Sipsey Street Irregulars: 5 Battlefield Innovations That Came From The Rank-And-File Troops

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

5 Battlefield Innovations That Came From The Rank-And-File Troops

Military personnel are a crafty bunch. They surprise their commanders and buddies with many good — and, let’s be honest, some bad — innovations. Some of these battlefield creations even surprise the teams of scientists and industry professionals designing military equipment. When faced with limited resources, the battlefield innovations of the rank-and-file troops have become a staple of military kits. Weapon systems and generals don’t win wars alone; it is the dog-tired foot soldier who eventually helps the victor cross the finish line.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...: Some items which should have made his list but didn't:

1. Feminine hygiene tampons used to plug wound channels.

2. Radio Shack R/C toy cars with mounted video cameras to investigate suspected IED's.

3. Silly String sprayed into dark interiors to expose trip wires.

And that's just off the top of my head. I'm sure other SSI readers will have more.; September 1, 2015 at 6:47 AM
Informed42 said...: G.I.'s have always improvised and adapted, and they always will !! Those are two of the biggest reasons TPTB and our government have been trying their damnedest to 'demonize' all veterans for a number of years now. They're afraid of the veterans because they've fought before, and although many are a lot older now, they'll fight again to the best of their abilities. They will also willingly share their knowledge and experiences with younger people that will fight the tyranny the
government and its cronies are trying to impose on our nation. This will include tactics !!; September 1, 2015 at 11:36 AM
Anonymous said...: Indirect fire was invented by a Confederate enlisted man, Milton Humphreys. Until then artillery was strictly a direct fire weapon. Humphreys, a child math prodigy, realized he could use trigonometry to calculate the proper elevation to allow artillery to hit a target while remaining in the safety of a concealed position. His idea was first employed by "Bryan's Battery" against Union fortifications at Raleigh, Virginia (now Beckley, West Va.). After the war he made a career of teaching the math behind his technique.; September 1, 2015 at 8:24 PM

"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, The Lessons of Mumbai:Death Cults, the "Socialism of Imbeciles" and Refusing to Submit, 1 December 2008

"A common language of resistance . . ."

"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.

Sipsey Street Irregulars

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

5 Battlefield Innovations That Came From The Rank-And-File Troops

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