Say hello to the Marine Corps' newest....

[rah]

Congrats

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Logistician. Yut.


All but one in my platoon got one of their top 3 preferences.

Congrats.


Can we call you Radar?


Smartest most effective guy in the MASH unit and virginal to boot.


Seriously congrats When you det out and go civilian you are set to be in charge of supply chain managment.

[regexcellent]

If USMC are like Russian paratroopers, then artillery are their mortal enemies.

Training accidents?

[onodera]

Training accidents?

Their use as shock troops usually coincides with shelling the enemy positions. No small wonder no paratrooper likes artillerymen.

[The Mad Monk]

No, I said west, dammit, WEST!!!

[Al B. Sure!]

I will be drilling in New Haven Connecticut.

[DaShi]

New Haven has the best food trucks in the country. Go to the ones outside the Yale-New Haven Hospital.

[regexcellent]

I will be drilling in New Haven Connecticut.

That's pretty far to travel for drill. I'm not aware of the reserves covering travel expenses; the national guard typically doesn't.

Editing because I don't want to double post: can reservists volunteer for MEU deployments?

[Docfeelgood]

I will be drilling in New Haven Connecticut.

I thought this was a full time thing?
So your just a weekend warrior.
Jees! dude, make a career out of it, go active for twenty and retire.

[Tuberski]

Congrats.


Can we call you Radar?


Smartest most effective guy in the MASH unit and virginal to boot.


Seriously congrats When you det out and go civilian you are set to be in charge of supply chain managment.

No, Radar was enlisted. You could maybe call him Sonar...

Congrats, Albie!

ACK!

[Al B. Sure!]

The effective range of an M4 is stated to be 500 meters (although with a .223 round good luck actually killing someone out of a 14.5" barrel at that distance). Engagements in Afghanistan are frequently at the upper edge or even past that range. The xbox 360 doesn't have enough memory to actually render draw distances like that. At distances of 75 meters in-game you're talking sniper rifle range. But there's all sorts of other reasons to chew on as well, that's just a super obvious one that's easy to explain.

I'm coming back to this because I learned some things doing MOUT. We were told 90% of all targets in the urban environment are located 50m or less from the identifying Marine. Engagements usually occur at 35m or less in the urban environment.

It sounds silly but our MOUT attacks/defenses actually felt a lot like Call of Duty or Battlefield in terms of nearness of engagements, getting shot in the streets from adjacent buildings where you didn't even see the enemy who killed you, very difficult breaches due to what would be called camping on xbox live, the general chaos and need for high tempo, etc.

Everyone in the military should experience MOUT because it's crazy fun. The night attack was insane with the arty sims and rock music blasting through the 'city'. It definitely beats digging battle positions and patrolling in the treeline.

Also, don't get caught up on the effective ranges. We rifle qualified back in May with the M16A4 (with some of the female Marines using M4's due to size) and with an RCO in the prone, it's elementary to hit a man-sized target at 500m. Maybe the round's impact isn't that strong but you couldn't really tell looking at the entries when you're working the pits. Pretty sure you don't want to get hit by that round even at that distance.

[Al B. Sure!]

That's pretty far to travel for drill. I'm not aware of the reserves covering travel expenses; the national guard typically doesn't.

Editing because I don't want to double post: can reservists volunteer for MEU deployments?

My contract says within 150 miles of my home of record. New Haven is borderline. They do cover travel expenses beyond a certain distance. I should be covered.

Reservists used to be able to volunteer for deployments and individual augmentation but not anymore. They used to have a program where reserve officers could go active for a year out of MOS school but they ended that due to down-sizing.

We're an unprecedentedly large group of reserve Lieutenants (at 60+ in our TBS class) and unfortunately, the Marine Corps doesn't seem to know what to do with us, especially between graduation and MOS school. It's funny when speakers ask if there are any reservists in the company and jaws drop at our numbers. We don't have units to go to for on-the-job-training before MOS school and most MOS schools do not have the facilities to sustain us until our class dates in January. Hopefully something will be figured out but as of right now, we don't even know which bases we'll be at in a month, let alone our living arrangements. It's looking very likely we'll be staying in hotels for the next 4-6 months.

I thought this was a full time thing?
So your just a weekend warrior.
Jees! dude, make a career out of it, go active for twenty and retire.

The Marine Corps is not taking active duty OCC. You can not join the Marine Corps as an active officer if you're a college graduate. They're still doing active PLC which is the summer program for college students who will commission after college graduation in 1-3 years.

This is not your military of 30 years ago. You can't just 'go active'. I talked before about all the reservists who are attorneys in the civilian world who will be MP's, communications officers, etc. because manpower doesn't even want lawyers! It's a strange new military.

[Al B. Sure!]

Enjoying your reports Alby, keep 'em coming!

If you want to hear about the cool stuff, Military Operations in Urban Terrain (MOUT) was crazy. We spent a week in an Afghan-modeled ghost town of a dozen concrete buildings, varying in height from 1 to 4 stories (plus basements and roof-tops). The buildings included a trade school, a police station, a hotel, a gas station/machanic shop, and various shops and a bazaar. There were automobiles in the mechanic shop and furniture in the buildings.

We spent the week conducting squad defenses and platoon attacks against the other platoons in the company using a laser system. Our weapons systems included M16A4's, M249's, M240's, grenades, AT-4's (simulating SMAWs), and we could call down notional IDF (arty sim with the laser system targeting OpFor Marines in the area). We were also equipped with a bevy of smoke and pyrotechnics.

The system is pretty cool. Regexcellent hated on it but I think it's a great system that while it's a crapshoot in the treeline (due to lasers not going through vegetation as a round would), it works very well in urban terrain, especially since the buildings have sensors on them to represent effects (such as IDF inflicting casualties on Marines inside the building, rounds having realistic effects on concrete, etc.). When our actions were finished, we could head down and look at a projection of our movements (tracked by GPS) during our operations.

Unfortunately, for the first few day-time attacks, 1st squad which always seems to be the main effort, would get wiped out assaulting our first buildings, often taking casualties from OpFor IDF while in our assault position and then getting shot while en route to our objectives. I don't want to get too much into tactics but basically we were not being adequately supported by the other squads.

On the final day attack, we had some curveballs thrown at us and I had a little adventure. 1st squad was again tasked with securing the foothold of a building closest to the treeline after we called IDF on target. Just as we began our assault, we got word that the IDF notionally destroyed the structure making it uninhabitable. The building was supposed to be our foothold allowing us to support 2nd squad's assault on the next objective. Without clear instruction on what to do and in the din and chaos of the fight, 1st squad sort of went all over the place. I assisted in the breaching of a building with 2nd squad where they took heavy casualties clearing. I then linked with 3rd squad and was given an AT-4 to go along with my M249. Yes, in full Call of Duty-style, I had a light machine gun in the my hands and a rocket launcher on my back. One of our M240B's was rocking and rolling upstairs making communication impossible as we moved outside, around the building, threw smoke grenades to obscure me while I went into the road and breached the final objective with the AT-4.

We then threw more smoke and I ran with 3 guys from 3rd squad across the street, up the stairs, and to the breach when my 249 jammed in the doorway. Miraculously, I wasn't shot. I tried to clear the jam while the other 3 went in, only to see two of them immediately go down as casualties and the 3rd was somewhere in the dark building. I ditched the SAW, picked up an M16 from one, a magazine from the other, and went in calling the challenge. Which was 'Meow'

We had an EPW in the building, an OpFor Marine who ran out of ammo. I put security on him while the other Marine radioed we had friendlies in the building. A few minutes later, a friendly grenade rolls in, killing me and incapacitating the other Marine. The fireteam that threw the grenade kept moving down the hallway. Our EPW grabs my rifle and runs after them, taking out two before he goes down.

Needless to say, our platoon commander was not pleased with the friendly fire incident that cost 4 casualties, but it was a hell of an experience.


The night MOUT operations were even crazier. With Fallout Boy's "Light em up up up Light em up up up!", AC/DC, etc. blasting, arty sims going off, and M240's firing, we conducted a night attack 3 platoons vs. 3 squads from the other 3 platoons (on defense) using IR lasers, NVG's, etc. For the first time in several years, our offense actually won. It was a hell of an experience waiting in the basement as the rock music blasted, then OpFor got a bead on us through the basement windows, we had to displace upstairs, and then, because 1st squad is always the assault team, we threw smoke, ran across the street and successfully breached and cleared our first building, setting up a support by fire position for 2nd squad's assault. We then leapfrogged to take another building and so forth.


We finished MOUT off by going to one of the live fire ranges where I was part of the support by fire position for a 2-squad maneuver. It is funny to look back at our first buddy rushes with live rounds and how trepid we were to walk a few feet and shoot live rounds near other Marines and now we were doing full-speed assaults with a support by fire position. We did have a scary moment when a SAW gunner on the assault team tripped and his M249 went flying in the air then rolling on the deck, barrel pointed in perfect flanking enfilade of a squad. The weapon was fortunately on safe but as an open-bolt weapon system, the M249 is still dangerous on safe. No one was hurt and there hasn't been a death on the live ranges here since the 90's.

[Al B. Sure!]

By the way, Regexcellent thinks its a waste of time that all Marine Corps officers, including pilots and attorneys, do this stuff.


The past two days, we were down in Norfolk on the USS Oak Hill and USS New York. We also got to ride out into the ocean a little bit on AAV's. Pretty cool stuff.

[regexcellent]

It is a ****ing waste. Every other branch has lawyers, doctors, chaplains, and pilots and all of them manage to do their jobs just fine without dumb principles of patrolling lessons and other miscellaneous ****.

How many people got seasick on the AAVs?