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As a non military person but who plays with toy soldiers and writes stuff about them - I found the OP and thread an interesting read - thanks

Yeah, 50% is too damned high, the armies tooth to tail ratio is something like 1:3, meaning that IN TOTAL (infantry, armor, arty, etc) combat arms would make up 25% of the armys total strength.

OK, I see while I was sleeping off my 24 hour duty things progressed a little bit.

as far as the 50% statisitic. Every Brigade combat team has 5-6 Battalions. 3 of them are Infantry/cav, one is Artillery. I pulled a percentage out of thin air so as not to be too exact. There is still OPSEC to consider. Please google the percentages if you want to know exact numbers. I was going for quick and simple until it became a wall of text.

Combat Engineers are that small niche. That is what my Brother in Law was before stepping on a VOIED. You guys rock. Please do not take any disrespect. I was speaking in generalizations to to wanting to keep it simple. Plus yall are no longer classified in the teen series.(used to be 12B for example)

There seems to be a lot of fellow wargamers here who also have experience with military service. Please feel free to ask those burning questions to us that you might have. I teach new Soldiers everyday so I answer a lot of questions.

example: As an artilleryman do I wake up everyday, travel to my firing position and just shoot rounds all day?

redleger wrote:
OK, I see while I was sleeping off my 24 hour duty things progressed a little bit.

as far as the 50% statisitic. Every Brigade combat team has 5-6 Battalions. 3 of them are Infantry/cav, one is Artillery. I pulled a percentage out of thin air so as not to be too exact. There is still OPSEC to consider. Please google the percentages if you want to know exact numbers. I was going for quick and simple until it became a wall of text.

Combat Engineers are that small niche. That is what my Brother in Law was before stepping on a VOIED. You guys rock. Please do not take any disrespect. I was speaking in generalizations to to wanting to keep it simple. Plus yall are no longer classified in the teen series.(used to be 12B for example)

There seems to be a lot of fellow wargamers here who also have experience with military service. Please feel free to ask those burning questions to us that you might have. I teach new Soldiers everyday so I answer a lot of questions.

example: As an artilleryman do I wake up everyday, travel to my firing position and just shoot rounds all day?

Spoiler:

Answer: Absolutely not. I wish, that would be fun as hell. every Soldier handles the upkeep of his equipment, installation and sometimes even gets loaned out. We train on our guns using real ammo a small percentage of the time. Taxpayers don't like to pay for us to shoot everyday

Don't assume. I just recently retired after 23 years in the Army

 Jihadin wrote:

redleger wrote:
OK, I see while I was sleeping off my 24 hour duty things progressed a little bit.

as far as the 50% statisitic. Every Brigade combat team has 5-6 Battalions. 3 of them are Infantry/cav, one is Artillery. I pulled a percentage out of thin air so as not to be too exact. There is still OPSEC to consider. Please google the percentages if you want to know exact numbers. I was going for quick and simple until it became a wall of text.

Combat Engineers are that small niche. That is what my Brother in Law was before stepping on a VOIED. You guys rock. Please do not take any disrespect. I was speaking in generalizations to to wanting to keep it simple. Plus yall are no longer classified in the teen series.(used to be 12B for example)

There seems to be a lot of fellow wargamers here who also have experience with military service. Please feel free to ask those burning questions to us that you might have. I teach new Soldiers everyday so I answer a lot of questions.

example: As an artilleryman do I wake up everyday, travel to my firing position and just shoot rounds all day?

Spoiler:

Answer: Absolutely not. I wish, that would be fun as hell. every Soldier handles the upkeep of his equipment, installation and sometimes even gets loaned out. We train on our guns using real ammo a small percentage of the time. Taxpayers don't like to pay for us to shoot everyday

Don't assume. I just recently retired after 23 years in the Army

Im confused. Don't assume what? As for 23 years, that is an accomplishment, congratulations. Im at 17.5 and my body is ready to stop. Trying to keep up with the 18 year olds is literally killing my knees which already were screaming for some relief.

redleger wrote:


Im confused. Don't assume what? As for 23 years, that is an accomplishment, congratulations. Im at 17.5 and my body is ready to stop. Trying to keep up with the 18 year olds is literally killing my knees which already were screaming for some relief.

I did 10, but the army was the one that said, "you've had enough" (I got an MEB... probably due to drawdowns more than anything, as they were more than happy to ignore my meds when deployments were every other year)

as far as the 50% statisitic. Every Brigade combat team has 5-6 Battalions. 3 of them are Infantry/cav, one is Artillery. I pulled a percentage out of thin air so as not to be too exact. There is still OPSEC to consider. Please google the percentages if you want to know exact numbers. I was going for quick and simple until it became a wall of text.

There Redleg. Its not OPSEC if one can Google divisions/Base location
http://www.bragg.army.mil/82nd/Pages/default.aspx is an example.

As for your stat you "pulled" out of air. Have to remember it took 100 individuals to support one combat infantryman during WWII. Today's ratio is three to one. MOS's are not pigeon hole jobs anymore. MOS's are now more broader

More "broader"???

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

@Hordini, I was in Germany from 09-12, and I honestly don't think there was any sort of "hostility" towards the Bundeswehr anymore. It honestly felt more like "willful ignorance" as if, by ignoring the military, it would mean that the military didn't exist.

I was in Germany in 07, and 08-09, and Austria in 11-12 (if you look back at my old posts you can see the flags ). Maybe "negative opinion" was too strong. I didn't mean to imply that the Germans I spent time with were openly hostile towards the Bundeswehr. It was more like you describe it, but ranging from either ignoring the subject completely (and appearing to be rather uncomfortable if it was brought up) or stating that while they would (and did) do civil service, they would under no circumstances ever perform military service for their country. It kind of followed from the whole "patriotism is automatically bad" vibe I got from them, although I think in most cases they were using patriotism and nationalism interchangeably, which led to a lot of good, horizon-expanding conversations. I also noticed that, while at American universities it's pretty common to meet students who are prior-service or current reservists/National Guard or ROTC, in Germany and Austria both, the vast majority of students I interacted with had chosen civil service over military service.

Don't get me wrong, I love my German and Austrian friends. It was a positive learning experience for all of us.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It's also likely that had I been in a non-university setting, I would have probably met more people who had performed military service (and I did meet a few), but overall, while maybe not outright negative or hostile, feelings towards the Bundeswehr seemed to be much less openly positive than feelings towards the military in the US.

 Hordini wrote:

 Ensis Ferrae wrote:

@Hordini, I was in Germany from 09-12, and I honestly don't think there was any sort of "hostility" towards the Bundeswehr anymore. It honestly felt more like "willful ignorance" as if, by ignoring the military, it would mean that the military didn't exist.

I was in Germany in 07, and 08-09, and Austria in 11-12 (if you look back at my old posts you can see the flags ). Maybe "negative opinion" was too strong. I didn't mean to imply that the Germans I spent time with were openly hostile towards the Bundeswehr. It was more like you describe it, but ranging from either ignoring the subject completely (and appearing to be rather uncomfortable if it was brought up) or stating that while they would (and did) do civil service, they would under no circumstances ever perform military service for their country. It kind of followed from the whole "patriotism is automatically bad" vibe I got from them, although I think in most cases they were using patriotism and nationalism interchangeably, which led to a lot of good, horizon-expanding conversations. I also noticed that, while at American universities it's pretty common to meet students who are prior-service or current reservists/National Guard or ROTC, in Germany and Austria both, the vast majority of students I interacted with had chosen civil service over military service.

Don't get me wrong, I love my German and Austrian friends. It was a positive learning experience for all of us.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
It's also likely that had I been in a non-university setting, I would have probably met more people who had performed military service (and I did meet a few), but overall, while maybe not outright negative or hostile, feelings towards the Bundeswehr seemed to be much less openly positive than feelings towards the military in the US.

Ahh yeah... I got to spend some time with my Battalion's "sister unit" on a training exercise (seriously, watching MI "soldiers" go through MOUT/Infantry tactics training with German Infantry was.... entertaining, to say the least) which is where I got to talk to a few and was informed of the "willful ignoring" if you will.


It is funny though how all this works. We Yanks tend to not get all that high on National Teams, but god damn if you say something bad about the US of A, you're asking for a dose of "Freedom". Whereas, at least with my time in Germany, and I'd wager it's very similar elsewhere, Germans will go bat gak crazy for footy, to the point where cities will "shut down" for celebrations, etc. but when it comes to anything politics, or military, they suddenly become ducks, and everything you say is just water.

Yeah, soccer seems to be the one time when patriotism is "okay" in Germany. You see flags and patriotic stuff start to pop up during the World Cup. But when that's not going on, you'll only see flags on government buildings.

What's interesting though, is that in some states, it seems like state pride kind of usurps any sort of national pride. Some people seem to be proud of their Bavarian heritage, or Colognian heritage, or whatever, but you hardly ever see that with general German heritage.

 Hordini wrote:
Yeah, soccer seems to be the one time when patriotism is "okay" in Germany. You see flags and patriotic stuff start to pop up during the World Cup. But when that's not going on, you'll only see flags on government buildings.

What's interesting though, is that in some states, it seems like state pride kind of usurps any sort of national pride. Some people seem to be proud of their Bavarian heritage, or Colognian heritage, or whatever, but you hardly ever see that with general German heritage.

To be fair, Bavaria is best Germany.

 Bromsy wrote:

 Hordini wrote:
Yeah, soccer seems to be the one time when patriotism is "okay" in Germany. You see flags and patriotic stuff start to pop up during the World Cup. But when that's not going on, you'll only see flags on government buildings.

What's interesting though, is that in some states, it seems like state pride kind of usurps any sort of national pride. Some people seem to be proud of their Bavarian heritage, or Colognian heritage, or whatever, but you hardly ever see that with general German heritage.

To be fair, Bavaria is best Germany.

I'm rather fond of it, myself. But I know that some Germans who aren't from there don't exactly share the same warm feelings.

 Hordini wrote:

 Bromsy wrote:

 Hordini wrote:
Yeah, soccer seems to be the one time when patriotism is "okay" in Germany. You see flags and patriotic stuff start to pop up during the World Cup. But when that's not going on, you'll only see flags on government buildings.

What's interesting though, is that in some states, it seems like state pride kind of usurps any sort of national pride. Some people seem to be proud of their Bavarian heritage, or Colognian heritage, or whatever, but you hardly ever see that with general German heritage.

To be fair, Bavaria is best Germany.

I'm rather fond of it, myself. But I know that some Germans who aren't from there don't exactly share the same warm feelings.

Jealousy is a stinky cologne.