"Riflemen" Redux. Repeating a piece I wrote six years ago on logistics, combat packaging and marksmanship training.

Riflemen
Mike Vanderboegh
12 April 2008

"The speed with which tactical forces forget the main lessons from their collected experience, particularly those pertaining to weapons usage, would be difficult to overstate." -- S.L.A. Marshall, Commentary on Infantry Operations and Weapons Usage in Korea, Winter of 1950-51, p. 15

"Combat Packs" Ain't For Combat

After my last essay, Strippers, I received some disputatious comments regarding my insistence that only ammunition combat packed in stripper clips, bandoleers and easy-open steel ammo cans counted when the excrement hits the rotary oscillator. I was asked, "What about 'combat packs?'" For the uninitiated, "Combat packs" (also known as "Battle Packs") are plastic sleeves of boxed ammunition. The South African 7.62 NATO version is shown below.

Caption from Cheaper Than Dirt Catalog: "South African .308 military surplus ammo 147gr Berdan Primed, copper jacketed, 20 rounds per commercial style box, 140-rounds comes in sealed battle package. We sell these by these 140 round battle pack."

 "Battle Pack" broken open.

Calling this form of packaging "battle packs" is, to my mind, false advertising of the kind that can get you killed. Trying to reload magazines or en bloc clips with loose rounds under fire is suicidal madness. Another critic said that his 7.62x39 ammo was just fine in the original "tuna cans" it came in from China. "It'll never go bad," he insisted. "And you'll never get a chance to use it in a hurry," I immediately countered. Oh, no, he said, he could show me right then how fast someone who had practiced the Zen of Chinese Tuna Cans could just whip it open in half-an-instant. I challenged him to open the can with that cumbersome Chicom can opener in the dark while I fired rounds into the dirt beside him. He declined, but grudgingly admitted my point. Look folks, you can doubt my ancestry if you wish, but never doubt my footnotes. Here's another one that makes my (and Mae West's) point about packaging being everything, this time of Korean War vintage:

"There is a special hazard to infantry in night defense, revealed in a number of the company perimeter fights, which comes of taking loose ammunition into the ground to be defended. In these several examples the men thought that what they had at hand would be sufficient, but several spare boxes of grenades and of loose ammunition for the M1 were carried within the position just in case they might be needed. These companies were engaged throughout the night; before first light broke, the grenades and cartridges which the men were carrying were all but expended. It was then necessary to break open the loose stores. These were excellent combat companies and had so proved themselves in the fight up to that time. Yet such was the pressure of the dark and the enemy fire, and such the consequent nervous excitement, that the NCOs found they were unable to open the grenade boxes; after struggling vainly with them for many minutes, they at last dashed them on the rocks. Then the grenades spilled out over the hillside, and men had to crawl around, feeling for them in the dark.


The situation was even worse with the loose rifle ammunition. There were no spare clips and the firers had dropped their own without noting where they fell. It was necessary to feel around the rims of the foxholes in the darkness to retrieve the clips; by the time the clips had been gathered, nerve tension had so greatly increased that even the leaders found it almost impossible to make their own fingers respond to the seemingly simple task of clipping the cartridges. Said one NCO of this experience: 'Though I have had many nights in combat, this sweat of having to deal with loose ammunition in the dark was the most demoralizing experience I have known.' Troops are not supposed to take loose ammunition into an active position under any circumstance; the fact remains that they do. The supply situation and the lack of time for full precautions sometimes impose this extra burden on the infantry company. But any grenade case which is so secure that it baffles ordinary enterprise in the darkness is probably a little too secure for security." -- -- S.L.A. Marshall, Commentary on Infantry Operations and Weapons Usage in Korea, Winter of 1950-51, pp 13-14

"A little too secure for security." That sums up my argument against tuna cans precisely. I think I already made my point about Isandlwana. OK, so once more, you are NOT tactically ready until your ammo is truly combat packed in stripper clips, bandoleers, steel GI ammo cans and crates to facilitate storage, transportation and easy usage at the point of contact.

"They could not hit their shriveled testicles with their own crooked members" : "Sniper Disease" and the "Full-Auto Syndrome"

Finally, one critic defended his planned use of loose rounds because, he said, he was a "sniper." My old buddy Bob Wright of New Mexico can wax most profanely, even obscenely, eloquent relating his experiences with constitutional militia recruits of the 90s infected with "the sniper disease." Now I'd like to preface what I'm about to say (and quote) on this subject by specifying that these observations are NOT about actual military snipers. They are directed at those of the armed citizenry who, without a DD-214, embrace what has become the "sniper myth." Perhaps the best way to do this is to quote from the manual on Sniper Employment (Book Three, 0500) from the Scout/Sniper Instructor School, Marine Corps Combat Development Command. Any Marine scout sniper will be able to recite this definition from Page One of that manual:

"A scout/sniper is a Marine highly skilled in fieldcraft and marksmanship who delivers long range, precision fire at selected targets from concealed positions IN SUPPORT OF COMBAT OPERATIONS. The PRIMARY MISSION of a scout/sniper in combat is to SUPPORT COMBAT OPERATIONS by delivering precision fire on selected targets from concealed positions. The scout/sniper also has a secondary mission of gathering information for intelligence purposes. (Emphasis supplied, MBV)
 
The Marines are unique in training men to be both scouts and snipers for the two missions are often mutually exclusive. Scouts, by nature, should gather intelligence and never engage unless forced to do so by the enemy or changed circumstances. Snipers on the other hand are tasked to commit maximum damage to the enemy by removing high-value targets -- enemy snipers, officers, forward observers, senior NCOs, crew served weapons and the personnel who serve them, commo gear, observations devices and ground surveillance radars. This dual tasking by the Marines puts great stress on the scout/sniper, whose intelligence and discipline is assumed to be up to the task of knowing when he is a scout and when he is a sniper. This is in keeping with the long history of the USMC in getting the most out of every asset they possess (which explains why reserve Marines were still being issued WWII K rations up into the 1970s, for example).

Still, whether the sniper is Army or Marine, their actions are always directed by the unit commander or his designated subordination (in the case of the Marines it is usually the battalion S-2). And although sniper teams (usually two men) are given much greater latitude in prowling the battlefield looking for targets THEY ALWAYS DO THIS IN CONCERT AND COORDINATION WITH THE LARGER UNIT. To do otherwise is to risk the lives of the team or of the overall plan. There are times when a commander does NOT want things happening in a certain sector, or for certain enemy personnel to be targeted lest the enemy tumble to his overall plan. Snipers, in short, and this is contrary to the sniper myth that has grown up on the civilian side, are not "lone wolves" prowling about independently. They are an important, integral part of a combat arms TEAM.

Few military snipers match the great body of fiction literature which has grown up around them. Indeed, although there are certainly exceptions to this rule, dealing with the average sniper of our opponents in the wars of the 20th and 21st centuries has been and is a simple three minute field problem for any competent American Army or Marine squad.

Indeed, although there has recently been much Jihadist blather about "master snipers" culling American trophies in Iraq, the truth is much more prosaic. Witness this anecdote sent to me from the Baghdad AO of the 101st Airborne Division:
 

"I will give you an example of what happened a couple of weeks ago. I was with a patrol that stopped along the border of Shulla and Ghaz. There was a sniper that had been popping off shots every so often for about three days. This guy hit no where close to what they should have been aiming at so the (101st) guys that we ran into that had a static OP on the site really did not pay it any attention. They said the guy must have an AK because at 300 meters or so the fire was completely ineffective. Well we get back to (name of base redacted) and lo and behold the IA (Iraqi Army) actually got the two bastards (19 year old punk kids), beat the hell out of them, stuffed them into the trunk of their nice BMW get away car and brought them over to us. The pictures are included. If this is an example of (the) Legend of Jabba or Judy or whatever, then I will say what I have always said about these heathen bastards; they could not hit their shriveled testicles with their own crooked members. The Dragunov that they had had the scope taped onto the rifle with packing tape.(!)

There is and will always be a persistent threat of sniper fire. As (my wife) says, "even a blind chicken finds corn every now and then". While it is a threat I would treat it like any other out here. TTP's (Army Tactics, Techniques and Procedures) have not been affected by a rash of accurate fire coming from parts unknown. In this AO it just is not an issue. IED's and ambushes, on the other hand, are very much a part of the game."
 
Back on the home front, I concur with Bob Wright's trenchant observations on armed citizens of the unorganized militia who eschew joining with others because (they say) they are "lone wolves" who need no training or organization. The militia "sniper's" motivation, he believes, reflects a fear of joining with others of like mind to train because behind that reluctance is "a positive terror of closing with and engaging an enemy." Indeed, Bob says that in his experience with militia "snipers" the "sizes of their rifle scopes are inversely proportional to their courage." "All this crap about a military sniper operating on their own, at their own orders and discretion like a 'lone wolf' is (expletive deleted). Yeah, a military sniper is on his own -- except for his spotter, his security team, the supporting squad, the Quick Reaction Force, the aviation assets for extraction and aerial fire support, plus the artillery, the overhead drones, the commo net and the satellite imagery. All of which the armed citizenry is a little shy of." "As soon as somebody tells you that he is a 'militia sniper' what he is saying is that he is not part of your team, will not be part of any team and lacks even the guts to form his own team. He justifies his own inaction by claiming an MOS that he is incapable of fulfilling. And if he did it in front of real military snipers they'd kick his ass for being a wannabe. Hell, read Hathcock's book and you will find that the bulk of his kills were made from a firebase perimeter." I might add that such perimeters were not perimeters made up of one "lone wolf" Marine.

Rush Limbaugh calls himself the "Doctor of Democracy." Well perhaps. But as a self-taught consulting physician specializing in the wellness of geriatric republics, in my opinion "the full-auto syndrome" is just as malignant as "sniper disease" to the health and fitness of the armed citizenry. And the armed citizenry, I should not have to remind you, is the lifeblood and muscle of any true republic. Snipers, true snipers -- the long range marksmen who combine Camp Perry marksmanship with extreme physical fitness and field skills -- are a valuable, if small, part of the body of the armed citizenry. But what this republic needs more than anything right now is RIFLEMEN. Not the "range goobs" (as one of my buddies calls them) afflicted with "full-auto syndrome" who go to the range and blast away on fast semi (or full auto if they have the tax stamp) with all the inaccuracy and false pride of a monkey masturbating before a zoo crowd. You've all seen them. Heck, we've all done it once or twice, pulling the trigger just to see how fast we can empty a magazine. I'm talking about the guys who do it routinely, blasting away backstop dirt for no particular purpose. Like the Jihadists of Iraq, "they could not hit their shriveled testicles with their own crooked members."

Let me return, if I may, to the lessons of the Korean War laid out by S.L.A. Marshall in a section titled the Value of Slow Fire:

The Korean experience proves substantially that the fighting posture of the line is most sound when automatic fire is combined with slow fire in its weapons complex. . . Suffice to say now that any trend toward eliminating the semi-automatic, hand-carried weapons in favor of full-automatic weapons in the hands of all infantrymen should be vigorously combated. In perimeter defense, the time almost invariably comes when the automatic weapons run short of ammunition, with the local issue still to be decided. This is the crisis of the contest, when decision may swing either way, depending on which side is most capable of delivering the last few volleys.

THE SEMI-AUTOMATIC WEAPONS ARE CONSERVERS OF AMMUNITION. (Emphasis supplied, MBV) Apart from their great value in the hands of a good marksman at any stage of the fight, they compose the weapons reserve which becomes of inestimable value in the last hours when both sides are near the point of exhaustion. In the infantry company data from Korean operations there are numerous examples wherein the retention of the position depended finally on fire from the M1, and rifle fire finally decided the issue. The troops who carry the weapon almost unanimously recognize the vital importance of this factor. On the basis of their experience, they would not concur in any suggestion that the line could be strengthened by fitting it exclusively with full-automatic fire." -- S.L.A. Marshall, Commentary on Infantry Operations and Weapons Usage in Korea, Winter of 1950-51, p. 9

Planting "Appleseeds," One Rifleman at a Time
"It is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness."

We are fortunate today to have an organization that is traveling about the country, teaching Americans once more how to become, and what it means to be, a RIFLEMAN -- the Appleseed Project of the Revolutionary War Veterans Association. Let me quote from their website, http://www.appleseedinfo.org/ :

Welcome to the Appleseed Project

What the RWVA (Revolutionary War Veterans Association) is all about:
The Appleseed Program is designed to take you from being a simple rifle owner to being a true rifleman. All throughout American history, the rifleman has been defined as a marksman capable of hitting a man-sized target from 500 yards away — no ifs, ands or buts about it. This 500-yard range is traditionally known as "the rifleman's quarter-mile;" a rifleman can hit just about any target he can see. This skill was particularly evident in the birth of our country, and was the difference in winning the Revolutionary War.

So why me?  This country was founded and won by riflemen who fought and beat British forces. We invite all interested marksmen to learn the skills and techniques necessary to shoot proficiently; and then hope you'll participate in teaching and practicing with others so that together we can save this great land. Why you? Well, that's simple: if you're on this page we're betting you're a patriot, and we hope you answer the call.
What's a rifleman?  In short, a rifleman is an armed American, trained in the tradition of American Liberty. It's a man who has learned to shoot a rifle accurately — accurate enough to score "expert" on the Army Qualification Course. Until you can do that, you're considered a "Cook," unprepared and unqualified to carry a rifle on the firing line of freedom. But after attending an Appleseed AQT shoot, you'll have the credentials necessary to be a true rifleman, and will understand the critical need for defending freedom in this country.

Aimed, semi-automatic fire has been the hallmark of the American rifleman since 1942. The competence that comes from training, the confidence that is a part of proficiency, is needed today perhaps more than any other time in our Republic's long history. For the enemies of that Republic are deterred by these three things: our competence, our preparedness, and our will. They are not deterred by self-deceived "snipers", unskilled "cooks" or wild-eyed "range goobs." When you decide to become a rifleman you join ranks with all other the soldiers of this Republic who came before, militia, regular, volunteer. I urge any and all who wish to perfect their skills as riflemen to contact the RWVA at the website above. And I'd like to leave you with this observation of S.L.A. Marshall's, written in 1951 but as true today as ever:

"In the judgment of the analyst, the great lessons from this last year of fighting experience have been in the moral rather than the material sphere. It is perfectly true that 'weapons when correctly used will invariably win decisive results,' but to leave it at that states only half the formula. Correct weapons usage is not finally the product of the perfecting of ordnance and of tactical technique but of imbuing men with a spirit which will make them wish to move and fight together as a body. So long as that spirit is present, they will do their work with crossbows and billhooks. As more complex machines and methods are added, they will learn to master them in the common purpose." -- S.L.A. Marshall, Commentary on Infantry Operations and Weapons Usage in Korea, Winter of 1950-51, p. xvi


Preserve that spirit. Become an American rifleman.

Mike Vanderboegh