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So, you gave a 4 sentence insult instead of a 1 sentence one. Again, adding nothing to the discussion which was, initially, about the Iraqi retaking (lol) of Fallujah, but which has since morphed into the far more interesting topic of how military history can be twisted, and just how far it can be twisted (and what variables affect that; age, technological advances, tactics changes) before it ceases to be necessary, or even remotely useful. I'm sure if you two laid off you could get a great discussion going about the weaknesses of using certain sources as opposed to others, and try and nut out which engagements have lost relevance and which haven't.

Or you can keep sniping at each other.

One will get this thread locked sooner rather than later, and one won't. Choose.

I'd say Jutland is out, though there are a few lessons from that still viable. Based on current naval doctrines though, I'd say the operations with the most baring, as far as surface fleets go, are close to shore engagements. There's been a general move away from fleet engagements on the open ocean in favor of littoral actions.

 motyak wrote:
Both CptJake and I actually explained our problems with this point. I know you were expanding upon your problems earlier, but a one line response isn't going to help with the discussion. Baron has admitted that instruction without accounting for advancements in technology and tactics is a problem, what did your post do but drag it back to the slap fight you two had going?

I don't feel there's a lot of discussion to be had with someone who's concluded he knows everything relevant about how officers are trained in the modern military because he read a book whose title he can't remember that he believes is handed out in the Navy.

I've explained several times now why his driving point simply has no basis in reality. An advancement system structured the way he believes it's structured simply wouldn't be sustainable, and moreover wouldn't account for the overwhelming majority of officers who are actually competent at their jobs. There are simply too many checks in place to prevent guys who can't hack it from advancing for it to be the rule rather than the exception. If anything, it's gotten more results-driven.

You see, there are specific examples that agree with that. I knew a Leftenant (admitedly not a high rank, thank god in this case), who was training riflemen at Singo (our Infantry Training Centre), who had injured himself cooking off a grenade and been shafted from a deployment because of it. Was he a good officer? No. Did he advance once and was he on the cusp of another advancement within a year? Yes. Bad officers rise in every nation's armed forces, Baron may have only had experience with/known the worst of them. And that's all that really needs to be explained, for him to understand that across the armed forces of different nations, and across the different arms of those forces, the rule is that advancement is based on competency, and it is only the vocal and media-set-upon minority who are advanced because of other reasons. There is no real joy gained from recounting 'we had this really switched major/colonel/whatever, who knew his gak and did everything right', and a lot of lulz to be had from 'we had this absolute gak fight of a 'insert rank here' who failed all around the place and still got promoted'.

 motyak wrote:
You see, there are specific examples that agree with that. I knew a Leftenant (admitedly not a high rank, thank god in this case), who was training riflemen at Singo (our Infantry Training Centre), who had injured himself cooking off a grenade and been shafted from a deployment because of it. Was he a good officer? No. Did he advance once and was he on the cusp of another advancement within a year? Yes. Bad officers rise in every nation's armed forces, Baron may have only had experience with/known the worst of them. And that's all that really needs to be explained, for him to understand that across the armed forces of different nations, and across the different arms of those forces, the rule is that advancement is based on competency, and it is only the vocal and media-set-upon minority who are advanced because of other reasons.

JOs normally go up unless absolute disaster strikes. That's the way it goes. I'll bet he didn't make O-6.

 Seaward wrote:

 motyak wrote:
You see, there are specific examples that agree with that. I knew a Leftenant (admitedly not a high rank, thank god in this case), who was training riflemen at Singo (our Infantry Training Centre), who had injured himself cooking off a grenade and been shafted from a deployment because of it. Was he a good officer? No. Did he advance once and was he on the cusp of another advancement within a year? Yes. Bad officers rise in every nation's armed forces, Baron may have only had experience with/known the worst of them. And that's all that really needs to be explained, for him to understand that across the armed forces of different nations, and across the different arms of those forces, the rule is that advancement is based on competency, and it is only the vocal and media-set-upon minority who are advanced because of other reasons.

JOs normally go up unless absolute disaster strikes. That's the way it goes. I'll bet he didn't make O-6.

No, he was on the cusp of major, not colonel. I was agreeing with you by and large, by the way. But major isn't exactly an insignificant rank, it is a middling rank.

 motyak wrote:
No, he was on the cusp of major, not colonel. I was agreeing with you by and large, by the way. But major isn't exactly an insignificant rank, it is a middling rank.

Yeah. If he was a rising major, at least in ours, he'd still have to really screw the pooch to not get the oak leaf. I'm pretty sure it's like 85% that go through at eligibility.

Your military is quite a bit different to ours, true. I think because of the size differences, if you scale everything down by 1 or 2 ranks you have it about right

Man. That's cutthroat.

 motyak wrote:
Your military is quite a bit different to ours, true. I think because of the size differences, if you scale everything down by 1 or 2 ranks you have it about right

My understanding is that, your military has few officers per enlisted man, as well, or am I wrong about that?

 BaronIveagh wrote:

 motyak wrote:
Your military is quite a bit different to ours, true. I think because of the size differences, if you scale everything down by 1 or 2 ranks you have it about right

My understanding is that, your military has few officers per enlisted man, as well, or am I wrong about that?

We have fewer than you, in terms of both NCOs and actual officers. At least that is my understanding. We had (until recent reorginatizations) a section, which had one lancejack, a full track, a sergeant and a leftenant, and 4 of them make up a platoon, although all that did change recently, but not too much in terms of changing the number of officers. The change didn't really affect the ratio of platoons to company, or companies to battalions. And we only really have one Regiment (the greatest in the world ) so yeah, it is a lot smaller than your army.

^The above is from an incredibly biased infantry view, and probably not too relevant for the other branches/corps.

*edit* I probably shouldn't post real names.

Could someone change the title to this thread to:

My dick is bigger than yours?

Then you guys can argue all you want instead of hijacking the topic.

 26FireGuy0369 wrote:
Could someone change the title to this thread to:

My dick is bigger than yours?

Then you guys can argue all you want instead of hijacking the topic.

Shut up and whip it out, or get out.

 BaronIveagh wrote:


Chaos, you're probably not wrong, but what allows that to happen is a system of promotions that is blind to merit. It's much easier to play the system in favor of Person A over Person B, if you don't have to factor in, say, Person B having a history of distinction where Person A does not.

Well, I can't speak for the other branches, but in the case of the AF I would disagree. The AF promotion system is based on performance reviews on a standardized form, I'm not going to go into too much detail as to what goes onto that form, all you need to know is that it requires very specific language (seriously, even though its all written in typical english, the wording used, even though it might appear to be a positive statement could very well be a negative statement that can end an officers career) and everything needs to be over-hyped to the max if you want to look good for a promotion board. Because of the nature of this, the Air Force has adopted the view that 'merit' has somehow equated to non-performance based criteria, such as community service hours, etc. rather than what you actually do in your job. Besides that, when the AF hands out distinguished service medals for processing paychecks for deployed troops, 'merit' is no longer a valid metric for determining a promotion.

I assure you, the enlisted performance system is far worse.

Let me put it this way: he screwed up one day and almost caused WW3. (Or at least, so he says. I'm not sure I buy it, but he retired early. This may be a 'There I was' story, but having seen him screw up other projects, I have no problem believing he sent a nuke on the wrong plane one day)

I can almost guarantee it was a 'no gak, there I was' type story. The military is chock full of them, especially the Air Force/the military aviation community as a whole.

BTW: Seaward, if what he said happened was fantasy, please explain Barksdale. Or do you think that was the only time in history the USAF has ever made that sort of mistake?

I'm reasonably certain it wasn't, doesn't mean your uncle wasn't telling a tall tale. Barksdale, btw, most certainly did not almost result in WW3, unless there is a tinfoil hat conspiracy involved that I am completely unaware of.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Besides that, when the AF hands out distinguished service medals for processing paychecks for deployed troops, 'merit' is no longer a valid metric for determining a promotion.

In that context I can agree with that. And personally think that's fething insane. That's right up there with the 'Distinguished Warfare' Medal being higher than the Bronze Star level of crazy.

 BaronIveagh wrote:

chaos0xomega wrote:
Besides that, when the AF hands out distinguished service medals for processing paychecks for deployed troops, 'merit' is no longer a valid metric for determining a promotion.

In that context I can agree with that. And personally think that's fething insane. That's right up there with the 'Distinguished Warfare' Medal being higher than the Bronze Star level of crazy.

The Air Force has not handed out any "Distinguished Service Crosses" to finance personnel. What you are thinking of was an E-6 who ran the finance operations of 8 separate bases in a warzone, and was recognized for her extraordinary actions with a Bronze Star (without Valor). Quite frankly, she earned it, and people who attack her over it generally do so because they have no clue why she was awarded the medal. The Air Force does not just hand out medals for deployments. If that was the case, I'd actually have one today, instead of having been denied on every one my leadership has put me in for.

How dare you use facts to bust up a good rant.

 djones520 wrote:

Shut up and whip it out, or get out.

Ok, How about this.

In a thread about Marines in Falluja, what the hell does Air Force medals for pogues have to do with anything? Or the Battle of Leyte Gulf? Or Officer promotion in general?

If you want to argue about any of those go for it, but honestly does it belong in this thread?

Oh and feel free to insert something aggressive and tough sounding here to go along with your comment.

 26FireGuy0369 wrote:

 djones520 wrote:

Shut up and whip it out, or get out.

Ok, How about this.

In a thread about Marines in Falluja, what the hell does Air Force medals for pogues have to do with anything? Or the Battle of Leyte Gulf? Or Officer promotion in general?

If you want to argue about any of those go for it, but honestly does it belong in this thread?

Oh and feel free to insert something aggressive and tough sounding here to go along with your comment.

I guess my overly sarcastic comment wasn't sarcastic enough for some.

My Bad. I will go be overly defensive about anything Marine Corps related over here in the corner with my Dumb Ass Hat on.

Had to give you an Exult DJ...that cracked me the hell up

 26FireGuy0369 wrote:
My Bad. I will go be overly defensive about anything Marine Corps related over here in the corner with my Dumb Ass Hat on.

The Corps seems to be relatively free of this sort of infraction at the officer level. Which is nice to know that someone is still in the business of waging war, rather than selling a product to Congress.. Off the top of my head, I can only think of one incident a few years ago where a staff Sergent and a friend of his took about 150k in bribes while contracting officer at Camp Fallujah, and got caught trying to get the money back into the US. The only other case I can think of was the one announced yesterday against several men from DLA attached to MCLB Albany, but afaik no Marines have been charged in relation to that.

"ohh, I'm good at Call of Duty, so I'd make a great soldier"

I have run into some of those, they usually aren't the anti government crowd their usually the wannabe types.

And I really don't know/get where the hell you're getting this gak from.... If you've really been around the "subculture" that exists around military bases, then you'll know how soldiers drive on a daily basis, which should alone destroy this notion that "everything that risks the lives of solders is evil". Combine that with many soldiers' love of "Adult Beverages" and other activities, and you should be getting a very different view of the people who serve the country. and their view on risks.

I'm criticized for making assumptions yet huge assumptions are made about me when in reality you don't even know if I'm an American or not, whether my family is a military family or not, or if I've been in the military. I somewhat resent the idea that my statements are motivated by spite or some sort of cathartic release. Their made from experience.

I hate to give an example and bore people but sense my credentials seem to be on the line. I got mixed up with an argument with a friend of a friend. This is in college and this army guy hated that he had to read Curt Vonnegut's Slaughter House Five. For those of you who don't know its a sappy anti war novel by a disillusioned American Veteran. He hated it and didn't think he should have to read it. I get not likening the book because I didn't but it was amazing the anger he had over it, then he went on a murderous rant about kids deserving to die, I told him he was pretty f@cked up. He turned his fist into balls and I could tell he was contemplating an uppercut fist to my chin, and so would faced on giving vaguely intimidating looks to each other. Another example of how this college in question treats its veterans, apparently the head of student veterans thinks that professors need to be brought in line and give up their anti war stances(its only in the social science department where their are lots of anti war types for some reason the econ dept. people love American foreign policy. One of his colleages that I've known for quite some time doesn't think much of this made up controversy and has feelings pretty similar to mine.

Also about the wikileaks video and public reaction. If what happened is right then their should be no complaints about the video, the people involved should go on TV and say they stand by what they did. Also I don't buy the idea that wikileaks manipulated the video, they slimmed it down so that people with busy days would see it and so it could be shown on TV even though it wasn't. I've seen both videos and slimming it down doesn't change much.

Back to the main topic I don't believe that Fallujah is in anyway like Vietnam. During the Vietnam war the United States faced an ideological opponent. Now the US faces opponents motivated by thing such as tribe(like the Punjab), religion(Al Qaeda), and money(Russia and China). If you want a parallel to the US in Iraq look the British in India, the Sunni Muslims are Sunni Muslims the Shia are the Hindus, and the former outcast the Kurds are like the Sheik's(I know I misspelled that). We have no draft like the English yet like them our military is draining the economy.

If you want to understand the zealousness in how to the US goes after Wikileaks its because people like Assange are some of the few ideological enemies of the US, people who could potentially draw sympathy from the US population something that neither Putin nor China will likely do.

Also about the wikileaks video and public reaction. If what happened is right then their should be no complaints about the video, the people involved should go on TV and say they stand by what they did. Also I don't buy the idea that wikileaks manipulated the video, they slimmed it down so that people with busy days would see it and so it could be shown on TV even though it wasn't. I've seen both videos and slimming it down doesn't change much.

I strongly suggest you look up the 15-6 investigations and look through the still photos taken from the gun film and from the site (to include from the insurgent's camera) because unless you know what you are looking for and at you will miss some things in the video. The RPGs and rifles are pretty darned clear, the reporters showing the accompanying insurgents photos of the US patrol are pretty clear, as are the photos they took of the US patrol gotten from their camera. Coupled with the knowledge that insurgents routinely film and photograph their engagements for a variety of reasons to include recruiting/fund raising and 'lessons learned', the presence of a camera with a group of clearly armed men engaging or preparing to engage a US patrol does not invalidate the target at all. If you REALLY saw the whole thing in context there is zero doubt it was a righteous engagement on the part of the Apache crews.

 CptJake wrote:

I strongly suggest you look up the 15-6 investigations and look through the still photos taken from the gun film and from the site (to include from the insurgent's camera) because unless you know what you are looking for and at you will miss some things in the video. The RPGs and rifles are pretty darned clear, the reporters showing the accompanying insurgents photos of the US patrol are pretty clear, as are the photos they took of the US patrol gotten from their camera. Coupled with the knowledge that insurgents routinely film and photograph their engagements for a variety of reasons to include recruiting/fund raising and 'lessons learned', the presence of a camera with a group of clearly armed men engaging or preparing to engage a US patrol does not invalidate the target at all. If you REALLY saw the whole thing in context there is zero doubt it was a righteous engagement on the part of the Apache crews.

The initial opening fire I'm inclined to agree, that under the circumstances they would have appeared a threat to American troops (the size of the display Apache pilots have would have made their press tags, which are also visible, difficult to make out, and neither one is wearing the common 'Press' identifying jackets/body armor). The second action with the van I find more questionable. The recording and the UP AR 15-6 report appear to directly contradict each other in places re the second action. In the recording we hear orders given that the children are to be handed over to Iraqi Police (whose own report is missing) rather than evaced to FOB Loyalty, which is the reverse of what the report claims. The other issue is, unlike in the first example, the men are clearly unarmed and evacuating wounded. The pilot knows that the man they're picking up is wounded, not dead, he's been watching him hoping he'd pick up a gun so he can kill him. He makes this quite clear in the recording. But he tells command they were picking up bodies and weapons, and repeatedly requests permission to open fire. US troops were already now closing on the position. No one left is in a position to resist, or even visibly armed. While since the vehicle is not a marked ambulance, this is still clearly casevac.

There is no 'second action'. It is all part of one action. Insurgents had been being transported around in civilian vehicles, the presence of a civilian vehicle picking up wounded insurgents doesn't invalidate the target. 'No one left' able to resist is not something you decide unless they are all dead. Not 'visibly armed' also makes no real difference. A guy with nothing but a cell phone on his person can cause a lot of damage. Why allow your grunts to accept the risk of moving onto a kill zone that may indeed end up having guys able to resist on it when you can ensure there are no threats by blowing them away? Frankly it isn't even a hard call.

But, none of this is relevant to the fact that Wikileaks DID edit the video and present it in such a way as to portray the engagement as 'murder'. That really is not questionable, and that is the point of my above post.

Your lack of combat experience is showing Baron..

 CptJake wrote:
There is no 'second action'. It is all part of one action. Insurgents had been being transported around in civilian vehicles, the presence of a civilian vehicle picking up wounded insurgents doesn't invalidate the target. 'No one left' able to resist is not something you decide unless they are all dead. Not 'visibly armed' also makes no real difference. A guy with nothing but a cell phone on his person can cause a lot of damage. Why allow your grunts to accept the risk of moving onto a kill zone that may indeed end up having guys able to resist on it when you can ensure there are no threats by blowing them away? Frankly it isn't even a hard call.

But, none of this is relevant to the fact that Wikileaks DID edit the video and present it in such a way as to portray the engagement as 'murder'. That really is not questionable, and that is the point of my above post.

I agree with you about Wikileaks and misrepresenting it.

There was a few min or time between the shooting and the van arriving on the unedited tape, so I tend to think of them was two separate things.

As far as granting no quarter or killing everyone to be sure...

Hague, 1907

"Article 23: In addition to the prohibitions provided by special Conventions, it is especially forbidden -
...
To kill or wound an enemy who, having laid down his arms, or having no longer means of defence, has surrendered at discretion;

To declare that no quarter will be given; "

Further, the wounded, civilian or otherwise, are protected under the Geneva conventions.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Jihadin wrote:
Your lack of combat experience is showing Baron..

I'm aware that gak happens. I even fully understand the reason a mistake like that can be made.

The Colombians used to go out, and come back having killed dozens and dozens, all FARC. Until someone went out there and saw what they actually did. They'd find a gun, hell, everyone had guns, and so there was FARC there. Someone was FARC. They had no idea which one it was, so the only way to make it safe was kill everyone. Men, women, kids. So they were all FARC, and all dead, and it made great news. Great front page stuff, Army kills dozens of terrorists.

I've seen where this goes. It's a really slippery slope, shooting people because you suspect they might be unarmed sympathizers, or an unseen threat. Medina did that. He ordered his men to kill anyone they suspected. Look what it got, 500 dead civvies.

As I said, I understand shooting everyone that looked armed. I get that. That's unfortunate, but understandable. I've watched the uncut footage. This guy was more than a little keyed up, and wanted to shoot people. You might say 'Your inexperience is showing' but frankly, if I had a guy that eager to kill, I would not be able to trust his judgment on if a target was hostile or not. Because he's gonna be seeing hostiles everywhere. In the middle of a firefight, that's understandable. In a chopper, looking through a scope? Particularly since he's still orbiting the spot when the infantry do get there. If they had so much as twitched he could have obliterated them at any time.

Granted, we're all sitting here with the benefit of hindsight, which makes it easy to condemn someone's actions, but...

 BaronIveagh wrote:
I'm aware that gak happens. I even fully understand the reason a mistake like that can be made.

There wasn't a mistake made.