"Stories of Trench Defense?" Defense Primer

Question: What other books or stories are out there like The Defense of Duffer's Drift? Stories that can help me to understand defending our home and farm. I've read the ranger's handbook, but it's really not about static defenses. I don't want to read about building huge sandbag fortifications. I just want to have some ideas to think through fluid situations

The reason it is difficult to find a book/account akin to "Duffer's Drift" is because of evolution in warfare. With artillery, it is dangerous to stay in a fixed position. In the age of bows and catapults, castles are still viable as semi-permanent fighting positions. With the proliferation of gunpowder, all fighting positions became temporary. Therefore, your scenario/premise is faulty to begin with: Any defensive works (trenches, et al) is only a means to gain time, time to evacuate your dependents and stores.

If you want stories on fighting from trenches, working on trenches, books on Vietnam and WW1 are probably your best bet. (Korea has plenty of positional warfare, but most accounts are in official history forms.) McDonough's Platoon Leader is a good book on being in combat, setting up a Platoon Patrol Base, and leading patrols. Command Legacy is also a great starter/complement to Ranger Handbook and FM 7-8 on how to set up a defense.

For more thoughts on defending a homestead, check out the Infantry tag. Below is a short primer.

Contrary to popular misconception, WW1 was not a triumph of machineguns and trenches. More properly, WW1 was the triumph of the railroad, the counter-attack, and artillery. The allies and Germans usually succeeded in breaching the trench/defensive line. However, they were never able to exploit the breach. Artillery meant that it was almost impossible to mass your reserves close enough to exploit the breach. Even if you did breach, the railroad was always able to bring in the defense's strategic reserve and set up a defensive line to contain your exploitation and counter-attack. Mass conscription meant that there was always a strategic/operational reserve.

The Blitzkrieg, more than anything else, was the tactic to exploit a breach made by the infantry. Rommel's WW1 memoir, Infantry Attacks, is a classic on the German stormtrooper tactics for breaching trenches. On Infantry is another classic that discusses infantry principles.

Therefore, as Command Legacy says, your defense consists of 3 things: Combat Patrols, Fighting Positions, and the Counter-Attack Reserve. Combat patrols are fairly obvious, you patrol to disrupt enemy reconnaissance, provide advance warning, and make the enemy to commit prematurely. The combat patrol is what you use to take out enemy snipers, and helps you pincer during your counter-attack. You use your Reserves and stragglers to ambush the enemy when they breach your defense, and to counter-attack when he culminates in his exploitation.

For fighting positions, you try to set up 3 per: Primary, Secondary, and Tertiary. When the enemy makes a hole in your defense, you do not try to plug it immediately. Instead, your defenders, who are now in untenable Primary positions, withdraws to their 2ndary in an orderly fashion, while your Reserve sets up an ambush. When the enemy now comes through that beautiful hole they just made, you cut them down, repel. Then while the enemy is re-organizing, your defenders go back to their Primary positions, and you plug that hole then.

If the enemy is overrunning your defense, and you have to continue holding your position (ie, evac is not complete), then that's when you fall back to Tertiary (ie, squad bunker/safe room). From your Tertiary position, you wait as the enemy rushes past you, then shoots them from behind. Hopefully you have a Reserve/Reinforcements coming to rescue you, but if the numbers are against you, then this is either where you fight to die or where you fight to breakout. In Vietnam, that's when they call in the artillery on their own positions. In your case, you might blow up your own house when the attackers are all On The Objective.

Therefore, obviously, your Primary positions may be quite a distance away from your homestead. If they are sieging your house, then it's a very bad situation. You want to keep the defense mobile so you can trade space for time. In WW1, German infantry took to using allied shell craters as their 2ndary positions, using a limited form of mobile defense.

As you can see, a proper defense takes a lot of people. If you are less than platoon-size, then you should commit to staying mobile. Not to say you shouldn't be farming, but don't get married to your land unless you're willing to stake your lives on it. You can always come back to the land later (root crops), but you can't exactly replace your family.

Notes on Survivalist Site Defense

There was a thread on AR15.com, discussing the minimum manning requirement for a site defense. I think it is useful to readers who are not paying members, to archive part of this thread. It also merits further clarifications on the tactical considerations for defense planning in a semi-rural/suburban area.
http://www.ar15.com/forums/topic.html?b=10&f=17&t=641061&light=
For a defensive position, you need to establish a perimeter, and station guards. Obviously, not everyone can be pulling security at the same time. You need to let people rest. Also, food production and other manufacturing activities are vital in a long-term situation. So only a small fraction of the group can stand security watch at a time.
The purpose of the sentry is to give time for the reserve/QRF to get ready. The time, in this case, is distance. Say your defenders need 1 minute to go from work detail to defensive positions. People can rush 200 meters (in gear) in a minute, give or take. So your sentry(ies) need to see at least 200 meters out from your perimeter. You may need 8 ppl per shift to cover that distance, but most likely 2 people, in a protected position (rooftop nest), will suffice. So 10 people are capable of handling that duty. I would go with 12am-12pm 12-hr shifts personally, as opposed to the 6am-6pm shift beloved by everybody else. It's easier on your biological clock.
[In a homestead, your perimeter is not the whole farm, but rather the living area complex (barn, house, outhouse(?), et al.)]
Where the people requirement really come in is in the active defense plan. In other words, patrolling. You have to keep up a patrol schedule if hostiles are in the area. The manpower requirement varies, but SOFs give us a guideline here. SAS go w/ 4-men teams, while Force Recon go w/ 6-men teams. If you have 1 team out, 2 teams resting/working, you need a minimum of 12 people. Factoring in the sentries would give you 4 teams min, 16 people.
Your sentry acts as your Observation Post(s). You can go up, or go out horizontally. If you have the altitude, a guard tower is good. If you cannot go up, then you have to put your sentries outside your perimeter. Speaking of guard towers, it is unconscionable to place people in unarmored guard towers. All guard towers need to be sandbagged at a minimum. Overhead shade obviously. A protected entrance. A rooftop nest with internal access is the best. Obviously the house need strategic sandbagging as well. Sandbags are easily accessible to the homesteader. An alternative is using those Amazon shipping box, with a plastic liner. Or just build a sandbox with plywood.
If you are in a built-up area, you will need more people because you need to have eyes-on for all of the dead space, possible infiltration routes. In addition, you need to subdivide your compound, so that infiltrators cannot compromise the defense of your whole site. In other words, you need to have "water-tight compartments", to use a naval analogy. For the perimeter defense, if you have a square, four firing ports/bunkers/strongpoints can complete your defense by putting out a wall of lead along the perimeter.
"Think of the effects of a probe on your BOL site not once or twice a day , but 10,12,or even 20 times a day and night."
Yes, it would be unwise to go battle stations with just a pot shot. Manning the defensive line/battle positions is only for an active assault, ie, you see people breaking from the tree line. And yes, you should clear as many trees as you can, out to 500m from your squad nests/houses, when possible. In a suburb/city, you may have to use obstacles to channel the enemy main assault, and rely on vigilance against the infiltration attempts.

"Lets revisit that probing issue. You say you will just send out a patrol to run them off. Thats a great way to get ambushed, ect."
Well, you do have to clear the area. Active patrolling means you should have a team in the field at all times. If you're doing it right, this is when you call the patrol team back to clear that sniper.
The preper needs to remember that the patrol team is out there to disrupt enemy assault preparations and recon operations. Therefore, the team needs to look for possible enemy objective rally points/patrol bases. They recon enemy ingress routes and vehicle staging areas. They check for signs of passage and occupation at these sites.
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Speaking of vehicles, that will be the biggest threat to the survivalists. Think of it as modern cavalry. A pick up can greatly disrupt your defense, if you're not planned for it. You will need vehicle barriers [trenches and those giant caltrops/dragon's teeth] to block and channel a mechanized assault. You may also need to place an OP on the possible vehicle rally points for early warning.
The enemy mode of operation will probably be distributed, 1-vehicle scouting parties, ranging all over their area of ops looking for prey. Upon target selection, the scouts/swarm is recalled to mass against the target. Obviously the mass is depending on the perceived target difficulty. If you happen to be in the AO of such a gang, and you have just repelled the scout, it is time to run away. Unless you are organized and trained enough, or can call in enough posse, to ambush/interdict the gang coming your way.

Take Back Your Kilometer!

MAJ Ehrhart's paper, "Taking Back the Last Half Kilometer", has been making the rounds these past few days. It is an interesting paper on the tactical and technical deficiencies of the American and allied infantry in Afghanistan, using a 5.56mm carbine against enemy mortar attacks up to 2km away.

However, this is not a new problem. Mountain warfare experiences from WW2 and Indo-Pakistan wars have shown the necessity to engage enemy infantry beyond 500m. Some writers had warned, for example, that the US Marines reinforcing the Scandinavian flank during a Soviet invasion should bring the 7.62mm M-14 rifles with them to handle the mountainous terrain of Norway. For infantry warfare, there are two extremes: the close range (within 100m) of most infantry combat, and the long range (500m-1000m) requirements of mountain warfare.

To meet this combat requirement, the 6.8mm booster club would like to push the 6.8mm intermediate-intermediate cartridge onto the military. [Intermediate-intermediate because 5.56mm was originally sold as the intermediate cartridge.] They've been looking to get rid of the 5.56mm since its inception, and this is about as good a chance as they're going to get. The 6.5mm club is getting some airtime, too, but they're really too small compared to the 6.8mm club. However, due to the Army's historical foot-dragging on topics like this, this is not likely to happen. [Iraq was too close-quartered for their arguments to be effective, whereas our long war in Afghanistan will bring them many more instances of 5.56mm ineffectivenss.]

On the other hand, there are a couple of fixes we can implement fairly quickly, to meet this combat requirement of engaging enemies 500m to 1000m, with infantry squad weapons. The answers are the 40mm grenade and, surprise, the 5.56mm M-4 carbine.

Currently the 40x46mm unguided, low velocity grenade has a maximum range of 400m with an elevated trajectory. By putting a pair of pop-out fins and a laser seeker on the grenade, we can easily double the range of the grenade out to 800m. It's good timing, too, because the US Army just transitioned from the sliding breech M203 launcher to the swiveling breech M320 launcher. The M320 launcher can accommodate the increased length of the guidance package. Due to the low muzzle velocity of the grenade (76m/s), which is well-below that of common missiles, guidance integration should not be an issue. This development effort would take some time, but will be relatively fast due to the low technical risks involved. A smart grenade would be a "leap-ahead" technology the brass will love, so there will be few bureaucratic obstacles to its adoption. Long-term this grenade is the ideal solution to the mortar ambush scenario. The area effect of the grenade will easily suppress the insurgent mortar crews.

While we are waiting on the smart grenade, the infantry in the field can use their 5.56mm M-4 carbine to suppress the far-away enemy. But wait, you say, isn't the whole problem we're facing that 5.56x45mm cannot reach beyond 500m? Actually, the 5.56mm can go all the way out to 2,000m. The only problem is that you cannot aim it accurately beyond 500m, because the bullet is too light and will drift off course. Back in World War I, the bolt-action rifles all had sights that ranged out to 1,000m, even though few people can aim that far without scopes. [Even today, AK-47 sights can adjust out to 1,000m.] Back then, infantry often had to provide its own fire support, sometimes without help from artillery. The whole regiment would line up, adjust the sights out to 1km, then fire at that target together. The massed rifle fire would blanket that far away target with a rain of lead bullets. The mass fire compensates for the inaccuracy of the individual rifle and man at that distance. Similarly, the machine guns of the era had long range sight markings for indirect-fire, area suppressions. Machine guns were organized in batteries then, and they would mass arcing fire on targets kilometers away.

We can do the same thing today. A squad or two can mass their fire against the suspected insurgent position. A squad of M-4s can generate the fire volume of a WW1 battalion by aiming together. With a bit of range experimentation, you can easily figure out how to shoot out to 1km. I did a bit of calculation and I found that you probably need to elevate your muzzle by 0.28 degrees to shoot 1km. According to online ballistic calculators, you will need about a 1 degree elevation. So work with that and try it out. A bit of Kentucky windage in the field will get you close enough to the target to suppress them. A rain of steel and lead will make the insurgents think twice of mortaring you.

Of course, you still need to close with and assault the enemy. A squad can suppress the position while other squads maneuver to close the distance. You will need at least a squad to generate the fire volume to suppress out to 1km.

Some people will say that the 5.56mm cartridge does not have enough energy to kill a man at 1km. However, try standing out there, without a helmet, while bullets rain down around you. The 5.56mm still has enough energy to lodge inside your braincase at that distance.

So, write your Congresscritters to start this smart grenade program. In the meantime, start experimenting with the sights of your M-4 carbine. Your squad can still suppress that insurgent mortar team, despite what your training told you.

ETA: links and paragraph breaks

USMC TTP AAR

Tom Ricks is running a series on TTP after-action reviews from a Marine CWO2. At the small unit level, tactical competency is vital, no matter COIN or Fulda Gap. I said earlier that you need to treat those "presence patrols" as recon patrols. The CWO2 reinforces that lesson with his litany of patrolling basics here.

CWO2 also reminds us that, if you slow down, you will find that IED before it finds you. It's a lesson we've known for a long time, yet still have trouble applying. It's true that if you slow down, it takes you more time to cover the area of operations. However, most of the time you can afford to slow down. Hey, you've got all year to patrol your area of ops. What's another two hours gonna cost you?

On Presence Patrols (& Movements to Contact)

Tonight President Obama will give a policy speech on Afghanistan. Hopefully it will give us some real strategic direction. However, before we get to the strategic level, we need to remember that the US military itself has major tactical deficiencies. One such area is the confusion over presence patrols and movements to contact. Many small unit leaders do not appear to understand how and why they are conducting these missions. Hopefully this article helps our squad and platoon leaders accomplish these missions.
In John T Reed's review of Craig Mullaney's Unforgiving Minute, he pointed out Mullaney's ignorance on presence patrols and movements to contact. This is sad, but unsurprising. I have talked earlier about the Army's tactical deficiencies at the small unit level. The Army officer basic course common core (which all basic courses cover) touches upon tactics, but only as slogans. There is a section on the "Military Decision Making Process", which is a battalion+ level staff planning procedure. The field grade officers have made MDMP the holy grail of tactics in OBC, even though it is just a process and inapplicable at the company level. Mullaney went to Afghanistan in 2003. I hope we're better at it today.
Incidentally, when I looked up Presence Patrol on the Small Wars Journal, I found the discussion "What is Prescence Patrolling?", started five days ago. That is a sad sign for this anti-intellectual Army.
Looking at the Mullaney's description on the Presence Patrol, and on the Small Wars Journal, people seem to think that it is an information operation technique, where you show the flag and remind everybody of your presence. This is an unfortunate legacy from the Cold War, where the US Navy did "Presence Patrols" and coined the phrase. That cultural connotation has carried over into Army operations. However, the Navy Freedom of Navigation and Presence patrols took place in an uncluttered environment, relatively devoid of civilians. The intended target, other navies, were bound by peacetime rules of engagement. The patrols aimed to reinforce existing attitudes, not to change them.
On the other hand, in today's War Amongst the People, ground presence patrols operates on the human terrain. Showing the flag to the population has little effect on hearts and minds. Especially when the Yanks go back to base at the end of the patrol, while the Taliban maintains a permanent presence, as is the current practice in theater. Therefore, these patrols do not accomplish their IO mission, but rather present well-scheduled targets to Taliban IEDs and ambushers.
Therefore, we need to rethink presence patrols and make it militarily useful to the small unit. To the small unit (Company and below), the presence patrol has two purposes: To gather intelligence from the population, and to disrupt enemy Tactical Assembly Area activities.
1. Gather Intelligence
The fact that the Taliban can mount attacks means that we do not know who the enemy is, especially at the small unit level. The presence patrol is the primary intelligence tool available to the small unit leader. You need to keep talking to the locals and finding out what's going on. Just as all operations start with a map reconnaissance, you need to start with a map of the human terrain: Who are the village leaders? Who is related to whom? What blood feuds are in place? Etc.
One of the biggest innovations over the past 8 years, at the small unit level, is the Company Intelligence Cell. As we are doing more distributed operations than ever, and as we fight amongst the people, it is absolutely critical that all "Battlespace-Owning" companies have their own intel cells. These intel cells organize intel and analyzes trends. Regarding War Amongst the People, your intel cell collates the link diagram of your population, telling you who are hostile, who are possible abetters, and whose support you need. If you haven't head of it, read up on it in the Infantry Magazine and the Small War Journal.
To build and maintain your "model"/link diagram of the population, you need to get out there and talk to people, get the latest gossip. If the locals won't talk to you, then you need to build relationships with them. Start with "Hello"s and go on from there. Start a business relationship by hiring a few day laborers to work on your outpost, pick up trash on the surrounding roads, etc. A business relationship is a perfect cover to start talking. Once you know the Who's Whos, then you have a starting point to get to the suspects.
2. Disrupt the Enemy
Of less military utility, but still important, is Disrupting Enemy TAA activities. Just like you, the enemy needs a secure Tactical Assembly Area to plan ops, rehearse actions on the objective, and do pre-combat inspections. If you are patrolling an area, you deny the enemy the availability of that area for TAA activities. He has to go elsewhere, away from the cover of the population.
Therefore, your patrol schedule has to be random, and sometimes you should stay the night.
To sum up, you are not doing presence patrols. You are doing reconnaissance patrols, reconning on the population as opposed to the terrain.
On the subject of "Movements to Contact", you should never just go from one point to another, waiting to get hit. You will always know where the potential ambush sites are, even from a simple map recon. You can then do things like taking detours, clearing enemy Objective Rally Points, etc.

M-4 Carbine Updates

According to Army Times's Matt Cox, the US Army is proposing six changes to the M-4 carbine. The most major among the six are a heavier barrel and a piston gas system. As I discussed in my previous articles, M-4's reliability problems comes from chamber heating, leading to failures to extract. These two changes help to mitigate against that problem.

A heavier barrel will increase the heat capacity of the barrel by adding mass, ie, more heat energy is required to raise the temperature by one degree. Therefore, the new M-4 will fire more shots before the chamber heats up to extraction failures.

A piston gas system gives a sharper tap on the bullet case during extraction, compared to the current gas-impingement design. That higher transient force may be enough to overcome the case "sticking" to the heated chamber, further improving reliability.

So these changes are a good fix to the M-4. However, we still have the problem of excessive heating. The fixes only postpones the inevitable. I wish the Army would go to the root of the problem and either 1) slap a cooling fin/heat sink on the barrel nut, or 2) go to a longer barrel (16 - 20 inch) that the 5.56mm round was designed for.

Hat tip: the Firearm Blog.

PS: Added links and tags.

The Art & Science of Defensive Planning

The recent overrun of COP Keating (http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/10/10/the_battle_of_cop_keating_an_earwitness_account) is too close a replay of Wanat for comfort. (http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/01/28/inside_an_afghan_battle_what_happened_at_wanat_last_july_i). In both cases, an American unit is located on tactically unsound terrain, at the tip end of the logistic chain, and were overrun by the enemy assault. Only the belated arrival of air support saved the American bacon.

It appears that the US Army has gotten too relaxed after 20 years of living on Forward Operating Bases (Starting in Somalia). The logistic and security posture/doctrine these days are based on these brigade-sized FOBs. (If the Army still has an institutional security doctrine anymore.) To the extent that the Division staff (and above) think about security, it is from the stand point of Anti-Terrorism/Force-Protection. Maybe the Infantry School (& Ranger School) is still teaching tactical security and patrol base defense, but most Army officers have no training on this subject beyond that FM 7-8 (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/policy/army/fm/7-8/index.html) they're supposed to read on their own. If you're one of these unfortunate officers, I urge you to pick up a copy of Millen's "Command Legacy" http://www.amazon.com/Command-Legacy-Tactical-Leaders-Revised/dp/159797207X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1256222637&sr=8-1 . It's a great book filled with concrete TTPs and discussions. You have a defense plan that you can pick up from the book to use, and he explained all of his reasons so you can adapt it on your own. Even infantry officers will get a lot out of this book. Granted, Millen's chapters on defense are based on a Mobile Defense, where you have a Battalion Reserve to come save you. On the other hand, in a patrol base defense like Wanat & Keating, you site your positions around the center, and have a parameter wall. The basic principles are the same.

As we go into the world of Resilient Communities, some of you may find the need to brush up on defensive planning. Millen's book is an excellent starting point. Just remember that you need at least a platoon of people to defend your hamlet.

Sub-Compact AR PDWs Going Forward

Christian of DefenseTech reported that the Army is going ahead with Sub-Compact ARs as a PDW replacement for pistols. http://www.defensetech.org/archives/005066.html That's a good development, as I have advocated here http://americanmohist.blogspot.com/2009/02/us-army-mtoe-rifles-pistols-pdws.html and here http://americanmohist.blogspot.com/2008/09/army-open-to-new-pdw-ideas.html

America and NATO have had a Personal Defense Weapons requirement for close to 3 decades, but previous procurement efforts were derailed by post-Cold War budgetary constraints and by the special ammunition used by some of the PDWs [The militaries didn't want to add a new caliber of ammunition to the supply system.] Hopefully this time around, this PDW program will make it.

LMG, Assault Rifles, & Infantry Squads

Alter has some questions about LMG magazines. Sorry about the delay in my reply here. I will also talk about how assault rifles has changed the infantry squad, and squad operations in general.

1.) Drum magazines: Yes, reloading drums can be slow. However, in a fire fight session, soldiers rarely have time to reload their magazines, so the loading time is not an issue.

For the US Army, the basic load for a SAW gunner is 600 rounds. A 200 round belt and box is 6.92 lbs, whereas 200 rounds in BetaCo drum magazines is 8.8 lbs, and in 30 round magazines 7.5 lbs. The belt-feed mechanism (top cover) on an M-249 is about 0.75 pounds [from memory], so given the basic load, belt-feed would be lighter. 30-round magazine feed is a close second, though.

2.) Top-loading vs optics: you can angle either the feed or the optics. Angling the magazine well would also help with changing the magazines and reduce the exposed profile of the gun crew during reloading.

3.) Configurable components: ARES's Shrike is a great example of a modular weapon system, with various barrell lengths and belt feed vs magazine feed. However, soldiers generally will leave all of the components behind in the barracks and will deploy with a single configuration.

With the invention of the fully automatic Assault Rifle in World War II, the Light Machine Gun has become much less critical in squad operations. A fire team of 4 full-auto assault rifles can keep up a fire volume similar to that of a fire team with 1 LMG and 3 semi-auto rifles. Therefore, today, infantry squad armament is more a reflection of philosophy than fire volume arithmatics.

There are two schools of thought in infantry squad armament: Generalists vs Specialists. The Specialist school is exemplified by WW2 Stormtroopers and modern American squads: you have riflemen/marksmen, machine gunners, grenadiers, and submachine-gunners in a squad. Each man specializes in a weapon system. In a squad attack, he has a designated role based on his weapon system. He may cross-train on the other weapons, but he is supposed to be an expert of his weapon.

The Generalist school is exemplified by the French All-FAMAS squad. Everyone uses a full-auto-capable, high rate-of-fire, assault rifle. In the Generalist squad attack, the focus is more on the tasks than the weapons: Suppression, indirect fire (rifle grenades), marksmen, and close-in/breach/demolitions. Over time, the squad members end up specializing anyway, but at least their assault rifles help them do everything when necessary.

In an attack, squad/platoon fire (as opposed to maneuver) has two main tasks: suppressing a bunker and cutting off enemy reinforcement/maneuver. A machine gun suppresses the bunker by firing at it as a target. A rifle does so by aiming and firing at the bunker's firing ports/holes. Similarly, the machine gun cuts off maneuver by firing at the group, while the rifle fires at the individual maneuvering. So in the attack, the Specialists and the Generalists engage the same targets; they just go about it differently.

In the defense, the Specialist squad acts different from the Generalist squad. The Specialist squad defense is organized around its LMGs. The LMGs focus on the enemy attack axis, and the rest of the squad focuses on protecting the LMGs. At the same time, the squad needs to site the LMGs away from the other fighting positions, because the LMGs draw fire from the enemy. So the defensive line tend to be a series of one- and two-men foxholes.

The Generalist squad defense also orients on the enemy attack axis. However, it relies on 3- and 4-men fire teams to generate the fire volume (to approximate LMGs). So the defensive line tend to be section trenches (short trenches for the team) or fire team strong points. A fire team strong point can be either one large foxhole or two smaller foxholes right next to each other.

Regardless of the squad armament, both schools have medium machine guns (or general purpose machine guns) at the platoon level. The machine gun may not be critical in the platoon attack, but its value shines through in the platoon defense. Much as its historical role since World War I, the machine gun is a force-economy tool in the defense: A platoon can cover its sector with just the machine guns. It can keep the rest of the soldiers resting and/or under protective cover. At the moment of attack, the machine guns give time for the defenders to get on the firing line.

The reason the Generalist squad can get away without an LMG is because a squad is always part of a platoon defense. A ten-men squad cannot defend a location on its own for long. It can barely keep up an LP/OP while staying on 50% security. Because the platoon MMGs are always available in the defense, the Generalist squad does not need an LMG.

Hope you find it useful in understanding squad operations and machine guns.

Edited to add links and labels.

Modifications to Improve Reliability of Short-Barreled M-16 Variants

The Small Arms Review, which is an awesome firearms magazine, has been running a series of interviews with various firearm designers, such as Arthur Miller, Reed Knight, Dr. Philip Dater, et al. The interviews are great, with lots of insights into designing firearms and making design tradeoffs. Unsurprisingly, many of these designers are connected to the M-16 system in one way or another, due to its prominence as the last successful American rifle design to have wide acceptance.

In OIF and OEF, there have been documented reports of unreliability with the M-16 and its derivatives, the M-4 and the Mk-18 CQBR. Soldiers' failure to clean their weapons contributes to some of the reliability problems. However, the rest of the reliability issues may be design-related, and several of the designers above discussed this topic with Small Arms Review in the interviews.

In particular, in the March, April, and May 2008 issues, Jim Sullivan talked of the design problems he dealt with in designing the M-16, and how they have contributed to the current reliability problems. Jim Sullivan was one of the lead designers to complete the AR-15/M-16 design. Mr. Sullivan said that the current M-4 reliability problems come from barrel heating. According to him, the 5.56mm cartridge, because of its straight case design, is very sensitive to barrel heating over the course of many shots. The chamber pressure from the gunpowder expands the case against the chamber of the barrel. As the case temperature increases, it pushes harder against the barrel chamber. Normally, there is enough time for the case to cool and relax (and depressurize) before case extraction starts, which pulls the case out of the chamber and ejects it. However, if the extraction starts earlier than designed, such as with the M-4 and other shorter variants, the case is still pushing against the chamber during extraction. This "sticking" to the chamber exerts a friction force against the extraction, which may be strong enough to cause weapon failures. During a long firefight or range session, the rifle barrel heats up over time. The barrel heating causes the chamber to expand itself, decreasing the clearance between the chamber and the cartridge case. This sticking process, according to Mr. Sullivan, is the cause of the M-4 reliability problems, and is a concern for all 5.56mm weapons with a barrel length of less than 16 inches. (The M-4 has a barrel length of 14.5 inches.)

The Russians avoids this problem entirely by using a highly tapered case for its 7.62x39mm and other rifle cartridges. As the case expands, it also pushes itself away from the chamber, due to its case taper. For the Russians, barrel heating and case heat improves extraction, and they can go with a shorter barrel for their compact carbines with no reliability issues.

For us Americans, however, we're stuck with the 5.56mm cartridge for the foreseeable future. The federal government's budget problems means there is no money to change our service cartridges. Therefore we need to find low-cost fixes for our M-4 carbines, which is coming into wide use in the US Army and the USMC. In fact, the Army is making the M-4 its standard soldier weapon, replacing the M-16. To deal with the chamber sticking problem, there are two main methods: increasing cycle length to give the cartridge case time to cool, or decrease barrel heating to draw heat out of the cartridge case.

One way to decrease barrel heating is to install a heat sink onto the chamber end of the barrel. The POF-USA piston operation system has a barrel nut that also doubles as the heat sink. The heat sink may contribute to the reliability of POF's weapons as much as its gas piston system. In addition, a non-free-floating rail forearm can work as the heat sink as well. [The link shows a free floating rail system. There aren't many non-free-floating railed forearms on the market. A non-free-floating forearm clamps onto the barrel, thus drawing heat, whereas a free floating forearm does not contact the barrel.]

The other approach is to increase cycle length, but Colt has already exploited this approach with the M-16 and the M-4 currently in service. Colt re-designed the buffers to slow down the bolt carrier during the ejection process. The modified buffers make the M-16 somewhat reliable, but is not an adequate solution for the M-4.

The AR-15 commercial market is debating the merits of the gas impingement system versus the piston/operating-rod system on improving AR-15/M-16 reliability. The piston/operating-rod system changes the force pushing on the bolt carrier, but as Mr. Sullivan says, that's not necessarily the solution. The root of the reliability problem comes from the barrel heating/cartridge sticking. This phenomenon is the result of prolonged rapid fire through the weapon, which is not how most users use their weapons. For most users, the current M-4 and CQBR configuration is adequate for their needs. For users who need to engage in prolonged rapid fire, though, they need to consider installing heat sinks on their barrels.

For the users who are looking for a short-barreled rifle/personal defense weapon, the cartridge sticking is a factor they need to consider in evaluating the market. As the barrel gets shorter, the problem becomes more pronounced.

In a later article I will evaluate the effectiveness of the Picatinny railed forearm as a heat sink.

A Design to Improve Canine Effectiveness in Arid Climates

The military employs military working dogs in bomb detection. Therefore, working dogs can help us avoid mines and improvised explosive devices, and detecting the female suicide bombers currently in vogue in Iraq. However, the dogs are not effective in OIF and OEF because it is too dry over there.

A dog's nose is a mucous membrane with sensors all over. The sensors bind to the scent particles in the air through the mucous membrane. If the nose dries out, the sensors are not as effective in binding to the scent molecules. Because the air is so dry in Iraq and Afghanistan, it dries out dog noses rapidly. The bomb detection dogs were only effective for much less than one hour before needing to take a break and re-wet their noses.

When I was deployed, I wrote up a proposal to build a humidifier for a working dog, to extend his working time. To accomplish this, you can take a spritzer to spray water onto his nose directly, for a low tech method, interim capability.

My design was: Mount the spritzer by the dog's head, and aim it to a point 3 inches in front of his nose. The spritzer would automatically spray water toward this point periodically, to moisturize the air as he breathes in. The exact configuration and timing will require experimentation, for which I did not have the money, personnel, nor assets to do.

Alternatively, we can spray moisturized air, instead of water spray, into the air. This might be more effective, but it would also be more complex.

Anyway, I submitted the proposal to the local counter-IED working group. They forwarded it to some people in the K-9 community. And I never heard back from them again. Story of my life, eh? :)

This proposal will make a great college/backyard engineering project if you want to build it. All you need is a dog, some dry weather, and some time to tinker with. It is not technically sophisticated, but you do need to program that motor controller.

So that is another one of my engineering ideas as I was sitting in the Fallujah contracting office doing paperwork. We need to get more working dogs into the military because they are so useful. In Vietnam, soldiers used to patrol the jungle with working dogs. The dogs could smell and hear the boobytraps, and were great sentries at night. Dogs also are good at reading body language and help us separate good guys from bad guys. In the new population-centric warfare we are fighting, working dogs are a crucial tool that we are not using effectively.

US Army MTOE: Rifles, Pistols, & PDWs

One thing the US Army needs to fix is the way it assigns weapons in the MTOE.

OIF/OEF has exposed some of the problems with Army thinking on this subject. The following rules describes the current situation:

1. One soldier, one weapon. Except for special situations such as military police or special forces, who gets both a pistol and a long arm per soldier.

2. Company Commanders get pistols. Lieutenant Colonels and above (and most Sergeants Major) get pistols always. Majors may get M-16/M-4s if necessary. Everyone else gets M-16/M-4s or machine guns.

3. Some Corps and EAC units will get more pistols due to the (supposed) reduced threat environment.

The above rules made the pistol a status item in the military: If you carry a pistol, you must be important. Nevermind that the pistol is only good in special situations. The soldier who has only a pistol is under-protected by the Army.

In OIF/OEF, however, the special situations come up all the time for the line infantry and ad hoc infantry: In close-quarter combat, pistol is crucial as a backup. When your M-16 magazine is almost empty, it may be faster to draw your pistol and keep firing, as opposed to taking the time to change out the magazine. Snipers and machine gunners also need a pistol for close defense.

At the same time, many staff officers carry pistols as their only weapon. However, a pistol has limited range and cannot penetrate body armor. In the modern 360-degree, non-linear battlefield, a soldier with only a pistol has a limited chance to survive.

However, the status symbol of the pistol meant that, at the beginning of OIF/OEF, there was a critical shortage of pistols for the line companies. The US Army has bought more M9 Berettas to fill the requirement, and the real MTOE, as opposed to the official one, for most active duty line companies now include more pistols.

At the same time, staff officers need to give up their pistols and pick up a personal defense weapon or carbine. Everyone in the Army needs to be ready to defend themselves against an enemy soldier.

The Upcoming LMG Replacement and Infantry Operations

The Marine Corps Times reports that USMC is working on a SAW replacement. At the same time, the US Army will probably stay with an upgrade to the FN Minimi/M249. The Marines are looking for a magazine-fed-only automatic rifle to serve in this role. The Army, on the other hand, is sticking with belt-feed, and will possibly eliminate the magazine well on the SAW.

This is an interesting development and serves to highlight the historical role of the light machine gun. Most people, including many in the military, have little understanding on what a machine gun is supposed to do. Everyone agrees that a machine gun, including an LMG and automatic rifle, needs to shoot lots of rounds, but outside of that, there's quite a bit of confusion.

Man invented the Machine Gun because it was a great engineering problem, to make the gun automatically load and continuously fire. But after the invention, militaries struggled for years to build up an organization around the technology. Eventually, in the meatgrinder of World War I, they settled on the missions of the machine gun as:
1. In the Defense, to anchor the defensive line, and to build a wall of lead to stop the enemy advance.
2. In the Offense, to isolate the objective (a bunker, foxhole, house) so that the enemy cannot reinforce the target, and to occupy the objective's attention while the rest of the squad/team approaches the objective.

The light machine gun attempts to meet these two missions for the infantry squad, while the medium machine gun does the same for platoons and companies. To keep up with the soldiers on foot, the LMG needs to be small and light enough so that one soldier can carry it and bring it into action, yet still fulfills the above two missions.

The current debate in LMG design is, What are the necessary features to meet the missions?
-Does it require a belt-feed mechanism so we can give it a 200-round belt in a sustained-fire mode, or would the current 30-round magazine be sufficient since machine gun operation usually has enough time to allow a quick magazine change? Can the current 90-round and 100-round drum magazines work as well as the battle-proven belt-feed mechanism? The American BAR served throughout WWII in the LMG role with only a 20-round magazine.
-Does it require a quick change barrel so that the squad can fire thousands of rounds in a defensive engagement against overwhelming odds? Without changing out the barrels in this scenario, the machine gun barrel will melt/deform from the firing stress, rendering the weapon useless.
-Does it need a tripod mount so we can mount it on a Humvee, and to provide accurate, long-distance(600m+), automatic fire from a static position? Or is that a role for medium machine guns and heavy machine guns, but not light machine guns?

These questions are important because modern assault rifles such as the AK47 and M16 provide automatic fire mode to the individual soldier. The soldier no longer has to rely on the squad LMG to be the sole provider of automatic fire. The LMG does not have the overwhelming advantage in automatic fire to offset its disadvantage of weight, size, and logistical and training requirements (as a result of its belt-feed, barrel, and tripod). And without the above three features of belt-feed, quick-change barrel, and tripod mount, the LMG looks suspiciously like any other assault rifles. Witness the RPK and the L86 LSW variant. In fact, the British Army now employs the L86 LSW as a designated marksman rifle, rather than an LMG.

[The Steyer AUG LMG variant is an LMG design that has the quick-change barrel, but no belt-feed nor tripod.]

So armies across the globe continue to grapple with the design of the LMG/Automatic Rifle. The lessons of OIF are now feeding into this debate. In OIF, most of the fighting is done in built-up areas. In such close quarters, the machine guns primarily serve to isolate the objective, firing down alleyways to keep people from entering and leaving. The LMG's length means that it is of limited utility inside houses, going from room to room. The LMG's range is useful as a marksman rifle, but its sustained fire is rarely used due to collateral damage. To the dismounted patrol, then, the LMG extracts a weight penalty for a limited tactical utility.

On the other hand, the LMG was crucial in the early days of OIF phase 4. At the time, units across the country scrambled onto Humvees to maintain security on the lines of communication, and to provide security coverage in the cities. During this mad rush, there was a critical shortage in medium machine guns (M240) and heavy machine guns (M2) to arm the Humvees. The SAWs in the pintle mount bridged the shortage then, and has continued in the role to this day as a vehicle weapon. Therefore, an LMG may be important to the infantry squad not for its dismounted utility, but as a hedge for the days of the Dragoons.

In conclusion, the Light Machine Gun, as it exists today, will probably fade away. In the assault-rifle world, the LMG does not possess enough of an advantage over the assault rifle to continue on as a dedicated platform. Instead, we will see more assault-rifle derivatives such as the Steyer AUG LMG, which shares much in common with the individual rifle. The automatic rifle of the future would ideally have a quick-change barrel and the tripod mount (to get on the pintle). Drum magazines and regular magazines will carry the ammunition for the automatic rifle, enabling the SAW gunner/Automatic Rifleman to share ammo with his squadmates.

Thanks to Noah's Five for Fighting 9/16/08 for the heads up.

Edited for spelling, grammer, and formatting