29 Apr 04

Good tip from a friend and colleague in the federal system:

"In the middle of qualification, one of our officers attempted an emergency reload. He tried, in vain, for the better part of fifteen seconds, to jam his Motorola flip phone his pistol's magazine well. Needless to say, he failed the course and had to do it again. I am glad this happened on the range, so we could all learn from it."

Lesson: Keep your cell phone far away from your spare magazine carrier.

/John

29 Apr 04

Weapons of War:

When the American Civil War started, rifles and muskets were purchased haphazardly by both sides, in great quantity, from any source where they could be found. Smoothbore muskets were preferred by the War Department over rifles. Muskets, effective only at close range, could be reloaded fast. Rifles, effective at great range, encouraged individual initiative, something that, in the minds of generals, was akin to disobedience. Individual initiative, while officially lauded in award citations, is, even today, still regarded as suspect by parochial commanders..

Reloading muzzle loaders (rifles or smoothbores) can be accomplished while lying down, but it is done easier and faster when one is standing. In the Nineteenth Century, generals liked their men to stand at all times, so they could be seen. To generals, soldiers in the horizontal suggested stagnation and cowardice. Generals also liked the idea that their men, realizing that it would be at least thirty seconds between shots, would take careful aim at each and every opportunity to shoot. In practice, the opposite was true. Most fired into the air as soon as they could and then immediately hugged the ground, unable to fire, until they were driven back to their feet by indignant line sergeants.

Not surprisingly, new technology, represented by breech-loading rifles (the Henry and Spencer), was universally disliked by Civil War generals, because these rifles could be both fired and reloaded from the horizontal, and were effective at long range. Soldiers loved them, but the War Department shunned them. War planners worried about excessive ammunition consumption. When machine guns came along at the turn of the century, war planners would again express this same concern as they, predictably, argued against them too.

As one would expect, capable and innovative soldiers (both Union and Confederate) prevailed upon their families or saved their own pay in an effort to acquire these modern arms for themselves, because they wanted to individually contribute to the war effort and finish the war alive. As is the case today, acquisition of such private arms was officially discouraged. Innovation and initiative still alarms small minds. Indeed, during WWI, Russian soldiers were often commanded to fire at their own airplanes, because, isolated and unfamiliar with the modern world, Russian officers believed only Germans were clever enough to have such things

In the aftermath of the battle of Gettysburg, PA in 1863, General Meade's men collected over 30,000 abandoned rifles. Most had been loaded, many multiple times, but never fired. No percussion cap had been emplaced on the majority, because soldiers either forgot or didn't know one was necessary. Meade was extremely unhappy with this discovery and belatedly ordered that rifle training be conducted throughout the Army of the Potomac. For many Union soldiers, it was to be the first formal training with which they had ever been provided.

Not surprisingly, unhappy issues like the heavy toll taken on unit readiness by venereal disease, desertions, poor training, obsolete equipment, and poor care of the wounded receive scant mention in the "Glorious History of the Regiment." However, secular military chronicles clearly and painfully point out that far more soldiers are killed or rendered ineffective by disease (much of it easily preventable) and despondence than ever were via authentic enemy contact. Embarrassing to all armies and nations, such problems are hastily swept under the rug as soon as they rear their ugly heads. Understandable, as bad news is always unpopular, particularly when it pertains to our father's war. But it is unfortunate, because our collective amnesia causes us to continue to commit identical blunders from conflict to conflict, simply because the same bitter, and long since forgotten, lessons must be painfully relearned by each new generation.

Who knows into what age we've all been pitched? All of us need to seek out the best technology for ourselves, never depending upon a "system" to "take care of us." Their world is defined by "rules." Ours isn't!

/John