to serve one to two years active duty as enlisted personnel before receiving their commission.

They need to serve two years BEFORE GOING to the military academies. I speak from EXPERIENCE, as a 17-yo fresh-as-new-grass kaydet that learned the hard way what the military is all about - AFTER I washed out of the Academy for medical reasons.

The military needs to change. It's still designed to fight a WWII-type war. Equipment, weapons, and capabilities have changed so drastically such warfare is not likely to ever happen again. The only way to change the military is to get rid of the dead-head generals that learned only one way to fight a war, and sit in judgment over today's military policies. We may not need a totally-clean sweep, but there are enough asshats that need to be fired to satisfy most of us if they were to be flushed.

Posted by Old Patriot 2003-11-28 6:33:01 PM|| [http://users.codenet.net/mweather/default.htm] 2003-11-28 6:33:01 PM|| Front Page Top

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