I was reading about Vietnam War Tunnel Rats and they stick out to me as being one of the worst details to be stuck on in war. You'd have to belly crawl through a pitch black, boobytrapped, uncharted maze filled with God only knows how many enemy forces with zero support outside of possibly one another poor SOB if you're working in pairs. On top of that, you're already in an environment filled with exotic diseases that your body isn't accustomed to, a climate likely foreign to anything you've encountered before, and you're operating in the enemy's own backyard. To make matters worse, there's a solid chance that you didn't even volunteer for the damned war. The specific role of Tunnel Rat in that war seems to me like it would have all the suck of Vietnam (the war, not the country) plus a few more generous portions doled out for good measure.

Some other ones that come to mind.

Early submariners. I was on a museum submarine out in San Diego as a child and even then it was a cramped nightmare. It's uncomfortable and confined even if you're not claustrophobic. And underwater. Toss in primitive technology and you have a recipe for suck.

Anyone involved trench warfare during WWI.

Slaves on Roman galleys. I suppose you could say slaves forced into warfare in any situation but being forced to row on a primitive boat just makes it worse in my eyes.

What other military jobs have been particularly awful? I'm wondering more about roles than campaigns or Napoleon's frostbitten soldiers and similar would qualify as well.

Modern times? Burning gak ters. Dear fething Dorn I never thought I'd find anything that stunk worse than a refinery or that paper mill in Bogalusa Louisiana...

I think Flamethrower dude (in WWII and also later) also sucked a lot. For once, it is pretty hard psychologically as by the nature of your weapon you get close enough to the enemy to really see/hear them dying, they also do it in a pretty awful and painful way. But even worse is that your fuel tanks are basically a large "kill me please!" sign you are hurling around and every sniper or random dude with a gun will try to shoot you first. And if you are not lucky enough to die instantly you likely go up in flames yourself and die as horibly as the poor sods you fired at before.

WWI assault troops, all the boredom of sitting in the trenches under artillery fire, but then you also get to be the first people running into the machine guns. Early tankers, back in the early WWI models that didn't exhaust properly. Suicide troops. Medics in a conflict not fought by signatories to the Geneva Convention. Anything to do with SEAD.

Bomb disposal. Not knowing if the bomb's been deliberately rigged to blow up someone trying to disarm it. Now they use lasers to detonate the bedamned things in place.

 Pyroalchi wrote:
I think Flamethrower dude (in WWII and also later) also sucked a lot. For once, it is pretty hard psychologically as by the nature of your weapon you get close enough to the enemy to really see/hear them dying, they also do it in a pretty awful and painful way. But even worse is that your fuel tanks are basically a large "kill me please!" sign you are hurling around and every sniper or random dude with a gun will try to shoot you first. And if you are not lucky enough to die instantly you likely go up in flames yourself and die as horibly as the poor sods you fired at before.

This would be my least favorite job.

Being a tanker, especially in the WWII era, could also be pretty damn bad. Internal combustion engines and ammunition storage in the time were still having kinks worked out of them. There was always a risk that your tank would catch fire or that ammunition would be set off. With you inside the tank. Trapped in an iron can. With only a few tiny hatches to shimmy your way out of.

I'd definitely second early submariners too.

i'd like to point to the humble petardier in the 16th century.

Now that IS a gak job.

First into the machine guns; first into the breach; first up the ladders; first through the gate. I figure front row in any military combat situation is a pretty horrible position to be in considering that for the most part you know whoever goes first is generally going to die first.

Sappers in WWI likely had a terrible job. Digging through mud for hours at a time having to make hardly any noise so that you can lay bombs and traps and break into enemy trenches; all whilst under the fear that a shell overhead or another team or just a bad bit of digging could bring the whole lot down ontop of you.




What about those send to wriggle up the waste chutes during a castle siege.


Sappers, poop wrigglers; submarines; tanks. It's all a similar horror of a confined space and the risk of becoming trapped within a box in pitch darkness without any means to escape. With several of them offering the additional horror that you might not die quickly, but would slowly starve or suffocate over days/hours before death took you. Your only saviour perhaps being a suicide pill.



Heck you could throw medics into the horror, especially in ancient times where you'd have the stink of infection, disease, rot, guts and blood all mixed together with the moaning and screams of the injured. Crude medical instruments, a high risk of fatalities. From sword and shield days to the era of muskets and guns. There's also the sheer scale of the number of injuries as well.

I remember seeing an interview with a WW2 USN submariner who volunteered for the submarine service on the basis of it being easier on his Mum, as he’d either return whole and healthy or not at all. Hell of a decision to make.

Modern times? The poor bugger who has to wash out the MRAPs after an IED strike. We had one go off with the equivalent explosive power of a 500lb bomb. Took the drivers cab completely off the MRAP. The driver/assistant died instantly, the Marines being transported all had TBI/Concussions but were otherwise intact.

 Jadenim wrote:
I remember seeing an interview with a WW2 USN submariner who volunteered for the submarine service on the basis of it being easier on his Mum, as he’d either return whole and healthy or not at all. Hell of a decision to make.

Can appreciate the logic though.

Early submariners? I'd say submariners in general, even today.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Jadenim wrote:
I remember seeing an interview with a WW2 USN submariner who volunteered for the submarine service on the basis of it being easier on his Mum, as he’d either return whole and healthy or not at all. Hell of a decision to make.

Can appreciate the logic though.

That isn't logic, its optimism. At the time he wouldn't necessarily have known, but all sorts of mold, exhaust and chemicals worked into the air system could and did cause all sorts of long term damage.
And then you've got accidents or battle damage that cripple, but not sink, the sub, so you're stuck surfaced for an indeterminate length of time with not enough supplies hoping for rescue.

'Whole and healthy' or 'not at all' aren't even vaguely the only options there.

 Matt Swain wrote:
Bomb disposal. Not knowing if the bomb's been deliberately rigged to blow up someone trying to disarm it. Now they use lasers to detonate the bedamned things in place.

Common practice in US Infantry units is to simply shoot the object with HE grenades, we refer to it as "Blowing it in place".

Well, lets not forget Mortuary Services, where you have to investigate, document, and ultimately bury the deceased (Sometimes having to disinter corpses that were quickly buried in mass graves, and rebury them after the corpses have been ID'ed in various states of decomposition, and documented in order to do so). Some battles leave little of the corpse left for them. May not be as difficult as underwater demolition, or bomb disposal, but certainly the most thankless (yet necessary).

Voss wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

 Jadenim wrote:
I remember seeing an interview with a WW2 USN submariner who volunteered for the submarine service on the basis of it being easier on his Mum, as he’d either return whole and healthy or not at all. Hell of a decision to make.

Can appreciate the logic though.

That isn't logic, its optimism. At the time he wouldn't necessarily have known, but all sorts of mold, exhaust and chemicals worked into the air system could and did cause all sorts of long term damage.
And then you've got accidents or battle damage that cripple, but not sink, the sub, so you're stuck surfaced for an indeterminate length of time with not enough supplies hoping for rescue.

'Whole and healthy' or 'not at all' aren't even vaguely the only options there.

It is logic given the information he had, rather absurd to claim logical reasoning must be done including everything one does not know! And even if he did know, the ODDS of him being one or the other rather than 'in between' are higher, so that argument still doesn't make sense.

Being one of the night witches in russia.

The night witches were a special all female force that flew obsolete ww1 light bombers on harassment raids against nazi forces in russia. They were all women because the planes they flew were low powered and the lighter female pilots allowed more fuel to be carried.

There planes were biplanes based on ww1 designs and had open cockpits.

Their missions were to harass nazi formations by flying overhead and dropping light frag bombs. Mainly they were meant to keep nazis soldiers from being able to sleep a full night as a way of wearing the enemy down.

Their planes were very frail and slow, many night witches learned to cut their engines and glide in over the enemy, drop their bombs and then hope their engine hadn't frozen up in the cold russian winter night and could be restarted.

The nazis initially mocked the night witches, calling their planes "sewing machines" and were dismissive at first.

Weeks of nightly raids and troops losing efficiency due to lack of sleep took their toll, and eventually the nazi military had to take them seriously. Special defense protocols were enacted to deal with the silent raids from the dark they conducted over and over.

They all carried pistols as it was better to suicide than be taken alive. Many suffered frostbite to their faces from the cold russian winter nights, losing parts of their noses was common. They were also treated contemptuously and dismissively by the russian military as a whole.

The night witches were so successful in eroding nazi morale that later they were rewarded by personal order of stalin himself. As russian forces approached berlin, night witch pilots were given the honor of being the first russian pilots to bomb the nazi capitol.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Witches

 Matt Swain wrote:
Bomb disposal. Not knowing if the bomb's been deliberately rigged to blow up someone trying to disarm it. Now they use lasers to detonate the bedamned things in place.

Best job in the military.

Honestly?

Child Soldiers. I don’t think I need to elaborate further.

Child soldier isn't really a job though in the military.

they are a phenomenon that shows up if
A: A side of the conflict is on it's last legs, because children are really , REALLY ineffective at combat scenarios just from Bodily restrictions alone, not even going into the stress durability.

B: It is insurgent or terrrorist or Civil war territory conflict. Which baseline morales errodet allready and social cohesion is broken allready, in which they partially are a usefull asset because of their statute especially against an overwhelming opponent that still has to maintain ethical-supperiorty. It is however still the sign of a side beeing on it's last legs or beeing particulary callous.


And frankly, Children are allways to be considered Conscripts against their will. Simply because the capacity to actually be capable of action and responsibilty is simply not given intelectually.

At the risk of sounding edge Lord and provocative?

I see little difference between Conscripts/Draftees and Child Soldiers. Neither volunteered, neither really want to be there. Neither have much of a choice.

It’s still a child being forced to fight battles.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
At the risk of sounding edge Lord and provocative?

I see little difference between Conscripts/Draftees and Child Soldiers. Neither volunteered, neither really want to be there. Neither have much of a choice.

It’s still a child being forced to fight battles.

Here's the issue, what is acceptable for a state and what not is dependant upon the (nationalistic/ideological/traditional etc) selfperception of a society and what is needed to protect it.

There are nations and societies that had historically speaking never the luxury to allow for voluntary service because it would've endangered their existence.
Switzerland is an exemple for a state that never had the luxury to NOT conscript it's population if it wanted to be sovereign.
It actually monopolised the capability and manpower by dissolving Mercenary contracts after the Nationstate was founded preciscly to defend itself against Austria, france and later on prussia/ Germany and italy and to do so required the capacity to call upon the collective for the greater good. ( in this case the only other democratic-republic for some time next to the USA, surounded by monarchists and nations with ideological systems which brought in some serious claims)

The key difference is, however also, that the state and the sovereignity and security as goods that it provides, has to offer something in return for such acts of collective armaments and mobilisation, you see this especially pressing after WW1 were you see a whole slew of expanding voting rights f.e.

Rights for duty is actually a rather common trade off for a society to make.
Children however have not the capability to assume all their rights, you don't let a 14 year old buy a car f.e. therefore they can not assume all rights of a full citizen and therefore are also not egligable for all duties that involves. That is the key difference.

I don't know how it is in other countries with conscription but I know that back when Germany still conscripted it's 18+ males there were some issues arising because in theory every male could be conscripted, while lot's of boys finished secondary school at the age of 16 and wanted to start an apprenticeship that they might not want to pause for Military Service/leave their field of work immediatly after graduation for a year or possibly even planned a Career in the Military.
So these minors were allowed to join the Bundeswehr before the age of 18 (voluntarily) while only becomming full fletched armed soldiers upon reaching 18. While understandable from a bureaucratic point of view this gained Gemany multiple complaints for employing child soldiers.

 Pyroalchi wrote:
I don't know how it is in other countries with conscription but I know that back when Germany still conscripted it's 18+ males there were some issues arising because in theory every male could be conscripted, while lot's of boys finished secondary school at the age of 16 and wanted to start an apprenticeship that they might not want to pause for Military Service/leave their field of work immediatly after graduation for a year or possibly even planned a Career in the Military.
So these minors were allowed to join the Bundeswehr before the age of 18 (voluntarily) while only becomming full fletched armed soldiers upon reaching 18. While understandable from a bureaucratic point of view this gained Gemany multiple complaints for employing child soldiers.

actually that isn't something understandable... The military could've easily waited for people to finish apprenticships and abitur, drafted these at that age point instead.
Certainly better then to put an 16 year old anywhere near military hardware...

Just reread it and I was slightly off: it's 17 year olds. And they can still - after an Audition to assess if they are mature enough - voluntarily join the army here. They are only allowed to use weapons for training purposes and are bared froma any activities that involve a possible risk of using them like watch duty. Also minors can not forcebly be conscripted or send into warzones. The main argument still seems to be that those that choose a career in the military should not be held back.

I appologize for drifting off slightly, I just find it interesting that even in highly developed first world countries - and I would claim Germany is relativly unmilitaristic at that - the line is surprisingly blurry. A quick wiki search also popped up countries like USA, France, UK, Australia, Austria, Netherlands, New Zealand as doing the same.

EDIT: to underline it: minors are not DRAFTED in Germany, they can only volunteer

Uh. That was an odd way to handle that.

When there was still a military service in France you were supposed to do it when you turned 18, but you could get it delayed for several years, especially if you were doing long studies like a doctorate. As far as I know even volunteers couldn't join before they were 18.

during to this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_in_the_military#Europe

France enlists military personnel from age 17, and students for military technical school from age 16; 3% of its armed forces' intake is aged under 18

 Pyroalchi wrote:
during to this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_in_the_military#Europe

France enlists military personnel from age 17, and students for military technical school from age 16; 3% of its armed forces' intake is aged under 18

I was talking about conscription, which doesn't exist anymore. Seems the rules are a bit different now that it's a professional army.

Interestingly, the minimum age for the "land" army is 17 and a half. Considering that training can last 6 months, I suppose that's how they keep people under 18 out of any actual action. But apparently, the air force and the navy don't care and will take anyone over 17

Speaking of conscription, in the book "inside the soviet army" by Viktor Suvorov, the highest ranking soviet military officer to defect to the west, (And I do recommend it, especially if your'e an IG player) he talked about the real purpose of conscription in the soviet union.

It was essentially a 2 year indoctrination into the soviet sociopolitical system designed to break young men's will and make them accept the soviet zetigeist thru intense military level indoctrination.

It involved physically and mentally wearing and tearing down draftees then rebuilding them with heavy doses of soviet propaganda forced into them by "zampolits" (What we'd call commissars in english.)

The author sneered at the idea that the soviets needed to draft young men for defense given the track record of what happens to powers that invade russia and the fact russia has a nuclear arsenal.

If you really want to look into the reasons and effects of conscription it's a great source written by a man who was there.

absolutely , make no mistake conscription is a mass phenomenon for society and has massive infulence capabilities in both ways which can be used for good, aka tying together a country that would want to rather shank itself about which cross is on the wall for 500 years straight, or bad, aka totalitarian controll.

Btw, wasn't there recently a scandal in russia because another recruit died from such "training"?

yup , found it
https://www.nzz.ch/international/missbraeuche-im-russischen-militaer-wenn-die-grossvaeter-peinigen-ld.1519320

Being part of a Forlorn Hope sounds pretty sucky.

Also, the guys at Cannae whose job was to get pushed back and possibly killed to lure the Roman forces forward so the cavalry could do the double envelopment.

 Easy E wrote:
Being part of a Forlorn Hope sounds pretty sucky.

Also, the guys at Cannae whose job was to get pushed back and possibly killed to lure the Roman forces forward so the cavalry could do the double envelopment.

Your comment reminded me of an excellent novel called 'the forlorn hope" written by david drake that is a really excellent SF military novel. I do recommend it to people here. I honestly think a lot of folks here would enjoy it.

Think most of the ones I have thought of has already been mentioned

After watching Das Boot, definitely a sub-mariner
In the trenches in WW1
Probably Eastern front WW2 (on either side)
The Foreign Legion, I forget how many times different units of them have been wiped out
Child soldier as mentioned is an awful one - or any of those internecine wars taking place on the African continent


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Matt Swain wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
Being part of a Forlorn Hope sounds pretty sucky.

Also, the guys at Cannae whose job was to get pushed back and possibly killed to lure the Roman forces forward so the cavalry could do the double envelopment.

Your comment reminded me of an excellent novel called 'the forlorn hope" written by david drake that is a really excellent SF military novel. I do recommend it to people here.

That looks interesting, I'll have a read.

At the risk of de-railing the thread, have you read the Forever War? One of my favourite sci-fi novels (there is a pretty good graphic novel of it too). Believe the author Joe Hadleman was a Vietnam vet.

 Pacific wrote:
Think most of the ones I have thought of has already been mentioned

After watching Das Boot, definitely a sub-mariner
In the trenches in WW1
Probably Eastern front WW2 (on either side)
The Foreign Legion, I forget how many times different units of them have been wiped out
Child soldier as mentioned is an awful one - or any of those internecine wars taking place on the African continent

Ok I have to say that I have an issue with lumping the french foreign legion in with child soldiers.

Child soldiers are victims of humanity's worst aspects.

The french foreign legion was generally comprised of criminals who were facing a long stretch, either in prison or on a gallows from countries other than france. Service in the legion was harsh and dangerous but also protected them from countries that wanted to hang them or put them in prison for life. People who managed to survive their terms in the FFL were given french citizenship and a fresh start.

I just feel it's wrong to lump them in with draftees, especially child kidnap victims. For those who joined the legion, it was often preferable to what awaited them otherwise.

Just my two teef there...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Pacific wrote:
Think most of the ones I have thought of has already been mentioned

After watching Das Boot, definitely a sub-mariner
In the trenches in WW1
Probably Eastern front WW2 (on either side)
The Foreign Legion, I forget how many times different units of them have been wiped out
Child soldier as mentioned is an awful one - or any of those internecine wars taking place on the African continent


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Matt Swain wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
Being part of a Forlorn Hope sounds pretty sucky.

Also, the guys at Cannae whose job was to get pushed back and possibly killed to lure the Roman forces forward so the cavalry could do the double envelopment.

Your comment reminded me of an excellent novel called 'the forlorn hope" written by david drake that is a really excellent SF military novel. I do recommend it to people here.

That looks interesting, I'll have a read.

At the risk of de-railing the thread, have you read the Forever War? One of my favourite sci-fi novels (there is a pretty good graphic novel of it too). Believe the author Joe Hadleman was a Vietnam vet.

Oh yes, he was. I knw that when I read TFW. Only an american drafted into the vietnam cluster could write with such cold yet passionate hatred of the military industrial complex.And yes it was a great novel,. tho I prefer the originally published version (We are all very happy here) to the author's original version.

 Matt Swain wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
Think most of the ones I have thought of has already been mentioned

After watching Das Boot, definitely a sub-mariner
In the trenches in WW1
Probably Eastern front WW2 (on either side)
The Foreign Legion, I forget how many times different units of them have been wiped out
Child soldier as mentioned is an awful one - or any of those internecine wars taking place on the African continent

Ok I have to say that I have an issue with lumping the french foreign legion in with child soldiers.

Child soldiers are victims of humanity's worst aspects.

The french foreign legion was generally comprised of criminals who were facing a long stretch, either in prison or on a gallows from countries other than france. Service in the legion was harsh and dangerous but also protected them from countries that wanted to hang them or put them in prison for life. People who managed to survive their terms in the FFL were given french citizenship and a fresh start.

I just feel it's wrong to lump them in with draftees, especially child kidnap victims. For those who joined the legion, it was often preferable to what awaited them otherwise.

Just my two teef there...

This is such utter nonsense that i just have to point it out.
The French foreign legion is cannonfodder, it's inception is to achieve USEFULL cannonfodder, it's recruits are used to protect frenchies from doing the dirty work, they are MAYBEE criminals but also just adventurers and people in search of the exotic, yes that is how they played Rattenfänger in switzerland.
The Legion etrangere is also an attack on sovereignity of switzerland by ignoring the stipulation of the swiss mercenary ban and protecting clear violations of law.
It is and ought to be regarded as a criminal institution, having been also used to do the dirty work in brutal colonial conflicts, with warcrimes beeing commonplace and torture just aswell.

And they CARE gak for their veterans, ask how many end up f.e. back in switzerland with massive psychological issues.

So no, THEY are not above childsoldiers in my opinion and they and everyone enabling that institution can .....

Not Online!!! wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:

 Pacific wrote:
Think most of the ones I have thought of has already been mentioned

After watching Das Boot, definitely a sub-mariner
In the trenches in WW1
Probably Eastern front WW2 (on either side)
The Foreign Legion, I forget how many times different units of them have been wiped out
Child soldier as mentioned is an awful one - or any of those internecine wars taking place on the African continent

Ok I have to say that I have an issue with lumping the french foreign legion in with child soldiers.

Child soldiers are victims of humanity's worst aspects.

The french foreign legion was generally comprised of criminals who were facing a long stretch, either in prison or on a gallows from countries other than france. Service in the legion was harsh and dangerous but also protected them from countries that wanted to hang them or put them in prison for life. People who managed to survive their terms in the FFL were given french citizenship and a fresh start.

I just feel it's wrong to lump them in with draftees, especially child kidnap victims. For those who joined the legion, it was often preferable to what awaited them otherwise.

Just my two teef there...

This is such utter nonsense that i just have to point it out.
The French foreign legion is cannonfodder, it's inception is to achieve USEFULL cannonfodder, it's recruits are used to protect frenchies from doing the dirty work, they are MAYBEE criminals but also just adventurers and people in search of the exotic, yes that is how they played Rattenfänger in switzerland.
The Legion etrangere is also an attack on sovereignity of switzerland by ignoring the stipulation of the swiss mercenary ban and protecting clear violations of law.
It is and ought to be regarded as a criminal institution, having been also used to do the dirty work in brutal colonial conflicts, with warcrimes beeing commonplace and torture just aswell.

And they CARE gak for their veterans, ask how many end up f.e. back in switzerland with massive psychological issues.

So no, THEY are not above childsoldiers in my opinion and they and everyone enabling that institution can .....

Well, you clearly have your view, and if you are from switzerland it's possible your history makes you familiar with aspects of the FFL I am not, so I won't contest your views, and you may very well be right.

I will stand my ground on the issue that the FFL was made up of consenting adults who chose to join it and thus are in a totally different class from children who are often kidnapped or 'legally' forced into the military.

And since the topic is worst jobs in the military, I do agree the FFL qualifies, with the provision that many of them were better off in it than out of it and had something good, a new life, waiting for them in exchange for their service. Child soldier kidnapees had little choice or anything good awaiting them.

the fact it is made up of consenting adults is about the only "improvement", the capability of excluding them from collective responsibilty for france immediatly removes that.

Sorry man I wasn't attempting to say they were comparable in any way or any kind of order to it - just a list of rubbish military jobs to be in.

I know child soldiers are probably one of the worst examples possible, as it combines the hardship to children with conscription.

 Matt Swain wrote:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Witches

Thank you for sharing this. It doesn't sound that bad. They didn't take that many casualties. I had never heard of them before. They had guts to spare. It's amazing that so many women saw combat for the USSR during WWII and some people today still wring their hands over female fighter pilots for example.

Thinking about it life on old ships of war wasn't all that nice. We talk about the risks of being in a submarine, what about on the ships of old when sailing the high seas could take months. Risks of scurvy, food and water shortages, lack of proper hygiene, monotonous tasks just to keep you busy etc.. The constant risk of storms or a loss of the wind or wind in the wrong direction. All coupled with vast stretches of ocean.

To say nothing of some of the old methods of discipline and the vast social differences enforced on some ships during some ages - eg you'd have your captain and his officers dining on fine food in the rear whilst the main crew ate far lower grades of food.

We should bear in mind however that those same crewmen were better fed than their civilian counterparts with steady pay and better hygiene, at least until the cannonballs start flying. Indeed for most of them the Navy/Army life was their first chance for 3 square meals a day and their own bed/hammock.

I served on the USS Ohio as part of her conversion crew from SSBN to SSGN in 2004-2008. It wasn't bad but you always had that thought in the back of your head that you were a split second away from death from some leak or burst pipe or something. There was always the comfort, though, that if there was explosive decompression it would be over before you knew what happened.

Of course the fear of flooding or somehow bottoming the boat and not being able to get out.

I would say the worst for me though was the first time we took her to test depth after the conversion. The first time I walked on the boat was through a hole cut in the side, through a screen door, directly into the galley. So you can imagine this thing was pretty cut up before being put back together and going back to sea.

We were out somewhere in the Pacific and did our first dive to test depth. There wasn't so much croaking and moaning as in the movies, but it was certainly audible. I was still a NUB at this point so I was walking around machinery 2 and getting my learn on when one of the A-gangers showed me their depth gauge on the ladder well (aka stairs). When at depth the boat compresses so much that the stairs will move forward or backwards, depending on the depth. At test depth were talking inches of movement. They would basically run up to control, see what the depth was, and then mark it on the stairs with a sharpie. Was pretty smart so they weren't constantly calling up to control for the current depth when they needed it.

They also had us NUBs walk around as a bucket brigade to find slow leaks to report later and of course any fast leaks for an emergency surface. Found a few drips but nothing at sea pressure thankfully, since at that depth the water pressure acts like one of those water CNC machines and can cut metal with relative ease if the stream is a beam and not a fan.

What really had me changing my skivvies though was when I was in the torpedo room with my bucket and, because of the boat compressing, the floor panels popped. Sounded like a gunshot going off right next to me and scared the ever living gak out of me.

The big boomer subs are a lot larger inside than the smaller SSN boats (they draft roughly the same amount of water as the smaller aircraft carriers), which I was on for about 2 weeks before they shipped me off to the Ohio. SSBNs are like being in the machinery room of a building basement for 3 months. The SSNs are much smaller and you have to make a decision of which part of you that you want to rub past someone when you pass each other in a passageway lol

I will say that in my time in the shipyard I got to tour one of the old diesel boats that was waiting to be scrapped and that gets a big ol nope from me. Those weren't made for someone of my size (6'4")

In regards to the child soldiers & conscripts line of discussion; I feel like for the purposes of this discussion and the spirit of the original question those are not considered 'jobs' as by nature they aren't voluntary. While the exact definition may vary, generally speaking when people talk about a "job" they mean a position the person chose to go and get. Also a child or conscript would be a type of soldier, not even a job to start with. The job would be what that person is doing, and I think we can all agree that any given military job is simply made worse if the person is not there willingly.


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 trexmeyer wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Witches

Thank you for sharing this. It doesn't sound that bad. They didn't take that many casualties. I had never heard of them before. They had guts to spare. It's amazing that so many women saw combat for the USSR during WWII and some people today still wring their hands over female fighter pilots for example.

I don't understand what is so difficult about applying the same standards to both genders, personally. There are numerous tests, exercises, drills, and all manner of other means designed not only to train but to weed out those unfit for service--even when that service is exclusively male. The military has essentially decided that if a person can pass those they are good enough to be there, and if they cannot pass those they are not.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

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 trexmeyer wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Witches

Thank you for sharing this. It doesn't sound that bad. They didn't take that many casualties. I had never heard of them before. They had guts to spare. It's amazing that so many women saw combat for the USSR during WWII and some people today still wring their hands over female fighter pilots for example.

I don't understand what is so difficult about applying the same standards to both genders, personally. There are numerous tests, exercises, drills, and all manner of other means designed not only to train but to weed out those unfit for service--even when that service is exclusively male. The military has essentially decided that if a person can pass those they are good enough to be there, and if they cannot pass those they are not.

A big part of the issue is political and there's some concern about lowering standards to get female numbers up in certain MOSs. How much of that concern is genuine I don't know.

What I do know is that the USMC at least, and possibly the US Army, has behavioral issues amongst its young male Marines that does extend upward somewhat. There are also some isolated cases of female Marines having things like OnlyFans or premium Snapchats. In short, young people are stupid and horny and that isn't good for unit cohesion. A secondary issue is that the women capable of performing in say, infantry roles, are also fit enough to earn full ride athletic scholarships or go down a less dangerous career path in some form of athletics. For example, Annie Thorisdottir undoubtedly has the strength and endurance to make it through SOI (I know much weaker males that have gotten through), but she's making much more money as an upper echelon Crossfit athlete. Where's the motivation to switch?

Women worked well as snipers for the USSR, but modern US Military doctrine is much different.

I absolutely understand those factors, you raise some very valid issues. That the discussion instead focuses on entry standards is what I find absurd.

Well, if we want to play the 'superior gender" card it's a scieitific fact woman are better fighter pilots than men, and they can function better and longer under G stress than men.

So, why aren't we fielding all female fighter pilots? Because men are too insecure for that.

Seriously, the fact women can handle g stress better than men is a priven fact, sowell know it ever made it into an episode of the G.I. Joe cartoon where one of the female Joes was dogfight a cobra pilot, and said out loud "I know cobra pilots are surgically altered to make them better pilots, but women can take G forces better than men!"

She beat him by pulling into a high g maneuver.

To this day i still wonder A. Why cobra didn't use female jet pilots and B. WTF did she mean by "surgically altered to make them better pilots"?

 Matt Swain wrote:
Well, if we want to play the 'superior gender" card it's a scieitific fact woman are better fighter pilots than men, and they can function better and longer under G stress than men.

So, why aren't we fielding all female fighter pilots? Because men are too insecure for that.

Seriously, the fact women can handle g stress better than men is a priven fact, sowell know it ever made it into an episode of the G.I. Joe cartoon where one of the female Joes was dogfight a cobra pilot, and said out loud "I know cobra pilots are surgically altered to make them better pilots, but women can take G forces better than men!"

She beat him by pulling into a high g maneuver.

To this day i still wonder A. Why cobra didn't use female jet pilots and B. WTF did she mean by "surgically altered to make them better pilots"?

Where did anyone play that card?

Being able to handle g is not the sole qualifier to being a fighter pilot. There are a whole bunch of other tests that need to be passed, and other qualities the candidate needs to have. And this is outside of the fact that there will likely always be less female candidates than men due to socio-economic factors. It's irrelevant anyway, women are allowed to apply to become pilots, at least here in the UK. That's all there is to it.

 Matt Swain wrote:
Well, if we want to play the 'superior gender" card it's a scieitific fact woman are better fighter pilots than men, and they can function better and longer under G stress than men.

Please show where that card was played and provide a source for that claim. The first thing I found was that women's g tolerance was not a reason to disqualify them. I haven't seen any studies that claim women handle it better. I also wouldn't be surprised. Women have lower rates of colorblindness so based off solely that a higher percentage of women would qualify to be fighter pilots.

Edit: Also, referencing a bloody cartoon as source because the fact is so well-known is completely absurd. There is a whole host of well-known facts that make it into media that aren't remotely factual. Particularly when it comes to the military or depictions of the military.

Slaves on Roman galleys. I suppose you could say slaves forced into warfare in any situation but being forced to row on a primitive boat just makes it worse in my eyes.

Most galleys in the ancient world were maned by freemen and often well paid - Galleys in later periods - esp under certain French Kings were slaves

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
I absolutely understand those factors, you raise some very valid issues. That the discussion instead focuses on entry standards is what I find absurd.

recruitment practices..

another "sucks to do" job I think was Messerschmidt Me 163 pilot in WW2. So this ugly SoB here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Messerschmitt_Me_163_Komet

Basically you take a seat in what is basically a rocket with wings, with explosive, flammable and as far as I read pretty corrosive fuel. Then you had to fly it towards the american bomber squadrons who were pretty well armed and usually had fighter support, full knowing that there were few points at your aircraft that could take a hit. Also at the speeds you were operating there was little time to react or even score a hit at the enemy. But the worst part was the landing. While the Me 163 seemed to have behaved quite well in the air (being derived from a glider), it had no conventional landing gear but some kind of "sleigh". So landing was temperamential at best and more than once lead to the fuel exploding, burning or (due to its corrosive nature) dissolving the pilot.

I guess test pilot in general can really suck. I remember reading about some of the first testpilots testing the ejection seats in the Dornier Do 335. The pilots did not survive and when they found them they realized that their arms had been teared of when the canope was blasted away. I don't remember if they ever found out if it was that they grapped the handles at the canope and then were dismembered when it flew away or if it was the explosive load being too strong.

Testpilot, aye, don't forget the slefdeconstructing HE 162...

Storming the Theodosian walls was notoriously pointless (though attempted on many occasions). I can imagine it must have been quite disheartening to get across the moat, over the low wall and beyond the outer wall only to find yourself in another kill zone in front of the inner wall. It took the invention of the world's largest cannon by the Turks to eventually get into Constantinople.

 trexmeyer wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Witches

Thank you for sharing this. It doesn't sound that bad. They didn't take that many casualties. I had never heard of them before. They had guts to spare. It's amazing that so many women saw combat for the USSR during WWII and some people today still wring their hands over female fighter pilots for example.

I really don't see anyone complaining about Female pilots...like ever. The only times I hear my buddies talk about this is when they are referencing ground pounders. IE Infantry and support forces who are routinely unmounted, (Translation: Walking) into combat. The issue being related to

 NinthMusketeer wrote:

There are numerous tests, exercises, drills, and all manner of other means designed not only to train but to weed out those unfit for service--even when that service is exclusively male. The military has essentially decided that if a person can pass those they are good enough to be there, and if they cannot pass those they are not.

And the fact that the tests/drills/exercises and other means of weeding out people are incredibly biased and are not a test for fitness rather than a test for fitness based on gender.

When I was in, the run time for a perfect 3 Miles was 18 minutes. For females it was 21. Instead of pullups they did flex arm hang, and it got significantly worse as they transferred that over to pullups like the men.

Men get 5pts per pullup with a max score of 100pts, likewise females got a max score of 100, the difference was their 1st pullup was worth 75pts and the next 5 were worth 5pts each. Put that in perspective, for me to earn as many points as a female doing 1 pullup I had to do 15.

Now to get into the grittier stuff like humping packs on ruck marches. Routinely my unit was attached to grunts so we had to ruck a lot. When we would go on 9-12 mile marches it was not at all uncommon for the female members to fall out and/or have their packs picked up by men or by the safety vehicle. Now, don't get me wrong, there were a couple females who were more physically fit than a lot of the guys, but for every 1 female who fell into that category there was at least 5-6 who were literally worse than any guy in the battalion.

When we finally went to war, we lost about 10-20% to unexpected pregnancies before we deployed. So some poor SOB with no unit training/cohesion got shoved into the fray to fill the gap. Notably, this was the case for our Collections manager. The guy responsible for using air assets, we stuck a Cpl into the billet with zero training because our 2 females who were supposed to be the primary and backup both got pregnant and couldn't deploy.

Now, take all of that and team it with the massive study the USMC did relating to women in combat. They found that male only units dominated in basically every category and that integrated units only won a pair or so of events, and when you looked into it, it was because the teams were all men except for 1 female. They also found that women were several times more likely to sustain non-combat related injuries, usually from the fact that a combat load was almost as heavy as they were, which caused severe injuries to knees/backs and hips.

Which is why those separate standards shouldn't be a thing. They decided the male standards were what was needed for -soldiers- and if someone wants to be a male or female -soldier- that is the standard they should meet. I'd go on but we're getting a bit off topic.

 trexmeyer wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Witches

Thank you for sharing this. It doesn't sound that bad. They didn't take that many casualties. I had never heard of them before. They had guts to spare. It's amazing that so many women saw combat for the USSR during WWII and some people today still wring their hands over female fighter pilots for example.

"It doesn't sound that bad"?

They were subjected to deliberate abuse, disrespect and virtual sabotage by their own side. They were denied important equipment because "Women were too dumb to know how to use it." They operated alone, behind enemy lines, in cold night in russian winter, they had zero chance of survival if their planes were hit, they didn;t even carry parachutes because bombs were more important and they were likely better off dying in a crash than being taken alive by the nazis.

Also, while 32 of the 261 people in the unit died, it is likely that the casualties were mostly the pilots, and not so much among the ground staff, but " It doesn't sound that bad"?

While most of the russian military disdained and disrespect them in the end it took the monstrously evil joe stalin to finally show them the respect they'd earned. But at least they got it it even if was from someone probably more evil than the devil.

 Matt Swain wrote:

 trexmeyer wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Witches

Thank you for sharing this. It doesn't sound that bad. They didn't take that many casualties. I had never heard of them before. They had guts to spare. It's amazing that so many women saw combat for the USSR during WWII and some people today still wring their hands over female fighter pilots for example.

"It doesn't sound that bad"?

They were subjected to deliberate abuse, disrespect and virtual sabotage by their own side. They were denied important equipment because "Women were too dumb to know how to use it." They operated alone, behind enemy lines, in cold night in russian winter, they had zero chance of survival if their planes were hit, they didn;t even carry parachutes because bombs were more important and they were likely better off dying in a crash than being taken alive by the nazis.

Also, while 32 of the 261 people in the unit died, it is likely that the casualties were mostly the pilots, and not so much among the ground staff, but " It doesn't sound that bad"?

While most of the russian military disdained and disrespect them in the end it took the monstrously evil joe stalin to finally show them the respect they'd earned. But at least they got it it even if was from someone probably more evil than the devil.

In comparison to a lot of other potential military jobs throughout history, yes, it doesn't sound that bad. I don't think the disrespect from their male counterparts factors in to it.

In total, 261 people served in the regiment, of whom 32 died of various causes including plane crashes, combat deaths and tuberculosis. 28 aircraft were written off.

Not even all of the 32 deaths were combat deaths. The list provided at http://samsv.narod.ru/Polk/Ap/gvnbap046/spisok.html has about 120~ in aviation positions. Even if all 32 were pilots, that's a pretty low casualty count considering all factors.

What I've read about the primary Soviet Air Forces during WW2 suggest that they initially faired much worse than the Night Witches, hence the grotesque victory counts Luftwaffe pilots racked up on the Eastern Front.

 trexmeyer wrote:


What I've read about the primary Soviet Air Forces during WW2 suggest that they initially faired much worse than the Night Witches, hence the grotesque victory counts Luftwaffe pilots racked up on the Eastern Front.

The Soviet air arm was caught very much off guard by the Luftwaffe's tactical developments in the interwar years. While Nazi Germany's military brilliance is often overstated, the air war is an area where it's probably not. The Soviets had a real problem developing practical combat doctrine for their air force in the interwar years and officer purges heavily crippled their training programs and logistics, resulting in barely trained pilots and ground crews who could rarely get things done even if they knew what to do. The initial rapid advance of Operation Barbarossa also caught thousands of planes on the ground. The Soviet Air Force wouldn't get its gak together until late 1942, after Alexander Novikov spent a whole year putting it back together from scraps.

I'd also point out that the entire Soviet Air Force often went without parachutes early in the war. They didn't have enough and fatality rates for pilots so rarely came back there were at times attitudes that it was a waste to issue them. I know little of the Night Witches but I'd question if the issue was really sexism or logistic in nature. More often than not, the Soviets actually experimented with simply jumping out of the plane. Many of the aircraft they used could move very slow when needed without stalling, and they conducted experiments in the interwar years on simply jumping out of the plane at low altitude and landing in the snow, which isn't that fatal when your plan is going as slow as 50 mph. You get banged up, maybe break a bone if the snow is shallow or hiding a rock, but it was what they had.

I'm actually not sure how often pilots did this. I know transport planes did it with cargo. They'd fly low, slow down, and just dump the supplies out the back. Snow was enough to break the fall and keep the supplies from being too damaged. Early on I'm not sure enough pilots were surviving for it to matter and parachutes started becoming available by 1943.

The OP mentioned Tunnel Rats in Vietnam; earlier this year I actually met someone who had that job and he said it was pretty scary. He said he only got shot at a handful of times, but it still sucked. I have a lot of respect for any war veteran, but guys who do dangerous gak like that deserve extra kudos.

The person whose job it was to carry the King's Colours/Imperial Eagle/Roman Eagle/etc.

Yes, what an honour to be the person without a weapon and is also target number one for anyone looking for a bit of glory and to really stick it to their foe by stealing such a prized trophy.

I've always thought paratroopers were an especially awful job to have. If everything goes well, you're behind enemies line with an objective to hit, and then have to walk back to friendly lines. If it doesn't, you're scattered, likely isolated, and have an entire enemy force between you and safety. Oh, and of course, you don't know where you are. No resupply, likely no communications with your side, it's just an awful situation.

To top it all off, there's the not inconsiderable chance that you're injured from the parachute drop itself, or flak.

 Gitzbitah wrote:
I've always thought paratroopers were an especially awful job to have. If everything goes well, you're behind enemies line with an objective to hit, and then have to walk back to friendly lines. If it doesn't, you're scattered, likely isolated, and have an entire enemy force between you and safety. Oh, and of course, you don't know where you are. No resupply, likely no communications with your side, it's just an awful situation.

To top it all off, there's the not inconsiderable chance that you're injured from the parachute drop itself, or flak.

Parachuting by itself isn't that dangerous, at least now. My dad made around two dozen jumps while he was in and I think the only injury he mentioned occurring was during a night jump in Alaska. These are of course non-combat situations.

But yeah, as a deployment strategy, it's questionable IMO for anything other than special operations. I think German losses at the Battle of Crete and the Allied losses during Operation: Market Garden are the best examples of paratroops failing spectacularly because of their various limitations. Technological improvements since then only make paratroops less viable.

IMo worse military jobs:

Antiquity - Really bad - Any slave/serf class/camp follower in any given army/faction. You are doing all of the hauling, all of the heavy lifting and you dont have a single weapon to defend yourself or get a single dime of the spoils and most likely get sexualy, physicaly and mentally abused by some psychopathic hard bastards... One of the most common tactics in warfare that ensured swift victory would be to send a wide out flanking force to hit & torch the enemy camp to break their morale as the main line joins battle. So you would be on the recieving end of some R*£ing & pillaging and no way to even try to defend yourself - a bad time.

The second worse - Being some sort of auxilary/ levy. More often than not, you'd have next to no training(unless you're some sort of barbarian hard bastard already), terrible equipment, and none of, or very little of the pay everyone else got while being expected to be thrown into the meat grinder "to wear the enemy down"..

The absolute worse? - Being a literal human shield. For example the Mongols used this practice during particularly bloody sieges, they'd round up & enslave local populations and force them all but naked up to the fortification to try fill ditches & sap, but mainly to waste enemy arrows and demoralise them as they have to kill their own people. The upside is youd not be killed outright and might survive?

Modern Days - Anyone doing patrols in any insurgency areas of any kind.

Absolute worse - IED dispsal..

Take Mongol stories with a grain of salt--the way their expansion panned out resulted in circumstances where both sides had cause to exaggerate their actions. The victims for purposes of seeking aid, the Mongols for intimidation.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Take Mongol stories with a grain of salt--the way their expansion panned out resulted in circumstances where both sides had cause to exaggerate their actions. The victims for purposes of seeking aid, the Mongols for intimidation.

This. Consider also that those in power in non-mongol controlled lands also had a very strong vested interest in keeping it that way as the Mongol MO when conquering new territory was to kill all of the ruling class and abolish the existing hierarchical power structures in place. This went completely against the understood rules of war in the west at the time, where the rich and powerful were held for ransom. As such it was very much in the best interest of the aristocracy to paint the mongols in the least favourable light, lest their own populations get some similar ideas about the usefulness and necessity of the ruling class.

i am not sure, that that is accurate considering population numbers dropping massively during the expansion and rule under the mongol empire, Afghanistan, iran , etc.

LordOfHats wrote:I'd also point out that the entire Soviet Air Force often went without parachutes early in the war. They didn't have enough and fatality rates for pilots so rarely came back there were at times attitudes that it was a waste to issue them. I know little of the Night Witches but I'd question if the issue was really sexism or logistic in nature. More often than not, the Soviets actually experimented with simply jumping out of the plane. Many of the aircraft they used could move very slow when needed without stalling, and they conducted experiments in the interwar years on simply jumping out of the plane at low altitude and landing in the snow, which isn't that fatal when your plan is going as slow as 50 mph. You get banged up, maybe break a bone if the snow is shallow or hiding a rock, but it was what they had.

Mother of God.. They must have looked at the casualty figures for the eastern front (or western front it would have been for the Soviets) and thought "what more can we do to add to this figure?"

It's interesting, I know the concept of an Imperial Guard commissar is based loosely on the concept of the role that existed in the red army, but often some of the things that you read about in that theatre (which often can just be summarised as an absolute lack of any value being bestowed on the lives of those fighting on the ground) would seem to ridiculous or far fetched if they were placed as a fictional background in the 40k setting.

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Which is why those separate standards shouldn't be a thing. They decided the male standards were what was needed for -soldiers- and if someone wants to be a male or female -soldier- that is the standard they should meet. I'd go on but we're getting a bit off topic.

Yes I think that's fair. Really anyone that falls short of Vasquez from Aliens need not apply (or at least for front line roles - know it's a completely different matter for other supporting roles, and of course pilots and roles of that nature).

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 NinthMusketeer wrote:
Take Mongol stories with a grain of salt--the way their expansion panned out resulted in circumstances where both sides had cause to exaggerate their actions. The victims for purposes of seeking aid, the Mongols for intimidation.

This. Consider also that those in power in non-mongol controlled lands also had a very strong vested interest in keeping it that way as the Mongol MO when conquering new territory was to kill all of the ruling class and abolish the existing hierarchical power structures in place. This went completely against the understood rules of war in the west at the time, where the rich and powerful were held for ransom. As such it was very much in the best interest of the aristocracy to paint the mongols in the least favourable light, lest their own populations get some similar ideas about the usefulness and necessity of the ruling class.

From what I understand pretty much most of what we have about mongols that has a degree of accuracy comes from chinese "secret history of the mongols" and many different Asian contemporaries as well as european with classic christian writiers equating the khan to satans spawn

Mongols didin't come into contact with europe until Subatai blundered into eastern europe as Genghis Khan died and they didin't come back in force for decades until the golden horde time. Persia, georgia and the south russian steppes and kievan Rus vikings were their main theaters and foes in europe for years. Thick stoned european style fortifications were too strong for their asian style catapults initialy so it took years to adapt and concolidate.

The Chinese sources and historians agree regarding the mongol MO overall. Basically their whole shtick was pillaging and Sacking & looting cities. Their armies strength lied in their mobility and structure and command chain of the Tumens allowing for very delicate manoeuvring I.E. the feigned retreat which was their bread and butter. Co-ordinating 10,000 horsemen to about face and charge back down the road in unison accurately is no small feat.

However you paint it they were absolutely ruthless no ifs or buts. They slaughtered populations to instill fear in neighbours, and to ensure there simply wasn't enough people left to rise up after they leave and those that were left will continue to pay tribute for decades. Risking mongol veteran rider lives in sieges when you have perfectly good meatshields was also standard procedure. In order to keep supply liens open and rule such vast swathes of land you simply had to kill as many people as possible... Cities being exterminated regularly was just how they did things. Non mongol life had no value apart from learned men, and those with a useful trade. Any craftsmen and artisans were spared. everyone else got the pointy end of a spear...

To be fair didn't most nations use cheap fodder for the worst spots during a battle. If you've got a breach in the wall with a near certain death for the first few hundred through why send your best; send raw recruits, peasants or whatever you can to overwhelm with numbers then send your better troops after.

 Overread wrote:
To be fair didn't most nations use cheap fodder for the worst spots during a battle. If you've got a breach in the wall with a near certain death for the first few hundred through why send your best; send raw recruits, peasants or whatever you can to overwhelm with numbers then send your better troops after.

Yeah front-line chaff/ levies is probably the worse lot you could have had in any army.

Oh definitely. In war the Mongols were brutal if you did not immediately surrender. If they offered you terms, then you'd best take them.

What is really interesting is how starkly contrasting the society under Genghis was to his ruthlessness on the battlefield. The Mongol empire had freedom of religion and diplomatic immunity, he criminalised abduction and enslavement of Mongols, he forbade the kidnapping and selling of women (which was previously a legitimate way of acquiring a wife and Genghis himself had had his wife stolen earlier in his life), all children born of Mongol parents were legitimate, he abolished inherited aristocratic titles, he introduced tax exemptions for people in professions of essential public services including religious leaders, doctors, teachers, undertakers etc. This on top of how he had earlier changed the structure of the council of a horde, changing it to more of a meritocracy where you would be assigned positions based on loyalty and ability rather than relation to the leader. He also effectively introduced a war pension for families who lost members in battle where a share of the spoils of the looting was set aside to be shared amongst the families of those Mongols killed in battle.

 Argive wrote:


Absolute worse - IED dispsal..

I've seen this a few times in this thread now. . . and I have to disagree.

Now, I was not EOD myself, but have a handful of good friends who were. . . Sure, it takes a very. . . interesting, mindset to say the least, to do the job.

But, the job itself isn't really all that bad (at least for american troops, I have no idea what militaries outside of the US do for outfitting, so cannot speak to them), because at least in the US, an EOD tech has access to: specially designed vehicles with cool rake toys, tracked robots with arm things, the ubiquitous "bear suit", and over a year of schooling encompassing 3 separate schools.


Basically, its the "easiest job in the world" (per my buddies) because, as they tell me "if I get it wrong, it suddenly isn't my problem anymore" . . . Like, these guys are generally of a type, and people who don't really understand them will view them as being off their rockers. But its not as if they are being sent in to a job without proper equipment and support.

I worked for a company that did software development for US military EOD. Our onsite SME was a retired AF E-7 (I don't know USAF/USN enlisted ranks off the top of my head). There were several others on the government side that I interacted with on a fairly frequent basis. None of them gave any indication that it was particularly awful. Ironically the one individual who had actually lost fingers was a Combat Engineer I believe and it occurred in a training accident.

Sidenote: All the military software I encountered during that timeframe was an abomination. Thank god it was just web apps.

I meant the poor sods that have to go in in person (bear suit etc) if no robots available as well as any divers that have to do explosive disposal/mine disposal.

I guess maybe its overblown and not as bad as it used to be.

From what I've gathered accumulated knowledge in that field has grown exponentially over the last twenty years and has so has the ability to safely handle explosives of all varieties.

Edit: I can hit up my buddy for further questions if necessary.

 Matt Swain wrote:

 trexmeyer wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Witches

Thank you for sharing this. It doesn't sound that bad. They didn't take that many casualties. I had never heard of them before. They had guts to spare. It's amazing that so many women saw combat for the USSR during WWII and some people today still wring their hands over female fighter pilots for example.

"It doesn't sound that bad"?

They were subjected to deliberate abuse, disrespect and virtual sabotage by their own side. They were denied important equipment because "Women were too dumb to know how to use it." They operated alone, behind enemy lines, in cold night in russian winter, they had zero chance of survival if their planes were hit, they didn;t even carry parachutes because bombs were more important and they were likely better off dying in a crash than being taken alive by the nazis.

Also, while 32 of the 261 people in the unit died, it is likely that the casualties were mostly the pilots, and not so much among the ground staff, but " It doesn't sound that bad"?

While most of the russian military disdained and disrespect them in the end it took the monstrously evil joe stalin to finally show them the respect they'd earned. But at least they got it it even if was from someone probably more evil than the devil.

German army casualties in Stalingrad were like 75-80% though weren't they? There were a million of them. Of the 250,000 that were taken prisoner, only a fraction survived (I seem to recall it as 10% or something).The Russians, who's strength was around 1.1 million at the time of the Soviet counter-offensive, recorded over a million casualties, half of them being KIA or MIA (so KIA basically).

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Argive wrote:


Absolute worse - IED dispsal..

I've seen this a few times in this thread now. . . and I have to disagree.

Now, I was not EOD myself, but have a handful of good friends who were. . . Sure, it takes a very. . . interesting, mindset to say the least, to do the job.

But, the job itself isn't really all that bad (at least for american troops, I have no idea what militaries outside of the US do for outfitting, so cannot speak to them), because at least in the US, an EOD tech has access to: specially designed vehicles with cool rake toys, tracked robots with arm things, the ubiquitous "bear suit", and over a year of schooling encompassing 3 separate schools.


Basically, its the "easiest job in the world" (per my buddies) because, as they tell me "if I get it wrong, it suddenly isn't my problem anymore" . . . Like, these guys are generally of a type, and people who don't really understand them will view them as being off their rockers. But its not as if they are being sent in to a job without proper equipment and support.

I blame "The Hurt Locker" for planting a RIDICULOUS number of misconceptions about the Army as a whole, and EOD in specific. Oooof, that reminds me I need to add to another thread...

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

 Argive wrote:


Absolute worse - IED dispsal..

I've seen this a few times in this thread now. . . and I have to disagree.

Now, I was not EOD myself, but have a handful of good friends who were. . . Sure, it takes a very. . . interesting, mindset to say the least, to do the job.

But, the job itself isn't really all that bad (at least for american troops, I have no idea what militaries outside of the US do for outfitting, so cannot speak to them), because at least in the US, an EOD tech has access to: specially designed vehicles with cool rake toys, tracked robots with arm things, the ubiquitous "bear suit", and over a year of schooling encompassing 3 separate schools.


Basically, its the "easiest job in the world" (per my buddies) because, as they tell me "if I get it wrong, it suddenly isn't my problem anymore" . . . Like, these guys are generally of a type, and people who don't really understand them will view them as being off their rockers. But its not as if they are being sent in to a job without proper equipment and support.

The US military does things a lot differently to over here in the UK. A lot of your techniques are almost opposite to ours.

In our doctrine, as much of the actions on the ied as physically and practicably possible should be undertaken remotely. Theoretically this means that the operator will very rarely walk to a fully operational device.

 LordofHats wrote:

Being a tanker, especially in the WWII era, could also be pretty damn bad. Internal combustion engines and ammunition storage in the time were still having kinks worked out of them. There was always a risk that your tank would catch fire or that ammunition would be set off. With you inside the tank. Trapped in an iron can. With only a few tiny hatches to shimmy your way out of.

If I recall correctly, US tankers in WW2 had casualty rate of ~5% vs ~20% of Infantry. Being in a WW2 tank was still a lot safer than being out in the open.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Oh definitely. In war the Mongols were brutal if you did not immediately surrender. If they offered you terms, then you'd best take them.

What is really interesting is how starkly contrasting the society under Genghis was to his ruthlessness on the battlefield. The Mongol empire had freedom of religion and diplomatic immunity, he criminalised abduction and enslavement of Mongols, he forbade the kidnapping and selling of women (which was previously a legitimate way of acquiring a wife and Genghis himself had had his wife stolen earlier in his life), all children born of Mongol parents were legitimate, he abolished inherited aristocratic titles, he introduced tax exemptions for people in professions of essential public services including religious leaders, doctors, teachers, undertakers etc. This on top of how he had earlier changed the structure of the council of a horde, changing it to more of a meritocracy where you would be assigned positions based on loyalty and ability rather than relation to the leader.

In that respect, it's remarkably similar to how pirates operated in the Caribbean. Absolutely brutal and ruthless if forced to fight- but far better working conditions than equivalent naval vessels for their crews. And if you surrendered most of the time they'd just take the cargo or a wealthy captive or two for ransom and then leave the ship to sail off to its destination. Most pirate ships were democratically run outside of combat where the Captain's word was law, and split wealth by shares. It's a very peculiar paradox that the ones willing to operate in the bloodiest fashion to their enemies don't want to treat their subjects and allies that way.

 Gitzbitah wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Oh definitely. In war the Mongols were brutal if you did not immediately surrender. If they offered you terms, then you'd best take them.

What is really interesting is how starkly contrasting the society under Genghis was to his ruthlessness on the battlefield. The Mongol empire had freedom of religion and diplomatic immunity, he criminalised abduction and enslavement of Mongols, he forbade the kidnapping and selling of women (which was previously a legitimate way of acquiring a wife and Genghis himself had had his wife stolen earlier in his life), all children born of Mongol parents were legitimate, he abolished inherited aristocratic titles, he introduced tax exemptions for people in professions of essential public services including religious leaders, doctors, teachers, undertakers etc. This on top of how he had earlier changed the structure of the council of a horde, changing it to more of a meritocracy where you would be assigned positions based on loyalty and ability rather than relation to the leader.

In that respect, it's remarkably similar to how pirates operated in the Caribbean. Absolutely brutal and ruthless if forced to fight- but far better working conditions than equivalent naval vessels for their crews. And if you surrendered most of the time they'd just take the cargo or a wealthy captive or two for ransom and then leave the ship to sail off to its destination. Most pirate ships were democratically run outside of combat where the Captain's word was law, and split wealth by shares. It's a very peculiar paradox that the ones willing to operate in the bloodiest fashion to their enemies don't want to treat their subjects and allies that way.

has probably to do with maintaining cohesion and discipline in a manpower pool and structures that have inherent disadvantages for such.
By treating everyone as fairly as one could, including early forms of insurance, you can maintain motivation and loyality far easier.
However it's also a two sided sword when you look at punishments for the same lot, you can even compare it to condotieri or other mercenary forces. Landsknechte f.e. had Spiessrutenlauf for heavy punishments and or beeing forced to partake in the forlorn hope, swiss regiments were known to string up cowards, etc.

Cronch wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

Being a tanker, especially in the WWII era, could also be pretty damn bad. Internal combustion engines and ammunition storage in the time were still having kinks worked out of them. There was always a risk that your tank would catch fire or that ammunition would be set off. With you inside the tank. Trapped in an iron can. With only a few tiny hatches to shimmy your way out of.

If I recall correctly, US tankers in WW2 had casualty rate of ~5% vs ~20% of Infantry. Being in a WW2 tank was still a lot safer than being out in the open.

Oh it was.

I just think that burning alive, or suffocating as your armored shell fills with smoke, or being pinned as heavy rain floods the vehicle after a battle are all rotten ways to die. Like, I've never been shot, but in abstract I'd rather be shot than set of fire. One of those sounds more horrific than the other XD

I think what also really sucks were the dudes landing on fortified beaches with the enemy knowing they were coming. D-Day is the most popular example, but I'm sure there were similar situations in the pacific and elsewhere. The same situation for paratroopers when they are dropped somewhere, where there are armed defenders aware of them. I think few things suck more than hanging on a parachute when down below are hundreds of armed enemies seeing you gliding down or sitting in a landing boat when the enemy knows full well where you will be standing at when the ramp drops and he has a machine gun.

 Pyroalchi wrote:
I think what also really sucks were the dudes landing on fortified beaches with the enemy knowing they were coming. D-Day is the most popular example, but I'm sure there were similar situations in the pacific and elsewhere. The same situation for paratroopers when they are dropped somewhere, where there are armed defenders aware of them. I think few things suck more than hanging on a parachute when down below are hundreds of armed enemies seeing you gliding down or sitting in a landing boat when the enemy knows full well where you will be standing at when the ramp drops and he has a machine gun.

I highly recommend With the Old Breed by E.B. Sledge if you want a first hand account of the island hopping campaign. The book along with another (or two, I don't remember off the top of my head) was used as the basis for The Pacific, Band of Brother's sister show. D-Day was horrific, but overall my impression is that the Pacific campaign was worse. War crimes were committed casually, even by the USMC (admittedly to a lesser extent than those of the Japanese Army). It was severe enough that I don't understand how Vietnam wasn't anticipated better in terms of that conflict becoming a SNAFU.

Cronch wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

Being a tanker, especially in the WWII era, could also be pretty damn bad. Internal combustion engines and ammunition storage in the time were still having kinks worked out of them. There was always a risk that your tank would catch fire or that ammunition would be set off. With you inside the tank. Trapped in an iron can. With only a few tiny hatches to shimmy your way out of.

If I recall correctly, US tankers in WW2 had casualty rate of ~5% vs ~20% of Infantry. Being in a WW2 tank was still a lot safer than being out in the open.

It's also worth noting that most U.S. tanker casualties happened when the tankers were outside the tank as well. Sentry duty and the like.

 trexmeyer wrote:

 Pyroalchi wrote:
I think what also really sucks were the dudes landing on fortified beaches with the enemy knowing they were coming. D-Day is the most popular example, but I'm sure there were similar situations in the pacific and elsewhere. The same situation for paratroopers when they are dropped somewhere, where there are armed defenders aware of them. I think few things suck more than hanging on a parachute when down below are hundreds of armed enemies seeing you gliding down or sitting in a landing boat when the enemy knows full well where you will be standing at when the ramp drops and he has a machine gun.

I highly recommend With the Old Breed by E.B. Sledge if you want a first hand account of the island hopping campaign. The book along with another (or two, I don't remember off the top of my head) was used as the basis for The Pacific, Band of Brother's sister show. D-Day was horrific, but overall my impression is that the Pacific campaign was worse. War crimes were committed casually, even by the USMC (admittedly to a lesser extent than those of the Japanese Army). It was severe enough that I don't understand how Vietnam wasn't anticipated better in terms of that conflict becoming a SNAFU.

Great book. But yeah, grim though. Regarding the brutality, it seems like its just how things were. The USMC there seemed to adapt to the brutality shown by the imperial army and met it with full force.

 Gitzbitah wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:
Oh definitely. In war the Mongols were brutal if you did not immediately surrender. If they offered you terms, then you'd best take them.

What is really interesting is how starkly contrasting the society under Genghis was to his ruthlessness on the battlefield. The Mongol empire had freedom of religion and diplomatic immunity, he criminalised abduction and enslavement of Mongols, he forbade the kidnapping and selling of women (which was previously a legitimate way of acquiring a wife and Genghis himself had had his wife stolen earlier in his life), all children born of Mongol parents were legitimate, he abolished inherited aristocratic titles, he introduced tax exemptions for people in professions of essential public services including religious leaders, doctors, teachers, undertakers etc. This on top of how he had earlier changed the structure of the council of a horde, changing it to more of a meritocracy where you would be assigned positions based on loyalty and ability rather than relation to the leader.

In that respect, it's remarkably similar to how pirates operated in the Caribbean. Absolutely brutal and ruthless if forced to fight- but far better working conditions than equivalent naval vessels for their crews. And if you surrendered most of the time they'd just take the cargo or a wealthy captive or two for ransom and then leave the ship to sail off to its destination. Most pirate ships were democratically run outside of combat where the Captain's word was law, and split wealth by shares. It's a very peculiar paradox that the ones willing to operate in the bloodiest fashion to their enemies don't want to treat their subjects and allies that way.

It wasn't "Better working conditions" in the Mongol army - almost all infractions resulted in capital punishment. It wasn't democratic. Most cities that surrendered to the Mongols could reasonably expect wholesale slaughter of the population as their reward for compliance. The two systems, if what you say about piracy in the Caribbean is accurate, were not remarkably similar.

How about the poor gits who were assigned to launch duty on nuclear weapons? The guys who would push the buttons that actually launched the missiles or dropped the nuclear bombs?

Imagine sitting in a deep bunker a few hundred feet underground, knowing it an enemy i warhead detonated near you you'd likely be trapped down there till you died, and even in the best of cases you;re going to be killing countless unarmed people, many7 children?

I recall hearing that the US military had to conduct very careful psych screening for people assigned that duty to see if they actually would push the button if they got the order to.

 Matt Swain wrote:
How about the poor gits who were assigned to launch duty on nuclear weapons? The guys who would push the buttons that actually launched the missiles or dropped the nuclear bombs?

Imagine sitting in a deep bunker a few hundred feet underground, knowing it an enemy i warhead detonated near you you'd likely be trapped down there till you died, and even in the best of cases you;re going to be killing countless unarmed people, many7 children?

I recall hearing that the US military had to conduct very careful psych screening for people assigned that duty to see if they actually would push the button if they got the order to.

On that note, imagine being the observers for all of the tests in the 40's. Here, take these cool goggles and sit a smidge too close to the blast and let us know how it goes..

 Matt Swain wrote:
How about the poor gits who were assigned to launch duty on nuclear weapons? The guys who would push the buttons that actually launched the missiles or dropped the nuclear bombs?

Imagine sitting in a deep bunker a few hundred feet underground, knowing it an enemy i warhead detonated near you you'd likely be trapped down there till you died, and even in the best of cases you;re going to be killing countless unarmed people, many7 children?

I recall hearing that the US military had to conduct very careful psych screening for people assigned that duty to see if they actually would push the button if they got the order to.

Can people really comprehend that end result of pushing a button?

I mean, if you ever played Defcon and really thought about what it represented. It really makes you feel sick to the pit of your stomach. Or at least it did me when I was younger. It felt incredibly, profoundly uncomfortable.

Then again maybe they make sure they have utter, patriotic, nationalist psychopaths doing that sort of thing.

 trexmeyer wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:
How about the poor gits who were assigned to launch duty on nuclear weapons? The guys who would push the buttons that actually launched the missiles or dropped the nuclear bombs?

Imagine sitting in a deep bunker a few hundred feet underground, knowing it an enemy i warhead detonated near you you'd likely be trapped down there till you died, and even in the best of cases you;re going to be killing countless unarmed people, many7 children?

I recall hearing that the US military had to conduct very careful psych screening for people assigned that duty to see if they actually would push the button if they got the order to.

Can people really comprehend that end result of pushing a button?

Read The Hot War trilogy by Harry Turtledove. Basically it covers an alternate history where the Cold War escalates into a full-blown nuclear exchange during the Korean War. One thing that the author does show happening is how the people flying the bombers all react differently to what they are having to do. Some of them just coldly detach themselves and treat it as a job, others are driven to suicide. Being involved with killing people on that scale would take a certain kind of person (who many would consider to be a monster).

JWBS wrote:

It wasn't "Better working conditions" in the Mongol army - almost all infractions resulted in capital punishment. It wasn't democratic. Most cities that surrendered to the Mongols could reasonably expect wholesale slaughter of the population as their reward for compliance. The two systems, if what you say about piracy in the Caribbean is accurate, were not remarkably similar.

That is very interesting! My understanding of Mongolian warfare had always been that cities that resisted were annihilated, but that those that surrendered immediately were mostly spared. Sometimes local leaders killed, army dissolved, the looting and pillaging typical of soldiers in an enemy city at the time... but that life in the Mongolian empire was actually quite mild. Local customs and laws were preserved, and you could practice your religion freely. Certainly, their punishments of soldiers, and probably all sorts were incredibly harsh by our standards- but compared to cultures of the time, it was not a bad place to be in. Do you happen to recall what cities were destroyed that surrendered without resistance? I haven't read much about Mongolian treachery with their peace terms.

 Matt Swain wrote:
How about the poor gits who were assigned to launch duty on nuclear weapons? The guys who would push the buttons that actually launched the missiles or dropped the nuclear bombs?

Imagine sitting in a deep bunker a few hundred feet underground, knowing it an enemy i warhead detonated near you you'd likely be trapped down there till you died, and even in the best of cases you;re going to be killing countless unarmed people, many7 children?

I recall hearing that the US military had to conduct very careful psych screening for people assigned that duty to see if they actually would push the button if they got the order to.

I think this thread has got to page 3 and you have probably mentioned the worst one of all. Where it is someone's hands to end millions of peoples lives and most likely the end of advanced civilisation.

Reading about the multiple instances of where a sentry on duty 'should' have made a phone call. If they had made that phone call we wouldn't be sat here now having this discussion.

Most terrifying I think (if I remember this correctly) was the commandant on duty at a Soviet Union early warning station. Their radar report said multiple incoming targets (I forget if it was the era of bombers or ICMBs). However there were only a small handful of attacking vehicles. He should have made the phone call that would have lead to a Soviet counter-strike. But, it didn't feel right - if the US was launching a strike, why wouldn't it have been with hundreds rather than just a handful? And so he didn't make the call which, had he been following doctrine, he would have. Think there are stories like that from both sides.

Another terrifying element is that apparently the ICBMs do not have an 'abort' button that causes the missiles to fall to the ground harmlessly, as that would have apparently made them vulnerable to counter measures. Once they are up, they are up.

I can't help imagining the guys assigned to carry out the execution of private eddie slovik near the end of ww2 weren't too happy with it.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Slovik

 Matt Swain wrote:
I can't help imagining the guys assigned to carry out the execution of private eddie slovik near the end of ww2 weren't too happy with it.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Slovik

Some US soldiers looked at desertion as the ultimate treason, you can't assume any of those soldiers were upset with the detail, especially being infantrymen.

Yeah, firing squad would be a pretty bad detail to pull.

Also, the squaddies hauling alpine guns up and down the mountains in WWI sounds like no fun.

On the Ancient front, I really would not have wanted to be a chariot runner. These were guys assigned to run along with chariots as a type of light infantry/skirmish screen to finish off foes, retrieve weapons, protect from other skirmishers, and help if your man got stuck in the mud.

Also, ancient sappers/miners and counter-sappers/miners sounds pretty crappy too.

For me at least shooting one unarmed, bound individual would be harder than pushing a button and wiping a city. One you can observe in real time and the other is an abstraction, at least for the moment.

That particular case was god-awful.

Early blackpowder artillery , deafness, burns and high value target...

Alternatively front row on any of these:
Tercio, gwalthufe, gvierthaufe, etc...
Terrible artillery targetting you, high Chances of muskets and pistol shooting over you and at you , utter Chaos after the Pike squares break up, terrible medical Situation , terrible logistics for some of the worst wars (30 years war) , religious fanaticism....

Snipers have to carry their poos in their backpacks...

You know, looking at this thread I'm starting to wonder if we ought to start a thread about what jobs in the military are actually good ones, assuming you don't have the connections to get a REMF position or a stateside cushy job.

 Matt Swain wrote:
You know, looking at this thread I'm starting to wonder if we ought to start a thread about what jobs in the military are actually good ones, assuming you don't have the connections to get a REMF position or a stateside cushy job.

Well that would be the cook init

Get as much chow as you want...

 Gitzbitah wrote:

JWBS wrote:

It wasn't "Better working conditions" in the Mongol army - almost all infractions resulted in capital punishment. It wasn't democratic. Most cities that surrendered to the Mongols could reasonably expect wholesale slaughter of the population as their reward for compliance. The two systems, if what you say about piracy in the Caribbean is accurate, were not remarkably similar.

That is very interesting! My understanding of Mongolian warfare had always been that cities that resisted were annihilated, but that those that surrendered immediately were mostly spared. Sometimes local leaders killed, army dissolved, the looting and pillaging typical of soldiers in an enemy city at the time... but that life in the Mongolian empire was actually quite mild. Local customs and laws were preserved, and you could practice your religion freely. Certainly, their punishments of soldiers, and probably all sorts were incredibly harsh by our standards- but compared to cultures of the time, it was not a bad place to be in. Do you happen to recall what cities were destroyed that surrendered without resistance? I haven't read much about Mongolian treachery with their peace terms.

I go back to the point of 'both sides wanted to exaggerate the Mongols' brutality.' It's kind of like getting all your information on a country from the countries it's at war with. The reality is we know they were brutal, not not how brutal. It could have been as simple as them matching the brutality of the times--they were simply better at getting results. Or they actually could have been abnormally violent. But we have good reason to doubt contemporary accounts. Anyone who says 'the Mongols slaughtered the populace of all the cities they came across' isn't addressing the ambiguity of information surrounding their warfare, and IMO they can't be trusted as accurate since there is a clear lack of understanding in regards to context.

Personally, I think they took a polarized perspective. If they were going to make war it was all-in on death and destruction. They want to make examples and they want people to talk about it. But if there was surrender and tribute was paid, all is well. It doesn't make sense to massacre the population of a country you want to collect tribute from, and Mongols were anything but fools. But that is just my theory, as established above it is a lot of guesswork and reading-between-the-lines.

 Argive wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:
You know, looking at this thread I'm starting to wonder if we ought to start a thread about what jobs in the military are actually good ones, assuming you don't have the connections to get a REMF position or a stateside cushy job.

Well that would be the cook init

Get as much chow as you want...

UAV operator I'd imagine is pretty baller XD All the fun of a plane with none of the risks. It's basically just flight simulator.

Throwing one out there for jobs that suck outside of combat conditions.

MPs - They're derisively referred to as BFs, Blue Falcons, or Buddy fethers. I haven't heard of an MOS that is despised as MPs.

IIRC the USMC requires Sergeants (E-5s) and above to serve from a select group of billets which include recruiters and drill instructors.

Recruiters - No one likes them outside of the wide-eyed youth looking to sign up.

Drill Instructors - It is almost a guarantee that you will have to deal with 1 or more absolute non-hacks during each cycle, which would be a constant annoyance. Aside from that, they have to go through what amounts to a second boot camp and then do several cycles as a DI before moving on to easier billets (Range Instructor, Swim Qual, MCMAP, etc). While on duty they are up for longer than recruits, must maintain an absolutely immaculate uniform, and have to do all aspects of their job to a physically superior than recruits. Now, once in a while a recruit will come through that can smoke everyone in PT on the run or pullups, but if a recruit falls out a march or something similar it is not the absolute end of the world.

In WW2 Australian troops "Volunteered(obviously it was kept secret till they arrived on site)" for tests to see the effects of mustard gas in tropical climate in case the Japanses ever used it. The effect was that the excessive moisture in the air and sweat on the body acted make the gas more effective and leave more extensive and debilitating burning.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 trexmeyer wrote:
I was reading about Vietnam War Tunnel Rats and they stick out to me as being one of the worst details to be stuck on in war. You'd have to belly crawl through a pitch black, boobytrapped, uncharted maze filled with God only knows how many enemy forces with zero support outside of possibly one another poor SOB if you're working in pairs. On top of that, you're already in an environment filled with exotic diseases that your body isn't accustomed to, a climate likely foreign to anything you've encountered before, and you're operating in the enemy's own backyard. To make matters worse, there's a solid chance that you didn't even volunteer for the damned war. The specific role of Tunnel Rat in that war seems to me like it would have all the suck of Vietnam (the war, not the country) plus a few more generous portions doled out for good measure.

Some other ones that come to mind.

Early submariners. I was on a museum submarine out in San Diego as a child and even then it was a cramped nightmare. It's uncomfortable and confined even if you're not claustrophobic. And underwater. Toss in primitive technology and you have a recipe for suck.

Anyone involved trench warfare during WWI.

Slaves on Roman galleys. I suppose you could say slaves forced into warfare in any situation but being forced to row on a primitive boat just makes it worse in my eyes.

What other military jobs have been particularly awful? I'm wondering more about roles than campaigns or Napoleon's frostbitten soldiers and similar would qualify as well.

I'd like to say as a counterpoint:
Anyone involved in that silly business of marching in great columns and squares before the entrenchment stage of WW1 and anyone in Napoleonic warfare, you just lined up and fired at each-other at point blank.

Roman Navy never used slave rowers, it used professionals becasue when it comes down to the wire the Romans got gak done, and they knew that weren't happening with slaves pulling the oars, the Phoenicians and Carthaginians did, but never the Roman Navy or the navies of the Greek city states. Nor Persia, Persians never actually had slaves(that being said Phoenicia was one of their satrapies and it as mentioned earlier used them). It wasn't apparently Persia's their thing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Bomb disposalist/Sapper. You're fiddling around with explodey things and sometimes people are trying to shoot you. You lead the way through minefields which are guarded by mchineguns and artillery.



Automatically Appended Next Post:
Japanese soldier WW2
You are expected to die before dishonour. If you are sick or injured that is a personal failing and you will be left to die on the side of the track. Your army expects thousands of soldiers to live off the same piece of land, to augment your inadequate rations. You're likely to get dysentery or poisoned by the food you are eating but its what you have. You're expected to suicide with a grenade before capture so when the enemy does find you they are not in the mood for taking chances with grenade toting Japs.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Comfort girl attached to the Japanese military WW2. Indentured sex worker, as it's indentured I'm counting it as military. Either recruited via coercion or by fake promises of other work. Long hours of work, inadequate rations, and any weakness is a personal failing and it will be punished.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Pyroalchi wrote:
I think what also really sucks were the dudes landing on fortified beaches with the enemy knowing they were coming. D-Day is the most popular example, but I'm sure there were similar situations in the pacific and elsewhere. The same situation for paratroopers when they are dropped somewhere, where there are armed defenders aware of them. I think few things suck more than hanging on a parachute when down below are hundreds of armed enemies seeing you gliding down or sitting in a landing boat when the enemy knows full well where you will be standing at when the ramp drops and he has a machine gun.

While I'd agree I'd also say Omaha is the go to image for a beach landing but it is the exception rather than the norm when it comes to beach landings.
With Omaha Beach you have waves and waves of effectively unsupported infantry(the American LCM crew refused to go closer to shore before unloading their swimming tanks, which promtly were flooded and sank(I guess that is a worst job? US swimming tank crewman 100% chance your vehicle is going to the bottom), leaving the infantry unsupported against 2x machinegun nests. And as I might have said before machineguns are really good for killing unsupported people who are in the open. At Sword and Juno they only landed infantry platoons after landing swimming tanks, specialist tanks(AVRE Churchills!) (to clear the beach of mines, take out stong points and lay down matting) and then sappers. In the Pacific the marines would land the first wave with amphtracks, so you'd have close support, then when the initial beachead was secure they'd start to land tanks to take over the role of supporting the infantry.

 Argive wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:
You know, looking at this thread I'm starting to wonder if we ought to start a thread about what jobs in the military are actually good ones, assuming you don't have the connections to get a REMF position or a stateside cushy job.

Well that would be the cook init

Get as much chow as you want...

By as much chow as you want, you of course mean not able to eat a bite until the entire unit is fed. Also, say goodbye to sleep. I did 17 years infantry, 6 in a line platoon as an M-60 gunner with 11 as a TOW gunner in a Delta company. My deployment got me a nice spine injury which scored me a permanent profile and a reclass, which I chose cook so I could promote easier. I can tell you that I never had an appreciation for what it takes to get food to Joes until I was the one up at 0100 cracking eggs...

And the best part? Spend all that awake time listening to people bitch about every aspect of your food.

I think WWI trench fighter and Vietnam Tunnel rat are in the lead for worst job in this thread.

LordofHats wrote:

 Argive wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:
You know, looking at this thread I'm starting to wonder if we ought to start a thread about what jobs in the military are actually good ones, assuming you don't have the connections to get a REMF position or a stateside cushy job.

Well that would be the cook init

Get as much chow as you want...

UAV operator I'd imagine is pretty baller XD All the fun of a plane with none of the risks. It's basically just flight simulator.

That's until you read about the actual job.

With how unsure they tend to be about targets (they seem to not get a lot of information, mostly just orders to follow and a screen to stare at) a lot of them start to doubt the "video game-iness" that was advertised and end up conflicted about their work. On the other hand they also have moments when they see stuff but can't do anything about it. These conflicting emotions result in a lot of drinking after the job and feeling like you did nothing at all (just pushed some buttons in a tiny dark room) while also feeling like you maybe killed random innocent people and couldn't help others at the same time but you also never get any confirmation about any of these doubts. This uncertainty of it seems to seed all kinds of feeling in quite a bunch of them: Everything from anxiety, to doubts about the job, to full depression, PTSD, and suicidal thoughts.

Some links about this:

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/secret-us-drone-whistleblowers-say-operators-stressed-and-often-abuse-drugs-and-alcohol-rare-insight-programme-a6741021.html

https://www.gq.com/story/drone-uav-pilot-assassination

https://edition.cnn.com/2013/10/23/us/drone-operator-interview/index.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/23/us/drone-pilots-found-to-get-stress-disorders-much-as-those-in-combat-do.html

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5949534/

https://jmvh.org/article/eye-in-the-sky-understanding-the-mental-health-of-unmanned-aerial-vehicle-operators/

Flamethrower soldier, you're extremely conspicuous especially when you fire, the enemy really want to shoot you because otherwise you will burn them to death in their trenches/ bunkers and you've got a great big heavy tank of burny stuff strapped to your back and an ignition source on the front of it in an environ where shrapnel and bullets are flying around. And I imagine any aspects of the job being good for the balance of one's long term mental health.

Theres been a lot of talk about child soldiers here but one of the worst jobs I've ever heard a veteran talk about hasn't been mentioned. Fighting against them. They are still actively trying to kill you and your comrades and need to be dealt with and sadly that usually means having to brutally and horrifically murder them. Forces that use child soldiers also are unfortunately generally forces that do need to be violently opposed nd so it's not the soldiers on the grounds fault. It's just a horrific part of war.

 OldMate wrote:
Flamethrower soldier, you're extremely conspicuous especially when you fire, the enemy really want to shoot you because otherwise you will burn them to death in their trenches/ bunkers and you've got a great big heavy tank of burny stuff strapped to your back and an ignition source on the front of it in an environ where shrapnel and bullets are flying around. And I imagine any aspects of the job being good for the balance of one's long term mental health.

Not to mention that death by fire is pretty horrific to see, and being a flamethrower operator you're close enough to see the results of your work. Seems like a recipe for deep scarring trauma/PTSD.

Mario wrote:

LordofHats wrote:UAV operator I'd imagine is pretty baller XD All the fun of a plane with none of the risks. It's basically just flight simulator.

That's until you read about the actual job.

Yeah, I'll echo this. Physically it's one of the safer jobs as the worst you'll get is RSi - there's cartoons about RPAS operators receiving the purple heart for falling out of their chair.

Psychologically though it's a head kick. When folks are deployed they unwind with their team mates and are in a sympathetic situation to talk through on going issues. RPAS operators who aren't deployed spend all day observing targets, then killing them, then they go home to face their families and deal with the day-to-day without talking about what they just did. It can get screwy.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 ScarletRose wrote:

 OldMate wrote:
Flamethrower soldier, you're extremely conspicuous especially when you fire, the enemy really want to shoot you because otherwise you will burn them to death in their trenches/ bunkers and you've got a great big heavy tank of burny stuff strapped to your back and an ignition source on the front of it in an environ where shrapnel and bullets are flying around. And I imagine any aspects of the job being good for the balance of one's long term mental health.

Not to mention that death by fire is pretty horrific to see, and being a flamethrower operator you're close enough to see the results of your work. Seems like a recipe for deep scarring trauma/PTSD.

Yeah I think it's safe to say it'd probably ruin cooking meat for you.

Also, the poor Marine Infantry forced into the island hopping campaign of WW2.

Almost forgot about all parties involved with the field expedient method of checking to see if a chemical environment is clear...

 Just Tony wrote:
Almost forgot about all parties involved with the field expedient method of checking to see if a chemical environment is clear...

2 man sniff test?

Any ABC combat for infantry and tankers...
It's allready really fething annoying to train with that kind of equipment, actually wearing it propperly and fast enough i don't even want to imagine doing in combat...

 Just Tony wrote:
Almost forgot about all parties involved with the field expedient method of checking to see if a chemical environment is clear...

The poor bastards who literally had the effects of the nuclear explosions tested on them in the Mojave and likely also in the Soviet Union. "Go sit in a fox hole in the middle of the desert, don't forget your welding goggles and sunscreen. Something's going to happen, you'll know it when you see it."

 Gitzbitah wrote:

JWBS wrote:

It wasn't "Better working conditions" in the Mongol army - almost all infractions resulted in capital punishment. It wasn't democratic. Most cities that surrendered to the Mongols could reasonably expect wholesale slaughter of the population as their reward for compliance. The two systems, if what you say about piracy in the Caribbean is accurate, were not remarkably similar.

That is very interesting! My understanding of Mongolian warfare had always been that cities that resisted were annihilated, but that those that surrendered immediately were mostly spared. Sometimes local leaders killed, army dissolved, the looting and pillaging typical of soldiers in an enemy city at the time... but that life in the Mongolian empire was actually quite mild. Local customs and laws were preserved, and you could practice your religion freely. Certainly, their punishments of soldiers, and probably all sorts were incredibly harsh by our standards- but compared to cultures of the time, it was not a bad place to be in. Do you happen to recall what cities were destroyed that surrendered without resistance? I haven't read much about Mongolian treachery with their peace terms.

I might have been a bit hasty there actually. From what I remember, there were loads of massacres of surrendered cities even after leniency had been promised, especially from Subutai, but now I've checked I can only find a few (eg Moscow 1382 and Bukharra 1220).

/Edit - ok I read a little more, it seems they would repeatedly renege on promises to spare the populations that gave up after a fight (Toloui's siege of Merv, Genghis at Samarkand, some others), I think I just misremembered this as a routine annihilation of surrendered people, which isn't quite correct.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
Almost forgot about all parties involved with the field expedient method of checking to see if a chemical environment is clear...

2 man sniff test?

You take the least important soldier, not necessarily the lowest ranking, and ask to see his weapon. Once you have it, two other soldiers draw their weapon on the "volunteer" as you make them break the seal of their mask and take 5 deep breaths and watch them for symptoms after they mask back up.

Better pick a dumb one, lest they ask "or else what?"

If this ever happened I'd choose a lieutenant

Talk about incentive to not be the least useful soldier!

 Argive wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:
You know, looking at this thread I'm starting to wonder if we ought to start a thread about what jobs in the military are actually good ones, assuming you don't have the connections to get a REMF position or a stateside cushy job.

Well that would be the cook init

Get as much chow as you want...

Depends. In the USMC the Cooks used to be used on a regular basis as replacement infantry. In the Korean War, a Chinese unit attacked straight into a field kitchen belonging to the 1st Marine division. The resulting fight saw the chinese losing about 10-15 men for every Marine who fell. There is a reason Marines train everyone to fight before teaching them their MOS.

Don't threaten a chef's ingredients.

JWBS wrote:
Storming the Theodosian walls was notoriously pointless (though attempted on many occasions). I can imagine it must have been quite disheartening to get across the moat, over the low wall and beyond the outer wall only to find yourself in another kill zone in front of the inner wall. It took the invention of the world's largest cannon by the Turks to eventually get into Constantinople.

4th Crusade didn’t need no stinking cannons!

There's been some talk about chemical weapons. When they first widely used in WW1, effective defenses and treatments were. of course, an urgent priority. There are stories of many British scientists, in particular, exposing themselves to the agents, to see if the countermeasure, treatment, or equipment they were working on was effective. Literally gambling with their own health and lives to develop protective measures for the frontline soldiers.

 nels1031 wrote:

JWBS wrote:
Storming the Theodosian walls was notoriously pointless (though attempted on many occasions). I can imagine it must have been quite disheartening to get across the moat, over the low wall and beyond the outer wall only to find yourself in another kill zone in front of the inner wall. It took the invention of the world's largest cannon by the Turks to eventually get into Constantinople.

4th Crusade didn’t need no stinking cannons!

Just on a side note is there anything that the Venetians didn't do to undermine the defennce of the holy land? I mean they did also sell prime weapons ( trebuchet) grade timber to Egypt.

I guess the worst military job is the one the person you are talking to has.....

 Easy E wrote:
I guess the worst military job is the one the person you are talking to has.....

Happy VD, keep your head down.

 Just Tony wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
Almost forgot about all parties involved with the field expedient method of checking to see if a chemical environment is clear...

2 man sniff test?

You take the least important soldier, not necessarily the lowest ranking, and ask to see his weapon. Once you have it, two other soldiers draw their weapon on the "volunteer" as you make them break the seal of their mask and take 5 deep breaths and watch them for symptoms after they mask back up.

So if the 'volunteer' refuses to take his mask off, what? You have the other soldiers murder him?

 Matt Swain wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
Almost forgot about all parties involved with the field expedient method of checking to see if a chemical environment is clear...

2 man sniff test?

You take the least important soldier, not necessarily the lowest ranking, and ask to see his weapon. Once you have it, two other soldiers draw their weapon on the "volunteer" as you make them break the seal of their mask and take 5 deep breaths and watch them for symptoms after they mask back up.

So if the 'volunteer' refuses to take his mask off, what? You have the other soldiers murder him?

Most soldiers would risk the gas before risking the bullet, but since you are getting touchy about this scenario already, this would only happen if a unit had been gassed, it had been a long time since the attack, you couldn't simply leave the area, AND you have absolutely no testing equipment.

For the record though, I would simply not ask about scenarios where soldiers would shoot another soldier, I don't think you could handle the answer.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, simply ripping his mask off is totally a thing. You ARE operating under a reasonable assumption that the area is already clear.

 Just Tony wrote:

 Matt Swain wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:

 Just Tony wrote:
Almost forgot about all parties involved with the field expedient method of checking to see if a chemical environment is clear...

2 man sniff test?

You take the least important soldier, not necessarily the lowest ranking, and ask to see his weapon. Once you have it, two other soldiers draw their weapon on the "volunteer" as you make them break the seal of their mask and take 5 deep breaths and watch them for symptoms after they mask back up.

So if the 'volunteer' refuses to take his mask off, what? You have the other soldiers murder him?

Most soldiers would risk the gas before risking the bullet, but since you are getting touchy about this scenario already, this would only happen if a unit had been gassed, it had been a long time since the attack, you couldn't simply leave the area, AND you have absolutely no testing equipment.

For the record though, I would simply not ask about scenarios where soldiers would shoot another soldier, I don't think you could handle the answer.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, simply ripping his mask off is totally a thing. You ARE operating under a reasonable assumption that the area is already clear.

That's a bit nuts. The 2 man sniff test is an actual thing we do, followed by individual sniff tests.

 trexmeyer wrote:

 Easy E wrote:
I guess the worst military job is the one the person you are talking to has.....

Happy VD, keep your head down.

Happy Veteran's Day!

Thanks to all who have served, past, present, and future.

Happy Vet's Day, for those who can't have one, or who limp while they do.

Oh, how about Medieval Sapper? Responsible for undermining castle walls.

I’m not exactly claustrophobic myself, but stuff that for a job!

Just thought of another one that, while normally its something you learn to do while working on quals on the boat, I never had the pleasure of doing because I was too big. Submarines, like RVs (or caravans I think you guys across the pond call them), have black water tanks for toilet waste. Occasionally these have to undergo a deeper cleaning to knock the "solids" off the walls and such and to do this someone actually has to go into the tank in a hazmat suit and scrape/power wash everything down.

Glad I never got to do it because overall it looked like a pretty crappy job...

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Oh, how about Medieval Sapper? Responsible for undermining castle walls.

I’m not exactly claustrophobic myself, but stuff that for a job!

I don't think its too bad.. You're mainly just digging pretty safe unless the enemy is counter sapping. Withour explosives its probably a safeish detail.
Better than being the poor sod carrying a battering ram up to the gate while having every manner of projectile thrown at you from stones to boiling oil..

Medic. . . .

We keep devising new and inventive ways of destroying each other, and they have to keep stitching up the poor sods who survive it.

And, 80% of their job is simply looking at penises all day. Sure, they all join with lofty ambitions of saving gunshot wounds and amputees, but reality is, most of their job is dealing with venereal diseases.

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:
Medic. . . .

We keep devising new and inventive ways of destroying each other, and they have to keep stitching up the poor sods who survive it.

And, 80% of their job is simply looking at penises all day. Sure, they all join with lofty ambitions of saving gunshot wounds and amputees, but reality is, most of their job is dealing with venereal diseases.

I swear half of the dialogue from the Doc's mouth in Vietnam films is about crotch rot.

Regarding wounds. Small-arms fire isn't the worst thing in the world, but explosives (IEDs) are a whole other story. I can't imagine trying to comfort and tend to someone who just had their legs blown off or took shrapnel to the gut. Yeah, the modern day death toll is lower, but that's only because we can now keep people alive that have suffered terrifying injuries.

This is very dark... But who has the job of cleaning/colelcting the remains off walls/surrounding area of a soldier who just got blown up by a mine/ied/missle and putting it all into one box?

Do they have external contractors doing this or medics/l troopers?? (like they do in UK once forensics are done at gruesome murders) or do you get the short straw? I cant think of a worse detail if you're just an army grunt...

My SDI told us a story about a Marine that committed suicide while he was on duty (basically guard duty for the barracks, not sure how to describe it better) and I'm pretty sure they cleaned it up themselves.

If you're out in the field and say, someone in the humvee takes a round but it's still serviceable there's really no one else to clean it up. An IED would most likely render the vehicle totaled.

 trexmeyer wrote:
My SDI told us a story about a Marine that committed suicide while he was on duty (basically guard duty for the barracks, not sure how to describe it better) and I'm pretty sure they cleaned it up themselves.

If you're out in the field and say, someone in the humvee takes a round but it's still serviceable there's really no one else to clean it up. An IED would most likely render the vehicle totaled.

I meant more if you are in like a peacekeeping/training detail so more likely to be due to accident/suicide than being in hostile territory.

 Argive wrote:
This is very dark... But who has the job of cleaning/colelcting the remains off walls/surrounding area of a soldier who just got blown up by a mine/ied/missle and putting it all into one box?

Do they have external contractors doing this or medics/l troopers?? (like they do in UK once forensics are done at gruesome murders) or do you get the short straw? I cant think of a worse detail if you're just an army grunt...

I was voluntold for this duty my 2nd tour in Iraq. . . Thankfully, never got the call to do it (there were, apparently, always better equiped and stationed battalions closer to any incidents, and, my battalions MA team was more of a "check the box" kind of thing), but it isn't really a military "job" per se, but rather an additional duty to your other jobs, similar to being on a UAV DART (downed aircraft rescue team), where you have your normal duties, but should an incident happen, be called away from whatever else you have to go do this high priority thing.

 Argive wrote:
This is very dark... But who has the job of cleaning/colelcting the remains off walls/surrounding area of a soldier who just got blown up by a mine/ied/missle and putting it all into one box?

Do they have external contractors doing this or medics/l troopers?? (like they do in UK once forensics are done at gruesome murders) or do you get the short straw? I cant think of a worse detail if you're just an army grunt...

The guys whose job it was to clear the body parts out of salvageable tanks and wrecks during WW2(well any war but few have had the same scale). I think in the British army it was still the responsibility of the tank unit(therefore the comrades of the now desceased inside the vehicles). Read this account where the chaplain decided that it was his duty to spare the men at least that much and would use a machete should the body not fit through the hatch as it was found. I don't doubt the credibility of the account because it was a direct account in a very well researched tank, but one has to wonder how effectively you can use a machete inside a tank. Then again if you sharpen it up enough drawing cuts would work alright. I digress. On bad day you might have to work through any number (if your a chaplain maybe your'e servicing a company so that is potentically a lot)of vehicles each with their own private hell inside them. tank fires, solid shot punching straight through, explosions inside. Not the nicest working environment.

Soldiers on corpse collection duty as well. I read a Russian account of Chechnya and the first job the author was given when he deployed along with the other new guys was to recover bodies which during some of the fighting had sat for a considerable amount of time and were apparently filled with dirty great rats that had been obviously feasting on the dead. They were apparently quite aggressive and unafraid of people.

In some ancient militaries,it was common to cut off the junks of enemy soldiers and bring thousands of them back in triumph.

Yeah, cutting off dozens, scores, hundreds or more guy's junk and bringing back a huge pile of them thru desert heat.... That might make an ork vomit.

 Matt Swain wrote:
In some ancient militaries,it was common to cut off the junks of enemy soldiers and bring thousands of them back in triumph.

Yeah, cutting off dozens, scores, hundreds or more guy's junk and bringing back a huge pile of them thru desert heat.... That might make an ork vomit.

That's why Samson only took the foreskins. Less to carry back.

I think heads are the most common and seem to be a thing amongst difefrent cultures and time periods. Especially with long hair. Ties around a belt and or saddle of your warhorse very easily

Also works more effectively for both sexes.

The comon thing as well, was to defile the hated fallen in many cultures. I.E. Remove their eyes, ears, genitals and noses posthumously so that they are shamed in the afterflife...

Good ol days eh

 Argive wrote:
The comon thing as well, was to defile the hated fallen in many cultures. I.E. Remove their eyes, ears, genitals and noses posthumously so that they are shamed in the afterflife...

Good ol days eh

Seal Team 6 (may have been a different team...) was recently under fire after reports of them canoeing enemy corpses came out. Defilement isn't completely gone.

 trexmeyer wrote:

 Argive wrote:
The comon thing as well, was to defile the hated fallen in many cultures. I.E. Remove their eyes, ears, genitals and noses posthumously so that they are shamed in the afterflife...

Good ol days eh

Seal Team 6 (may have been a different team...) was recently under fire after reports of them canoeing enemy corpses came out. Defilement isn't completely gone.

"War never changes"

 trexmeyer wrote:

 Argive wrote:
The comon thing as well, was to defile the hated fallen in many cultures. I.E. Remove their eyes, ears, genitals and noses posthumously so that they are shamed in the afterflife...

Good ol days eh

Seal Team 6 (may have been a different team...) was recently under fire after reports of them canoeing enemy corpses came out. Defilement isn't completely gone.

It was one of those problems the US military had during WWII and the island campaigns. The military got nervous when reports of Marines taking trophies from bodies. Knuckle bones I think were the popular ones, but the practice existed in the Army and Navy too, and one famous case was published as the picture of the week by Life Magazine in 1944: Nothing says I love you like the skull of a dead Japanese soldier, I guess? The military tried to crack down hard on the practice for fear it would damage the war effort. Some troops just took the crackdown as a sign to be less open about what they were doing though. We still find trophy skulls and bones from time to time in the US and have agreements with Japan for repatriating remains found on US soil because of it XD

 Argive wrote:

 trexmeyer wrote:

 Argive wrote:
The comon thing as well, was to defile the hated fallen in many cultures. I.E. Remove their eyes, ears, genitals and noses posthumously so that they are shamed in the afterflife...

Good ol days eh

Seal Team 6 (may have been a different team...) was recently under fire after reports of them canoeing enemy corpses came out. Defilement isn't completely gone.

"War never changes"

A pair of seals were under investigation for allegedly suffocating to death a green beret when deployed in Africa, apparently it was a 'prank gone wrong' although it was also alleged that they were planing to sexually assault him, so I think the definition of prank here is pretty generous. But that's not a great way to go.

 LordofHats wrote:

 trexmeyer wrote:

 Argive wrote:
The comon thing as well, was to defile the hated fallen in many cultures. I.E. Remove their eyes, ears, genitals and noses posthumously so that they are shamed in the afterflife...

Good ol days eh

Seal Team 6 (may have been a different team...) was recently under fire after reports of them canoeing enemy corpses came out. Defilement isn't completely gone.

It was one of those problems the US military had during WWII and the island campaigns. The military got nervous when reports of Marines taking trophies from bodies. Knuckle bones I think were the popular ones, but the practice existed in the Army and Navy too, and one famous case was published as the picture of the week by Life Magazine in 1944: Nothing says I love you like the skull of a dead Japanese soldier, I guess? The military tried to crack down hard on the practice for fear it would damage the war effort. Some troops just took the crackdown as a sign to be less open about what they were doing though. We still find trophy skulls and bones from time to time in the US and have agreements with Japan for repatriating remains found on US soil because of it XD

I was familiar with most incidents, but that Life Magazine one. What the hell? I can almost comprehend a Marine (or anyone who has seen sustained combat against a fanatical enemy) taking physical trophies or desecrating corpses. Particularly when said enemy is already doing it to you. How does that photo get taken for a civilian magazine and released? That's psychotic.

 Argive wrote:

 trexmeyer wrote:

 Argive wrote:
The comon thing as well, was to defile the hated fallen in many cultures. I.E. Remove their eyes, ears, genitals and noses posthumously so that they are shamed in the afterflife...

Good ol days eh

Seal Team 6 (may have been a different team...) was recently under fire after reports of them canoeing enemy corpses came out. Defilement isn't completely gone.

"War never changes"

Apparently in the Falklands War ears were taken as trophies.

 trexmeyer wrote:

 LordofHats wrote:

 trexmeyer wrote:

 Argive wrote:
The comon thing as well, was to defile the hated fallen in many cultures. I.E. Remove their eyes, ears, genitals and noses posthumously so that they are shamed in the afterflife...

Good ol days eh

Seal Team 6 (may have been a different team...) was recently under fire after reports of them canoeing enemy corpses came out. Defilement isn't completely gone.

It was one of those problems the US military had during WWII and the island campaigns. The military got nervous when reports of Marines taking trophies from bodies. Knuckle bones I think were the popular ones, but the practice existed in the Army and Navy too, and one famous case was published as the picture of the week by Life Magazine in 1944: Nothing says I love you like the skull of a dead Japanese soldier, I guess? The military tried to crack down hard on the practice for fear it would damage the war effort. Some troops just took the crackdown as a sign to be less open about what they were doing though. We still find trophy skulls and bones from time to time in the US and have agreements with Japan for repatriating remains found on US soil because of it XD

I was familiar with most incidents, but that Life Magazine one. What the hell? I can almost comprehend a Marine (or anyone who has seen sustained combat against a fanatical enemy) taking physical trophies or desecrating corpses. Particularly when said enemy is already doing it to you. How does that photo get taken for a civilian magazine and released? That's psychotic.

Here's the story, offensive language common in ww2.

https://time.com/3880997/young-women-with-jap-skull-portrait-of-a-grisly-wwii-memento/

As for atrocities, yes they happen on both sides. I like to think that in ww2 my grandfather's side wasn't the worst one. He was in the USN on a DE. While people may be put off by what some americans did in ww2, and yes there were atrocities committed by american forces, the japanese committed far more and far worse. The rape of nanking, the mass kidnapping and rape of thousands of korean women and young girls, the use of biological weapons in china, the list goes on.

American atrocities were never a matter of official policy as the ones committed by japanese, German and russian forces during and after ww2 were. The japanese did throw chinese babies in the air and impale them on bayonets as they fell, they did commit mass murder beheadings as recreation, etc. German atrocities are well known, and russia made mass rape a police in occupied germany.

If we were to have a list of war crimes and atrocities, i'd like to believe, and can honestly say i do believe, that america in the 20th century would rank fairly low compared to some other nations, and that in many cases our atrocities were a reaction to acts committed by the enemy whereas many of the atrocities committed by the axis in ww2 were based on racial hate.

In some ways i can, maybe hypocritically, excuse some american actions that were technically warcrimes. There was the incident at the nazi death camps where US soldiers more or less summarily executed a disputed number of nazi prisoners after seeing the full horror of the death camps and asking survivors who was responsible for the piles of mass starved bodies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dachau_liberation_reprisals

Their actions may have been legally wrong, but given the circumstances i can be forgiving.

Our invasion and robbery of iraq was nothing but a colossal warcrime, i admit.

In general war itself is an atrocity. Crack open any history book written for adults and you'll find litanies of real horrors GW would never let anyone write about in an official wh40k novel.

Those are my opinions and nothing more.