Does anyone else find it just the slightest bit hypocritical, that the people who were shouting the loudest, back when things were dicy in Iraq, that we were in the middle of a civil war, had no business being there, and that we should immediately withdraw and let them sort it out for themselves, are the same people who are providing support and justification for our intervention in Libya? If what is happening in Libya isn't a civil war, I surely don't know what you would call it.
The justification, such as it was, is that we are preventing the slaughter of innocent people by supporting the rebels. So, when the rebels take over and start slaugthering Khadaffi supporters, are we going to bomb the hell out of them?
It was supposed to be a no-fly zone. Militarily, I can certainly justify all the cruise missiles targeted at the air defense network. To police a no-fly zone you must have absolute air superiority. You can't achieve that when you're dodging SAMs. SAMs aren't effective if they're not guided. You take out the ability to guide them before you start flying your F-16s and Mirages and Tornados over the country. However, if it is only to police the no-fly zone, why am I seeing bombed out tanks and personnel carriers? Has Ghaddafi achieved what I thought might be impossible? The M1A1 Flying Tank?
In 2003 Colonel Ghaddafi foreswore terrorism. This wasn't some conversion on the road to Damascus moment for the good colonel. Before that he had been one of the most prolific supporters of terrorism in the world. One has only to look at Pan Am 103. If you need more convincing, look up his provision of arms and, more importantly, Semtex, to the Provisional IRA, as well as many others. No, Ghadaffi decided against terrorism for one simple reason. Whatever you might think of the Bush Administration, its actions put people on notice that the kid gloves were off. Paraphrasing the President, "If you ain't with us, you're agin us." Regime change in Libya was certainly in the war plans somewhere. Khadaffi may be as crazy as a shithouse rat, but he's not stupid. Above all he, like most other tinpot dictators, is a pragmatist. If what I'm doing is going to get me a one-way trip to sunny Guantanamo, maybe I better quit doing it. Now, however, our current president is saying that Ghaddafi must go. We're making it very possible that the rebels sweep into Tripoli and hang the good colonel from the nearest lamp post. I, for one, will not shed a tear. However, since he has nothing to lose, do you think he might decide to wreak a little revenge while he still can?
But what do I know.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Never Fight a Land War in Asia | STRATFOR
Never Fight a Land War in Asia STRATFOR
Ordinarily I would plagarize something like this, but this says it so well that I'll have to be honest for a change. Just click on the title to get the report. Only thing I disagree with is the "Defeated in Vietnam" portion. In 1973 the war was won. In 1975 North Vietnam invaded the south and, because our representatives in Congress refused to honor our committments to the South Vietnamese government, overran the country. Two different wars, two different outcomes.
Ordinarily I would plagarize something like this, but this says it so well that I'll have to be honest for a change. Just click on the title to get the report. Only thing I disagree with is the "Defeated in Vietnam" portion. In 1973 the war was won. In 1975 North Vietnam invaded the south and, because our representatives in Congress refused to honor our committments to the South Vietnamese government, overran the country. Two different wars, two different outcomes.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Democracy?
Sorry about the delay between postings. Unavoidable business trip.
It occurred to me, upon reading my previous postings, that I may be getting a bit too technical. I invite feedback. What would you like to see.
This posting won't be technical at all. I'm sure you're all following the events in the Middle East, since you can't avoid it if you watch the news or read the papers, or follow the net. What I'm seeing from most of the talking heads is consistent approval of the various "freedom" movements. After all, it's what the people want - isn't that the purest form of democracy? It works for us, so why wouldn't it work for them? They'll work out all the little growing pains, become good, responsible citizens, elect a representative form of government, and all will be well with the world.
Before we all sit around the campfire and sing Kumbaya, we might want to take a look at history. What mostly happens in "peoples' revolutions" bears little resemblance to our own. We were revolting against a foreign government, they are revolting against their own. Our enemies (except for the Tories) were outsiders. Their enemies are one another. We seem to forget that some of the greatest mass murderers in history came to power legitimately. Hitler is an obvious example - he was elected. Lenin took advantage of a peoples revolt to sieze power, power that devolved to Stalin. We can go on to discuss Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot and a host of others, but you get the point.
Now, I have no love for Moammar Ghadafi. I and others were working against Libyan-sponsored terrorism in Europe and Africa all through the eighties and most of the nineties. But to think that all is going to turn out well there is, to say the least, incredibly optimistic. Consider this. Libyans have been some of the most enthusiastic of jihadists. They've been key members of Al Quada from the beginnning. Look at the names of some of the ones we've killed or captured. Many of them end with al Libi. A hell of a lot of them didn't survive the experience, but those who did are the beneficiaries of what some call "Jihadist Darwinism". The ones who survived are very good indeed. To think that they're not salivating, waiting for the main chance to establish a jihadist paradise in eastern Libya is naive, to say the least. Just across the border they'll be welcomed by the Muslim Brotherhood who, for propaganda purposes, purport to have given up the idea of violent jihad and the establishment of the Caliphate. Yeah, sure. Just like Hizballah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
So, democracy? Only until someone takes advantage of it.
It occurred to me, upon reading my previous postings, that I may be getting a bit too technical. I invite feedback. What would you like to see.
This posting won't be technical at all. I'm sure you're all following the events in the Middle East, since you can't avoid it if you watch the news or read the papers, or follow the net. What I'm seeing from most of the talking heads is consistent approval of the various "freedom" movements. After all, it's what the people want - isn't that the purest form of democracy? It works for us, so why wouldn't it work for them? They'll work out all the little growing pains, become good, responsible citizens, elect a representative form of government, and all will be well with the world.
Before we all sit around the campfire and sing Kumbaya, we might want to take a look at history. What mostly happens in "peoples' revolutions" bears little resemblance to our own. We were revolting against a foreign government, they are revolting against their own. Our enemies (except for the Tories) were outsiders. Their enemies are one another. We seem to forget that some of the greatest mass murderers in history came to power legitimately. Hitler is an obvious example - he was elected. Lenin took advantage of a peoples revolt to sieze power, power that devolved to Stalin. We can go on to discuss Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot and a host of others, but you get the point.
Now, I have no love for Moammar Ghadafi. I and others were working against Libyan-sponsored terrorism in Europe and Africa all through the eighties and most of the nineties. But to think that all is going to turn out well there is, to say the least, incredibly optimistic. Consider this. Libyans have been some of the most enthusiastic of jihadists. They've been key members of Al Quada from the beginnning. Look at the names of some of the ones we've killed or captured. Many of them end with al Libi. A hell of a lot of them didn't survive the experience, but those who did are the beneficiaries of what some call "Jihadist Darwinism". The ones who survived are very good indeed. To think that they're not salivating, waiting for the main chance to establish a jihadist paradise in eastern Libya is naive, to say the least. Just across the border they'll be welcomed by the Muslim Brotherhood who, for propaganda purposes, purport to have given up the idea of violent jihad and the establishment of the Caliphate. Yeah, sure. Just like Hizballah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
So, democracy? Only until someone takes advantage of it.
Friday, February 4, 2011
New Precision Rifles
Continuing from last post. For quite some time now European military precsion riflemen have been using the .338 Lapua cartridge. Our own military establishment has resisted the trend since we have a bad case of "not invented here" afflicting the military bureaucracy. After all, the argument went, our snipers are doing a perfectly adequate job with the M-24 system in .308, and if we have to do longer shots we can always turn to the .50. Since bureaucrats are never users, and in most cases have no operational background in sniping, they were slow to realize what the troops on the ground knew. That most engagements were now past the 600 meter range, and that carrying the .50 up and down the mountains of Afghanistan was a task best avoided if at all possible. Our allies, on the other hand, were making seemingly impossible shots at distances that had been reserved to the .50 for quite some time. The world record sniper shot is now held by a British sniper using a .338 Lapua built by Accuracy International, firing a Swiss-P cartridge made by RUAG Ammotec. The distance? An amazing 2,475 meters. That's one-point-five-two miles for the metrically challenged.
All this to say, things have changed. Major U.S. manufacturers are now getting into the act, thinking it inevitable that our hide-bound military establishment will finally get off the dime. There has been some talk that the tests now being scheduled by the military to select what they're calling an intermediate cartridge (.300 Norma, also a very good cartridge, has been mentioned) but I suspect that the .338 has the edge, if for no other reason that it is tried, tested, and proven in actual combat by a number of our allies. Politics (and lobbying) being what they are, if there were an American made cartridge in the competition the .338 might have a problem. But there's not.
The advantages over the .50? The rifle, not being subjected to the same stresses on firing mentioned in the last post, can be considerably lighter. Half, in some configurations. The cartridge weighs much less. It offers terminal ballistics (a nice way of saying it kills very efficiently) out to ranges previously reserved to the .50. It is an inherently accurate cartridge. And as for some .50 adherents pointing out that it can still shoot farther than the .338, the truth of the matter is that the .338 can shoot out as far as our current crop of rifle scopes can manage. Think about it. After 1,800 meters the cross hairs on most scopes will obscure a man-sized target. If you can't see it, how are you aiming at it?
Most of my posts thus far have dealt with the military. There is another sniping world, and in many cases it is far more challenging - that being the world of the police precision marksman. But we'll save that for another post.
All this to say, things have changed. Major U.S. manufacturers are now getting into the act, thinking it inevitable that our hide-bound military establishment will finally get off the dime. There has been some talk that the tests now being scheduled by the military to select what they're calling an intermediate cartridge (.300 Norma, also a very good cartridge, has been mentioned) but I suspect that the .338 has the edge, if for no other reason that it is tried, tested, and proven in actual combat by a number of our allies. Politics (and lobbying) being what they are, if there were an American made cartridge in the competition the .338 might have a problem. But there's not.
The advantages over the .50? The rifle, not being subjected to the same stresses on firing mentioned in the last post, can be considerably lighter. Half, in some configurations. The cartridge weighs much less. It offers terminal ballistics (a nice way of saying it kills very efficiently) out to ranges previously reserved to the .50. It is an inherently accurate cartridge. And as for some .50 adherents pointing out that it can still shoot farther than the .338, the truth of the matter is that the .338 can shoot out as far as our current crop of rifle scopes can manage. Think about it. After 1,800 meters the cross hairs on most scopes will obscure a man-sized target. If you can't see it, how are you aiming at it?
Most of my posts thus far have dealt with the military. There is another sniping world, and in many cases it is far more challenging - that being the world of the police precision marksman. But we'll save that for another post.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
More from the SHOT Show
For quite some time now the .50 caliber has been the bullet of choice for long range target interdiction. It has served very well. Its maximum range is around five miles, maximum effective range much shorter than that, but still quite adequate. This round has been around for a very long time. The primary weapon using the round was and is the .50 BMG (Browning Machine Gun) designed by John Browning. Affectionately called Ma Deuce by the troops (the official nomenclature is M-2), it was first used extensively in WW II and continues in service to the present day. In its machine gun configuration it is an area weapon, that is, its beaten zone (where the majority of the bullets will strike) is reasonably large. You want that in a machine gun - it makes little sense to send one bullet after another into the same target. However, it was also noted by sharp-eyed users that the bullet, which because of the relatively slow rate of fire of the M-2 could be shot single fire by trigger manipulation, was inherently very accurate on its own. Field expedient modifications followed. In my camp in '66 we bolted a hunting scope side-saddle on the M-2 and used it to engage targets in the mountains surrounding the camp. It made the enemy much more cautious about exposing themselves. Hit directly, I don't believe there are any survivable wounds from the .50.
Which brings up a point. Common (incorrect) wisdom has it that use of the .50 as an antipersonnel weapon is forbidden in the Geneva Convention. I used to believe that as well, so we justified its use by saying we weren't shooting at the person, but at the military equipment he was carrying. Later on I talked to a high-ranking Pentagon lawyer who assured me that the common wisdom was mistaken.
Anyway, a very smart weapons maker named Ronnie Barrett decided that what was needed was a precision rifle designed for the .50. In this there was precedent - antitank rifles shooting the .50 were used by U.S. and British forces as far back as WW II. The first problem was the recoil. Build a light enough weapon for a soldier to reasonably be able to carry and the recoil from the .50 is punishing, to say the least. A broken collar bone would not be unusual. To offset the recoil Barrett designed a muzzle brake that redirected the expelled gases to the rear, thus offsetting the ferocious recoil. The second problem was to design a weapon that was sturdy enough to handle the effect of what is, in reality, an explosion of some force, while still maintaining a weapon light enough to carry. The result was the Barrett .50 in various configurations (semi-automatic, single shot, bolt action) that met those parameters, but was still no lightweight. Tests followed, Special Operations Forces and the Marines were early customers, but the weapon didn't really come into its own until the Global War on Terror.
And therein came the next problem. As stated, the weapon itself, with scope, accessories, etc, is no lightweight. The ammunition itself is quite heavy. Add this to the equipment the shooter is already carrying (anywhere from 80 to 100 pounds), put him at 8,000 feet or more in the Hindu Kush, and you've got a problem. As mentioned in an earlier post, the standard military precision weapon until recently was in .308, good out to 600 meters. The enemy quickly learned to engage at distances past that with machine guns and mortars. .300 Winchester Magnum, recently adopted, will carry you out to a thousand, but oftentimes the engagements are far past that range. The .50 was the only answer.
Until the .338 Lapua. And that was the real story at this year's SHOT Show. But more about that in the next post.
Another story. If you spent any time at all in Special Forces, you were sooner or later going to be sent to language school, generally at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California. Most of us welcomed the assignment - it was a six month to year break (depending on the language) from deployment or the incessant training that took place between deployments. My first language was French, then Russian, and finally Spanish. With any luck you got an assignment thereafter that let you use the training. Sometimes you did not, and inevitably the proficiency degraded.
After retirement, and finding out very quickly that the civilian world didn't have a lot of use for my peculiar skills, I accepted an assignment training a special battalion in Saudi Arabia, staying there for three years. Most, if not all, of my fellow instructors were former S.F. Old friendships were renewed, new ones made. Two in particular, whom I'll call Brooke and Billy, and I hung together. At one point we decided to take a short break and caught a flight to Bangkok. We flew on Saudia, which was an interesting experience since most of our fellow passengers were Saudis. At one point I smelled something burning, only to observe one of our fellow passengers firing up a CampingGaz propane stove in the aisle, boiling water for chai.
Billy had been delayed for a day, so Brooke and I headed to the Presidential Hotel, an old S.F. hangout from the Vietnam War. Presidential it was not. To say it was third world would be giving it a lot more credit than it deserved. Geckos prowled the walls, serenading us with their mating call, which sounded for all the world like F... You. Bet you don't see that on Geico commercials.
Anyway, our first job was to fill up tanks sorely depleted from months in a place where alcohol was totally prohibited, and we did a fine job.
The next morning we were feeling it. All I wanted to do at that point was to sleep it off, and maybe steam it out of my system in the baths that helped make Bangkok famous. It was not to be. Billy arrived like a whirlwind and demanded that we get our sorry asses out of bed, and that the medicine to make that happen was beer. "I'll order it from room service," he said. "I speak Thai."
Billy gets on the phone and raps off a string of Thai. I was suitably impressed, enough that I was looking forward to the six Singha beers he'd ordered (two for each, of course). Shortly thereafter room service knocked on the door, carrying a tray loaded with six glasses of milk.
"It's the tone," Billy insisted. "Just got to get the tone right."
Later in the day we were in a bar (imagine that!) and Billy struck up a conversation with one of the young ladies who frequented the place. The next thing any of us know Billy says something in Thai and the young lady draws back ready to slap the hell out of him. The bartender calmed her down and she left in a huff. "I was trying to tell her that she was my horse if she never ran a race," Billy said.
"What you said was, you're my dog even if you don't walk fast."
Despite Billy's problems with tone, we survived the trip.
Which brings up a point. Common (incorrect) wisdom has it that use of the .50 as an antipersonnel weapon is forbidden in the Geneva Convention. I used to believe that as well, so we justified its use by saying we weren't shooting at the person, but at the military equipment he was carrying. Later on I talked to a high-ranking Pentagon lawyer who assured me that the common wisdom was mistaken.
Anyway, a very smart weapons maker named Ronnie Barrett decided that what was needed was a precision rifle designed for the .50. In this there was precedent - antitank rifles shooting the .50 were used by U.S. and British forces as far back as WW II. The first problem was the recoil. Build a light enough weapon for a soldier to reasonably be able to carry and the recoil from the .50 is punishing, to say the least. A broken collar bone would not be unusual. To offset the recoil Barrett designed a muzzle brake that redirected the expelled gases to the rear, thus offsetting the ferocious recoil. The second problem was to design a weapon that was sturdy enough to handle the effect of what is, in reality, an explosion of some force, while still maintaining a weapon light enough to carry. The result was the Barrett .50 in various configurations (semi-automatic, single shot, bolt action) that met those parameters, but was still no lightweight. Tests followed, Special Operations Forces and the Marines were early customers, but the weapon didn't really come into its own until the Global War on Terror.
And therein came the next problem. As stated, the weapon itself, with scope, accessories, etc, is no lightweight. The ammunition itself is quite heavy. Add this to the equipment the shooter is already carrying (anywhere from 80 to 100 pounds), put him at 8,000 feet or more in the Hindu Kush, and you've got a problem. As mentioned in an earlier post, the standard military precision weapon until recently was in .308, good out to 600 meters. The enemy quickly learned to engage at distances past that with machine guns and mortars. .300 Winchester Magnum, recently adopted, will carry you out to a thousand, but oftentimes the engagements are far past that range. The .50 was the only answer.
Until the .338 Lapua. And that was the real story at this year's SHOT Show. But more about that in the next post.
Another story. If you spent any time at all in Special Forces, you were sooner or later going to be sent to language school, generally at the Defense Language Institute in Monterey, California. Most of us welcomed the assignment - it was a six month to year break (depending on the language) from deployment or the incessant training that took place between deployments. My first language was French, then Russian, and finally Spanish. With any luck you got an assignment thereafter that let you use the training. Sometimes you did not, and inevitably the proficiency degraded.
After retirement, and finding out very quickly that the civilian world didn't have a lot of use for my peculiar skills, I accepted an assignment training a special battalion in Saudi Arabia, staying there for three years. Most, if not all, of my fellow instructors were former S.F. Old friendships were renewed, new ones made. Two in particular, whom I'll call Brooke and Billy, and I hung together. At one point we decided to take a short break and caught a flight to Bangkok. We flew on Saudia, which was an interesting experience since most of our fellow passengers were Saudis. At one point I smelled something burning, only to observe one of our fellow passengers firing up a CampingGaz propane stove in the aisle, boiling water for chai.
Billy had been delayed for a day, so Brooke and I headed to the Presidential Hotel, an old S.F. hangout from the Vietnam War. Presidential it was not. To say it was third world would be giving it a lot more credit than it deserved. Geckos prowled the walls, serenading us with their mating call, which sounded for all the world like F... You. Bet you don't see that on Geico commercials.
Anyway, our first job was to fill up tanks sorely depleted from months in a place where alcohol was totally prohibited, and we did a fine job.
The next morning we were feeling it. All I wanted to do at that point was to sleep it off, and maybe steam it out of my system in the baths that helped make Bangkok famous. It was not to be. Billy arrived like a whirlwind and demanded that we get our sorry asses out of bed, and that the medicine to make that happen was beer. "I'll order it from room service," he said. "I speak Thai."
Billy gets on the phone and raps off a string of Thai. I was suitably impressed, enough that I was looking forward to the six Singha beers he'd ordered (two for each, of course). Shortly thereafter room service knocked on the door, carrying a tray loaded with six glasses of milk.
"It's the tone," Billy insisted. "Just got to get the tone right."
Later in the day we were in a bar (imagine that!) and Billy struck up a conversation with one of the young ladies who frequented the place. The next thing any of us know Billy says something in Thai and the young lady draws back ready to slap the hell out of him. The bartender calmed her down and she left in a huff. "I was trying to tell her that she was my horse if she never ran a race," Billy said.
"What you said was, you're my dog even if you don't walk fast."
Despite Billy's problems with tone, we survived the trip.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
SHOT Show
Last week I attended the annual SHOT (Shooting, Hunting, Outdoor Trades) Show in Las Vegas. This is the pre-eminent show in this field in the U.S., as witnessed by a 60,000 person first day attendance, 14 miles of aisles each jam-packed with exhibitors, and products ranging from $95,000 Perazzi shotguns to five buck knife sharpeners. Increasingly, exhibitors have been paying attention to the police/military market, for obvious reasons.
While there was a very great deal of more of the same, some new developments caught my eye. Kestrel, which makes the hand-held weather station that is an essential piece of kit for snipers everywhere, has teamed up with Horus, who designed a digitized ballistics chart, eliminating the need for two separate kits. There is a common misconception about precision long distance shooting, that being that all you need is a good rifle equipped with a good scope and good ammunition, wielded by a person with steady hands. Movies and TV, as well as any number of novels, would have you believe that virtually anyone can make a reasonably long distance shot. The truth is far from that. Any number of factors can and will make a difference between a successful shot and a clear miss. First of all, different bullet weights of the same caliber will have different flight characteristics. Different velocities even of the same bullet weight will also affect flight. The same bullet weight and velocity will fly differently out of different rifles, sometimes even of the same model. And of course, different calibers are a whole other story. The 7.62 Nato (.308) currently used by most military snipers is good, despite wildly exaggerated stories, out to about 600 meters in tactical use. Of course you can hit past that, but bullet drop is so excessive you'll have to crank your elevation so far up you'll spend more time doing that than you will tracking your target. That's why the U.S. military is changing all its M-24 systems over to the .300 Winchester Magnum. All this to say, that's why you need a good ballistic chart. As to the weather station, probably most people know what winds will push the bullet one way or the other. To figure out how much wind drift you will have, you have to know how much wind there is. Such factors as humidity, temperature can also affect the bullet. The Kestrel will tell you all that. Finally, range to target is also critical. Right now the snipers use laser range finders, which also measure declination (slope). At the moment that calls for a different instrument, but I'm sure that sooner or later someone will put it together in a small, easy-to-carry package. In the old days, when we had virtually none of this, figuring all these factors in order to adjust your point of aim was a pencil drill, and you'd better be pretty good at mathematics. The idea that a sniper could be just some grunt with a rifle and telescope was laughable. It still is.
More about this and other subjects in future posts, but I've been prevailed upon to relate how I once became an unwilling (or unwitting) bigamist.
In 1966 I was a lieutenant in a Special Forces "A" Team in a fighting camp in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. We'd just received intel that the camp was to be attacked by the "Yellow Star" Division of the North Vietnamese Army. The First Cavalry Division, after first discounting the intel, ascribing it as regular army often did to sky-is-falling claims from the S.F., finally sent in a company on an L.Z. on one of the mountains surrounding the camp, whereupon it got virtually wiped out. You can read the full acount of it in S.L.A. Marshall's book, "Battles in the Monsoon". Anyway, this convinced the Cav that perhaps there was a problem, they committed the division as well as various other U.S., Vietnamese, and Korean units in an operation called Crazy Horse.
Finally they decided they had the Yellow Star surrounded in the mountains, and directed the Special Forces to send in reconnaissance and fighting units to "find, fix and engage" the enemy, whereupon we would be supported by air and artillery and reinforced by conventional units. I led one of those units. To make a long story much shorter and get to the main point of this, we found a North Vietnames battalion well-entrenched on a hillside. We became decisively engaged, pinned down, in fact. At that point my choices were to stay where we were and die piecemeal, run back down the mountain and get shot in the back, or attack. We attacked. Afterward there seemed to be some discussion as to whether to court-martial me for gross stupidity or decorate me. Someone decided that if they court-martialed all second lieutenants for stupidity there wouldn't be any left, so they gave me a Silver Star.
My company consisted of Montagnards from the Stieng tribe. Great troops, incredibly brave. We'd recruited them right out of their Stone Age society, trained and equipped them, and led them in operation after operation. The loved the Americans and hated the Vietnamese, both sides of which had oppressed them for centuries, in equal order, but since we insisted they only fight the North Vietnamese they complied, albeit reluctantly. After the operation the survivors insisted that I accompany them back to their tribe where they would induct me as an honorary member, for not getting more of them killed than I already had, perhaps.
Now, the Montagnard ceremonies for induction included a great deal of something called Num Pai. They would soak rice in a giant clay pot, bury it underground for a number of days to let it ferment, and then dig it up. You sat in a circle around the pot and the guest of honor was given the first drink. You sucked it out of a bamboo straw until a float device they'd hung over the top of the pot got to a certain level, whereupon they refilled the pot with water and passed the straw to the next man. Taking the straw out of your mouth before you drank your share was a big no-no. My best guess is that each person got about a half quart of the mixture each time, and the straw passed again and again. By putting water in, it got more and more diluted, until the chief of the tribe directed them to bring out another pot. At some point in the evening there was a changing of clothes from tiger stripe fatigues to loin cloths, dancing around fire, and more num pai. Finally, you were given a finely-worked copper bracelet, whereupon you became an official member of the tribe. My memory goes away sometime shortly thereafter.
The next morning I woke up, sill in loincloth, on the floor of one of the Montagnard long houses. Curled up next to me like a little cat was a Montagnard girl of, perhaps, fourteen. Bare breasted, as all Montagnards were. You can imagine my thoughts. Primarily panic. I softly, slowly, extracated myself, got out of the long house, and was searching for my fatigues when the rest of the camp woke up. I was quickly surrounded by grinnining tribespeople, all of whom seemed to be in on the joke. I found my interpreter and asked him what the hell was going on.
"You married," he said.
He went on to explain that the chief had given me his youngest daughter as a wife, there had been a ceremony, and I was now not only a member of the tribe, but his son-in-law. And would I be taking my new wife back to the S.F. camp, or would I like for her to stay there where I could visit.
By then my new wife had woken up and was hanging on to me. I was stumbling and sputtering and wondering what the hell I'd gotten myself into, which amused my ever-growing audience even more. I tried to explain that I couldn't possibly accept the honor, if it was that, and that I had to get back to the camp as soon as possible. The smiles went away and my interpreter told me that it would be a great dishonor to refuse the chief. My new wife was now crying like her heart was broken. I had only one consolation - I'd been far too drunk to consummate my marriage, even if I'd wanted to. And since I'm not a pedophile, I'm certain that I hadn't wanted to.
Finally, after some negotiation and another jug of num pai, we worked out a deal. I'd pay the chief enough to assuage the hurt feelings, the marriage would be dissolved, and I'd be allowed to go back to the camp a free man. At that point I would have given a month's pay, but it turned out to be much less than that. Cheap at the price, since I believed that the woman I was already married to (and still am) would not have been amused at me bringing my child bride back home.
My hearbroken new bride was smiling again, the chief was happy, and I was free. No more num pai, I swore. That lasted until the next celebration.
While there was a very great deal of more of the same, some new developments caught my eye. Kestrel, which makes the hand-held weather station that is an essential piece of kit for snipers everywhere, has teamed up with Horus, who designed a digitized ballistics chart, eliminating the need for two separate kits. There is a common misconception about precision long distance shooting, that being that all you need is a good rifle equipped with a good scope and good ammunition, wielded by a person with steady hands. Movies and TV, as well as any number of novels, would have you believe that virtually anyone can make a reasonably long distance shot. The truth is far from that. Any number of factors can and will make a difference between a successful shot and a clear miss. First of all, different bullet weights of the same caliber will have different flight characteristics. Different velocities even of the same bullet weight will also affect flight. The same bullet weight and velocity will fly differently out of different rifles, sometimes even of the same model. And of course, different calibers are a whole other story. The 7.62 Nato (.308) currently used by most military snipers is good, despite wildly exaggerated stories, out to about 600 meters in tactical use. Of course you can hit past that, but bullet drop is so excessive you'll have to crank your elevation so far up you'll spend more time doing that than you will tracking your target. That's why the U.S. military is changing all its M-24 systems over to the .300 Winchester Magnum. All this to say, that's why you need a good ballistic chart. As to the weather station, probably most people know what winds will push the bullet one way or the other. To figure out how much wind drift you will have, you have to know how much wind there is. Such factors as humidity, temperature can also affect the bullet. The Kestrel will tell you all that. Finally, range to target is also critical. Right now the snipers use laser range finders, which also measure declination (slope). At the moment that calls for a different instrument, but I'm sure that sooner or later someone will put it together in a small, easy-to-carry package. In the old days, when we had virtually none of this, figuring all these factors in order to adjust your point of aim was a pencil drill, and you'd better be pretty good at mathematics. The idea that a sniper could be just some grunt with a rifle and telescope was laughable. It still is.
More about this and other subjects in future posts, but I've been prevailed upon to relate how I once became an unwilling (or unwitting) bigamist.
In 1966 I was a lieutenant in a Special Forces "A" Team in a fighting camp in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. We'd just received intel that the camp was to be attacked by the "Yellow Star" Division of the North Vietnamese Army. The First Cavalry Division, after first discounting the intel, ascribing it as regular army often did to sky-is-falling claims from the S.F., finally sent in a company on an L.Z. on one of the mountains surrounding the camp, whereupon it got virtually wiped out. You can read the full acount of it in S.L.A. Marshall's book, "Battles in the Monsoon". Anyway, this convinced the Cav that perhaps there was a problem, they committed the division as well as various other U.S., Vietnamese, and Korean units in an operation called Crazy Horse.
Finally they decided they had the Yellow Star surrounded in the mountains, and directed the Special Forces to send in reconnaissance and fighting units to "find, fix and engage" the enemy, whereupon we would be supported by air and artillery and reinforced by conventional units. I led one of those units. To make a long story much shorter and get to the main point of this, we found a North Vietnames battalion well-entrenched on a hillside. We became decisively engaged, pinned down, in fact. At that point my choices were to stay where we were and die piecemeal, run back down the mountain and get shot in the back, or attack. We attacked. Afterward there seemed to be some discussion as to whether to court-martial me for gross stupidity or decorate me. Someone decided that if they court-martialed all second lieutenants for stupidity there wouldn't be any left, so they gave me a Silver Star.
My company consisted of Montagnards from the Stieng tribe. Great troops, incredibly brave. We'd recruited them right out of their Stone Age society, trained and equipped them, and led them in operation after operation. The loved the Americans and hated the Vietnamese, both sides of which had oppressed them for centuries, in equal order, but since we insisted they only fight the North Vietnamese they complied, albeit reluctantly. After the operation the survivors insisted that I accompany them back to their tribe where they would induct me as an honorary member, for not getting more of them killed than I already had, perhaps.
Now, the Montagnard ceremonies for induction included a great deal of something called Num Pai. They would soak rice in a giant clay pot, bury it underground for a number of days to let it ferment, and then dig it up. You sat in a circle around the pot and the guest of honor was given the first drink. You sucked it out of a bamboo straw until a float device they'd hung over the top of the pot got to a certain level, whereupon they refilled the pot with water and passed the straw to the next man. Taking the straw out of your mouth before you drank your share was a big no-no. My best guess is that each person got about a half quart of the mixture each time, and the straw passed again and again. By putting water in, it got more and more diluted, until the chief of the tribe directed them to bring out another pot. At some point in the evening there was a changing of clothes from tiger stripe fatigues to loin cloths, dancing around fire, and more num pai. Finally, you were given a finely-worked copper bracelet, whereupon you became an official member of the tribe. My memory goes away sometime shortly thereafter.
The next morning I woke up, sill in loincloth, on the floor of one of the Montagnard long houses. Curled up next to me like a little cat was a Montagnard girl of, perhaps, fourteen. Bare breasted, as all Montagnards were. You can imagine my thoughts. Primarily panic. I softly, slowly, extracated myself, got out of the long house, and was searching for my fatigues when the rest of the camp woke up. I was quickly surrounded by grinnining tribespeople, all of whom seemed to be in on the joke. I found my interpreter and asked him what the hell was going on.
"You married," he said.
He went on to explain that the chief had given me his youngest daughter as a wife, there had been a ceremony, and I was now not only a member of the tribe, but his son-in-law. And would I be taking my new wife back to the S.F. camp, or would I like for her to stay there where I could visit.
By then my new wife had woken up and was hanging on to me. I was stumbling and sputtering and wondering what the hell I'd gotten myself into, which amused my ever-growing audience even more. I tried to explain that I couldn't possibly accept the honor, if it was that, and that I had to get back to the camp as soon as possible. The smiles went away and my interpreter told me that it would be a great dishonor to refuse the chief. My new wife was now crying like her heart was broken. I had only one consolation - I'd been far too drunk to consummate my marriage, even if I'd wanted to. And since I'm not a pedophile, I'm certain that I hadn't wanted to.
Finally, after some negotiation and another jug of num pai, we worked out a deal. I'd pay the chief enough to assuage the hurt feelings, the marriage would be dissolved, and I'd be allowed to go back to the camp a free man. At that point I would have given a month's pay, but it turned out to be much less than that. Cheap at the price, since I believed that the woman I was already married to (and still am) would not have been amused at me bringing my child bride back home.
My hearbroken new bride was smiling again, the chief was happy, and I was free. No more num pai, I swore. That lasted until the next celebration.
Tuesday, January 25, 2011
First Post
Let me introduce myself. I'm John F. Mullins. Some of you may already know me as the model for the character in Soldier of Fortune I and II. Perhaps you've read one of my books. Maybe you've visited the Facebook site "John F.....g Mullins Rules!" (I just found that one and am at the same time strangely flattered and horrified).
Anyway, I have a lot to say and suspect some of you out there are interested. Subjects to be covered are military matters both current and past, developments in the field of weapons, ballistics, and tactics. There will also be commentary on various current events (please be aware that under no circumstances will you find me bowing to political correctness). Finally, I'll be mining my memory and that of my friends for stories that you might find interesting and humorous. A future post will tell of the time I became an unwilling bigamist.
Why do I call myself an operator? I spent twenty two years in the U.S. Army, most of it as a Special Forces NCO and officer. I did three combat tours in Vietnam and operational tours in Africa, the Middle East, South and Central America. After retirement I continued to work in the same field, only this time being a lot better paid. I still keep my hand in, and know most of the players in the unconventional warfare arena.
I'll finish this up now. If you're interested, feel free to follow. I welcome comments.
Anyway, I have a lot to say and suspect some of you out there are interested. Subjects to be covered are military matters both current and past, developments in the field of weapons, ballistics, and tactics. There will also be commentary on various current events (please be aware that under no circumstances will you find me bowing to political correctness). Finally, I'll be mining my memory and that of my friends for stories that you might find interesting and humorous. A future post will tell of the time I became an unwilling bigamist.
Why do I call myself an operator? I spent twenty two years in the U.S. Army, most of it as a Special Forces NCO and officer. I did three combat tours in Vietnam and operational tours in Africa, the Middle East, South and Central America. After retirement I continued to work in the same field, only this time being a lot better paid. I still keep my hand in, and know most of the players in the unconventional warfare arena.
I'll finish this up now. If you're interested, feel free to follow. I welcome comments.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)