“And while certain varieties of missilery have taken great strides, little of importance has been done to improve the rifles with which we greeted the turn of the century. Well hold on now! We have semi-automatic actions and telescope sights, haven’t we? Of course we have, and these improvements do deserve consideration, but the first matters only in the military mode and the second is still only partially understood. Rapid repeat shots do little for the individual rifleman, whose primary object is to hit with his first shot…” -Jeff Cooper, The General Purpose Rifle That quote is from an article written by the late Col. Jeff Cooper in the early ‘80s. It hits on a number of things, some of which can be fixed, some of which will not be fixed any time soon, given the nature of the military review and acquisition process. Read the rest at Breach-Bang-Clear: www.breachbangclear.com/site/10-blog/329-infantry-science-and-the-lowly-rifle-are-we-riflemen.html
Vetting Information
In light of some of the stuff that’s been floating around the internet lately, some words of wisdom from fellow vet and author Kerry Patton: http://kerry-patton.com/single-source-reporting-puts-fear-in-veterans-over-gun-rights/ And the follow up which adds to the story: http://kerry-patton.com/dear-shit-for-brains-authenticate-your-crap/ The takeaway is this: never accept any information at face value without authenticating it. For damned sure don’t spread it around until you do.
The Beginning of the Stingray Patrols
In the early days of Marine involvement in Vietnam, it quickly became apparent that doctrines drawn from fighting the Japanese and the North Koreans were insufficient for fighting the Vietcong. The Japanese, North Koreans, and Chinese had used defined front lines, something the VC explicitly did not. Stopping small, mobile units of guerrillas with conventional infantry formations was not working. The reaction time for large formations was too long; the orders process alone was prohibitive for tactical agility. Read more: http://sofrep.com/17452/stingray-patrols/#ixzz2LSb3jPv1
Dead Six
Michael Valentine is a former mercenary, a veteran of Vanguard Security Group, and one of the few survivors of an operation gone very bad in Mexico. He is recruited by one of his fellow Vanguard mercs for a black operation in an Arab country called Zubara. It seems Zubara has become something of a terrorist haven, and this black unit, called Dead Six, is going hunting. Lorenzo is a thief. He makes a point of only robbing bad guys–mobsters, terrorists, slavers, etc. He also makes no bones about the fact that he is not a good guy. But when a notorious and deadly crime lord threatens the only family he ever knew, he has to embark on a heist that wasn’t his idea. And that leads him to Zubara, where his target list and Dead Six’s merge. Read the rest at http://hotextract.com/13715/dead-six-mike-kupari-larry-correia/
Respect
Chris Kyle is being laid to rest today. Take a moment to honor his memory.
Risk, Maneuver, and Positional Wafare
My latest rantings on infantry combat are up on Breach-Bang-Clear. I was expecting some more hate, but so far the conversations on FB have all been pretty much in agreement. John Hurth posted the following: “I have seen this happening for some time. In my opinion you hit the nail on top of the head. Body Armor and Risk Aversion are killing our warfighters in more ways than one. Body Armor weighs a lot and restricts maneuver. This is nothing new however; there are Viet Nam studies that said the same thing in 1968. We fail to learn from lessons already learned. Also I have seen soldiers put themselves unnecessarily at risk because they are either so tired from carrying so much weight or improperly trained, that they don’t seek proper cover when it’s just a few feet from them. Our enemies have always been lighter and more maneuverable than us yet we continue to overburden our warfighter with a lot of unnecessary crap. Field craft and bush craft were at one time hallmarks of an Infantry and Special Operations warrior….however not any longer. We have military “managers” and not enough leaders. You are correct changes will never come from
RIP
Just heard that Chris Kyle was murdered this afternoon. I never knew Chris, but he was a brother, and a fellow sniper, nonetheless. Rest in peace, brother.
Changes
Yesterday, the Outskirts Press imprint of the TFD paperback was officially terminated. I’d had a number of complaints with them, including how much they charged for services I could get through Amazon, Smashwords, and Createspace for free, not to mention how long it took them to get back to me on anything. However, in this one case, their slowness actually worked in my favor, as I was able to have the Createspace paperback ready to go as soon as they terminated the Outskirts printing. It’s still available on Amazon, without any hiccups. And I was able to reduce the cover price; it’s now at $14.99, which should hopefully make it somewhat more competitive.