"The stuff the army issues is useless" and "no non-issue kit over seas!"

[vonGarvin]

most riflemen didn't fire their weapons in WW II during combat - with the increase in firepower afforded by semi-autos and full-autos, that has changed.  A WW II rifle section relied on the Bren Gun. The Enfield guys probably didn't shoot much.

You are referring to a study done after WWII.  That study involved US infantrymen only.  The remedy wasn't an increase in firepower (tools), but a different approach to marksmanship training (skills).
As for Enfields not firing, some German sources credit the british (and probably Canadians by default) with overwhelmingly effective fire discipline.  With bolt-action rifles, the Brits were more effective than some other armies.

 

[Kal]

Kevin, you got me.  I don't have a beard.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

You are referring to a study done after WWII.  That study involved US infantrymen only.  The remedy wasn't an increase in firepower (tools), but a different approach to marksmanship training (skills).
As for Enfields not firing, some German sources credit the british (and probably Canadians by default) with overwhelmingly effective fire discipline.  With bolt-action rifles, the Brits were more effective than some other armies.

No, I'm referring to the acting CO of the Royal Canadian Regiment reporting on his experiences in Italy.  You are thinking of SLA Marshall.  He cooked his figures.  Galloway did not.

I'd like to see your source for your last para.  Galloway's books  and articles in Legion Magazine are well known.

"The majority of men in fighting platoons could have fought to and arrived on the objective carrying pitchforks instead of rifles for all the difference it would have made."

 

[vonGarvin]

Have you tried to speed load out of the TV -- MJP had some nice video - same with getting frags out, and yes when your are underfire seconds can and do count.
I understand you have a very closed mind based on your "experience" -   Unlike you, the guys in question are putting it on the line - try for once to stop the "painting the rock's cuz" mentality. 

OK, enough of the ad hominem attacks.  Prove me wrong or move along.  My point is that though there are situations in which jammy MOLLE vests are what's required, there are only so many layers you can give a fella before he stops being effective.  The TV, as issued, is effective.  Full stop.  Is there room for improvement?  Perhaps. 
As for my so-called "experience", well, it is probably more extensive than you know or realise.  I've put it on the line, several times.  The TV is, in my professional opinion, LIGHT YEARS ahead of what we last had (82 pattern webbing) and effective.  It gets the job done.  THAT opinion comes from TWO tours wearing it.  And I'm not alone.
So put that in your pipe and smoke it ;D

 

[vonGarvin]

No, I'm referring to the acting CO of the Royal Canadian Regiment reporting on his experiences in Italy.  You are thinking of SLA Marshall.  He cooked his figures.  Galloway did not.
I'd like to see your source for your last para.  Galloway's books  and articles in Legion Magazine are well known.
"The majority of men in fighting platoons could have fought to and arrived on the objective carrying pitchforks instead of rifles for all the difference it would have made."

OK, my bad.  I was thinking of Marshall, never thought of Strome  :-[
I have no source on me, but as I think of it, I think it was WWI, not WWII in which the UK marksmanship surprised the Germans....
Your last sentence is brilliant.  The bad guys are suppressed by Brens and the like, allowing the decisive action (manoeuvre) destroy the enemy.

 

[buzgo]

OK, my bad.  I was thinking of Marshall, never thought of Strome  :-[
I have no source on me, but as I think of it, I think it was WWI, not WWII in which the UK marksmanship surprised the Germans....
Your last sentence is brilliant.  The bad guys are suppressed by Brens and the like, allowing the decisive action (manoeuvre) destroy the enemy.

Or it just didn't matter what they were carrying since they weren't going to fire/use it anyway...

 

[GINge!]

NO NO NO!!
Endless trials, reports that no - one reads, CWO and captains generating paper and employment - BS, all of it.

I know what kit I need. Ask any infanteer, we are not shy.

We do ask infanteers. We have Inf Capt & CWO who run the trials with Inf soldiers (and other MOC when applicable), and we get great feedback. Sometime the kit you think you need is simply not available for trials. I can't get more specific, but a recent trial was planned for 6 competitors. Before the trial even started, 5 of them were ruled out for non-compliance with the specs. That left one trial item which failed. If we didn't have LFTEU test & fail that item, guess what, you would have been issued another faulty bit 'o kit that you'd be stuck with for 20 years.

I'll take the BS comment as tongue in cheek by someone who has not been involved in a scientific trial. You are somewhat correct about the fact that no-one reads trial reports, and that was a point in my original post; better dissemination of trial results.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

OK, my bad.  I was thinking of Marshall, never thought of Strome  :-[
I have no source on me, but as I think of it, I think it was WWI, not WWII in which the UK marksmanship surprised the Germans....
Your last sentence is brilliant.  The bad guys are suppressed by Brens and the like, allowing the decisive action (manoeuvre) destroy the enemy.

Yep, that was a paraphrase of Galloway, but he did use the word "pitchfork".  He went on to suggest the pitchfork would be "three times" as good as a bayonet, but I'm sure by that point he was firmly tongue in cheek.

The marksmanship mystique started at Mons and the Ypres Kindermorden I believe. Galloway reminds us that in the Second World War, there weren't enough rifle ranges to go around and that individual musketry in the Canadian Army was not to a high standard.

 

[Recce41]

Lee Enfield users got ONE mag each - they reloaded from 5 round chargers. G1098 allotment was 60 rounds per rifleman - 6 mags, in other words.

Doctrine has changed since then, so its a bit irrelevant recce; most riflemen didn't fire their weapons in WW II during combat - with the increase in firepower afforded by semi-autos and full-autos, that has changed.  A WW II rifle section relied on the Bren Gun. The Enfield guys probably didn't shoot much.

So Mike
My uncle is wrong? Essex Scot 1941-46. then Guard,then Royal. So NATO Standard is wrong also? So most rifle men didn't fire their rifles, what did they use them for then? And now your getting double the rds.
Semi Auto and Auto does not mean anything. All it means is your throwing away rds.

 

[vonGarvin]

Yep, that was a paraphrase of Galloway, but he did use the word "pitchfork".  He went on to suggest the pitchfork would be "three times" as good as a bayonet, but I'm sure by that point he was firmly tongue in cheek.

Of course it was three times as good: three times as many "pointy ends"

 

[Michael Dorosh]

So Mike
My uncle is wrong? Essex Scot 1941-46. then Guard,then Royal. So NATO Standard is wrong also? So most rifle men didn't fire their rifles, what did they use them for then? And now your getting double the rds.
Semi Auto and Auto does not mean anything. All it means is your throwing away rds.

You probably heard wrong.  Lee Enfield users didn't change mags, they used chargers.  Ask him again.

Don't take my word on the rifles, read Galloway.  What did the riflemen use? 25-pdrs usually; nothing like a good "Mike Target" to get you on the objective.

 

[GINge!]

Of course it was three times as good: three times as many "pointy ends"

Or was that Three "tines" as good. 

 

[vonGarvin]

Or was that Three "tines" as good. 

BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  :fifty:

 

[COBRA-6]

OK, enough of the ad hominem attacks.  Prove me wrong or move along.  My point is that though there are situations in which jammy MOLLE vests are what's required, there are only so many layers you can give a fella before he stops being effective.  The TV, as issued, is effective.  Full stop.  Is there room for improvement?  Perhaps. 
As for my so-called "experience", well, it is probably more extensive than you know or realise.  I've put it on the line, several times.  The TV is, in my professional opinion, LIGHT YEARS ahead of what we last had (82 pattern webbing) and effective.  It gets the job done.  THAT opinion comes from TWO tours wearing it.  And I'm not alone.
So put that in your pipe and smoke it ;D

wow... well I guess to each his own... wearing it outside the wire every day, I found the TV to be absolutely terrible, and bought a modular chest rig as soon as I got back, which truly is light years ahead... trying to reload quickly with the TV is almost impossible, and that's using magpul ranger plates! I would have rather had my old webbing to tell you the truth...

 

[Big Red]

OK, enough of the ad hominem attacks.  Prove me wrong or move along.  My point is that though there are situations in which jammy MOLLE vests are what's required, there are only so many layers you can give a fella before he stops being effective.  The TV, as issued, is effective.  Full stop.  Is there room for improvement?  Perhaps. 

Time your reloads from a TV. They are slow. An empty weapon can get you killed. Your TV cannot hold as much equipment as it needs to hold properly.

If the TV is such a great piece of kit why are SOF units not emulating it?  Surely there isn't anything better out there :

 

[vonGarvin]

Tell ya what, Big Red, you can take your old webbing.  Good on you.  Why don't SOF units use it?  Well, ask them.  They do a different (though similar) job to you and me.  So, I guess you've reloaded, in contact with your Jammy kit.  Nice.  Funny how the entire media missed it.
Timing reloads from the TV.  I've never actually sat there and timed it, but I haven't really noticed.  Now, I'm not practicing going in some room after absailing out of a Blackhawk, but it was in the field, live fire, at night.  (I know, I know, "big frigging deal"). 
Since the TV is killing so many of our guys over there, I suppose that we had better go get us some of them gucci modular chest rigs.
As for why the SOF don't use it?  Who friggin' knows.  Hell, they have longer hair and Oakleys, does that mean we should use them?  They have a job to do, and they do it well, using what they need.  You, however, unless you're part of JTF 2 (and JTF 3 dont' exist!), are part of a rifle COMPANY, complete with over a hundred soldiers, all armed, all fighting the same fight. 
My question to you: with all that crap you can now carry, do you feel any better?
Oh, by the way, you're the first I've heard of calling the TV "absolute garbage".  Some have said "not bad" or "could be better", but all agree: its sufficient for what's needed.
I guess the stacks of bodybags coming home, all TV related deaths, have clouded my judgement


It's the total ignorance and LCF that really makes my blood boil.  Look at what that guy said about the Turret of the LUVW "saving lives" so far (regarding the suicide attack).  IGNORANCE!  The turret on the LUVW does NOTHING for blast effects: they only help stop kinetic attacks. 

OK, I'm going for a smoke.  With my TV and helmet ON

(Don't take anything I say too personally: I too have thick skin, and one failing I have is assuming that others do too)


Garvin out.

 

[buzgo]

I don't think that Big Red is in the CF... 

 

[DG-41]

OK, just outta curiosity, what exactly is wrong with the TV as issued?

The only complaint I've seen that really rings home is mag capacity - and yes, from talking to those who have seen the elephant, it seems that daily carry of 10-15 C7 mags is the norm these days. OK, so it could use more mag pouches.

But is that it?

It just strikes me that if the aftermarket is selling the same design, but with MOLLE so you can reconfigure the pouches, that the basic design really isn't all that horrible. Conversely, it seems that the substitution of MOLLE pouches for static sewn-on pouches isn't that big of a deal, and could be incorporated into a future design revision.

This looks to me like a perfect case for a design iteration process. CTS comes up with a piece of kit, the soldiers try it out, "whoops, not enough mag pouches" and then re-issue with MOLLE (etc) instead of the sewn-on pouches. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Kit is like plans - no first version, no matter how well researched, is going to be perfect. So rapid feedback and incremental redesign to meet the needs of the pointy end needs to be part of the process.

DG

 

[Bzzliteyr]

Are "blast effects" not "kinetic attacks"??  Anything moving at high velocity toward you is using kinetic energy to try to kill you, correct?  The turrets would then be effective against suicide bombing type attacks, right?

 

[Michael OLeary]

Gentlemen, (if the shoe fits ...) before your next posts, may I suggest re-examining your approach in this thread.  Each person's experiences and preferences for the kit they wear will differ - that is a given.  Equipment programs do the best they can with available information and having to work with the bureaucracy that dictates the process (much of which originates outside DND).  As soon as anyone takes a thread of this potential importance, i.e., discussing operational kit in use in current operations, and turns it into a personal slagging match, the value of the thread is quickly degraded into worthlessness.

May I suggest that the time and energy is best put forth into rational arguments for improving the kit in question, coupled with detailed explanations of what would be recommended - not just by brand name, but by individual functional characteristic.  Build a document and interested obeservers in the right places may be able to forward your information to the right people - insults and rhetoric do not achieve that.

That way you make your case, educate the rest of us and provide a detailed justification for preferring one equipment approach over another.


Thank you

Mike