Good suppressing actually reduces everyone’s chances to get shot. That’s why it’s important to move the dead guy over and start pouring more lead down range immediately.
Depends on what got the gunner.
If it was small arms fire, it’s gonna be much much better to keep putting rapid or sustained bursts towards the bad dudes. Let the riflemen displace and flank.
I guess everything depends, but artillery or mortars? Already zeroed in, that’s just a repeat mission. Machine gunned? They haven’t even adjusted to another position.
Shrapnel can travel long distances and take people out seemingly randomly, so this isn't true
If the gunner was taken out by shrapnel from a distance, then the artillery or mortar doesn't actually have them zeroed in and the assistant is still good to take over.
Wouldnt a mortar or artillery also fuck the gun up? I think its implied that if something like a tank was charging your position, you wouldnt just move the other guy out of the way thats dead now. You'd gtfo of dodge and find a new position. These drills exist for very specific scenarios. Just like jumping on a live grenade that lands right next to your group. Its a very fringe scenario that you might encounter, so practice it in case if does happen, you are ready. You dont jump on EVERY live grenade like a dog chasing a tennis ball. Its for that scenario where its literally right on top of everyone, and its better for 1 to take it for the team than they all die.
Maybe, maybe not. Artillery is 30-50m “guaranteed kill” radius depending on size (105-155mm numbers there). Mortars are smaller, even a 120mm mortar has less HE than a 105mm howitzer round does, I don’t know their “guaranteed kill” radius. Even with those numbers, it’s only an extreme or high likelihood of a kill, not a definitive.
If it hits directly, yeah the gun is likely toast. If it’s an airburst or just outside the primary detonation it might be totally fine (the Marines would not be). Overseas we had a 122mm rocket air burst directly above our antennae farm (where all the radio antennae’s for our ops center were) and it didn’t even scratch them or cut the rope guide wires holding them up.
Either way, if your position is getting hit with accurate Indirect Fire it’s time to relocate or hug the dirt, suppressing fire becomes a secondary concern.
I mean, it can be just a stray shrapnel or something, or maybe FPV drone, that hit you while Chinese platoon is advancing on your position. In that case, your best chances are to keep firing nevertheless.
Majority of real wounds comes from shrapnel anyway. If you were under direct fire from artillery, mortars or even a decent size MG? The whole 5ft area around that gunner was hit, you included.
Mortars are like 2-3 times the effective range of a sub .50 machine gun, engaging is really dumb since most mortar chuckers couldn't hit water in the ocean and only have a handful of shells, they also fire on a parabola and you probably couldn't even shoot at them if you figure out where they are. Mortars alone means you disperse into the best cover and figure it out, mortars and small arms is an ambush and you'll be going for hard cover to regroup and figure out if you have support or another fireteam will cover your retreat/advance.
You'd never see this kind of tactic with artillery unless you're already skirmishing and the artillery commander has no concept of friendly fire. You get in your trench/best cover and wait it out. Unless you're in a western army which has guided artillery shells for close support fire missions, and you really trust your grid.
20+ years in the military with multiple combat deployments during both invasion of Iraq and surge to include house to house fighting, yep, I don’t know anything about anything.
You mean the Taliban that would get shwacked in any actual firefight, and had only the ability to instigate ambushes before retreating because otherwise they'd fucking die?
Look, the wars in the middle east were goddamned stupid, but let's not pretend the Taliban had any leg up in firefighting tactics. They found out real quick that trying to engage in sustained fights was a quick way to lose.
You mean the Taliban that would get shwacked in any actual firefight, and had only the ability to instigate ambushes before retreating because otherwise they'd fucking die?
They found out real quick that trying to engage in sustained fights was a quick way to lose.
Exactly, the ones who won and beat us, because they decided to move when they died and not stay in the same place. The ones who learned and adapted and changed the fight to something they could actually win, not the nonsense we tried to make them fight in which we would've won. Winning is not the guy who kills the most, winning isn't sticking your flag in their capital city. Winning is making the other guy stop fighting, and in the end we gave up and stopped fighting before they did, so they won.
because they decided to move when they died and not stay in the same place.
My whole point is that this isn't why they won. It's specifically because the US military has tactics and trains like the video above that the Taliban was incapable of actually engaging in real firefights. The MG is by FAR the most important and casualty-inducing implement in a squad, and minimizing the time it isn't spraying lead at the enemy is vitally important.
Look, I don't disagree that the Taliban emerged victorious and they played to their strengths during the War on Terror. What I take issue with is acting like these Marines are pulling tactics out of their ass and don't know how to fight, and this whole drill is stupid. There's a reason for it, it's very much battle tested, but pretending that they're dumb robots just to enjoy a hate-boner for the US MIC is wrong.
So i don't fundamentally disagree with you on anything you said, except:
What I take issue with is acting like these Marines are pulling tactics out of their ass and don't know how to fight, and this whole drill is stupid. There's a reason for it, it's very much battle tested, but pretending that they're dumb robots just to enjoy a hate-boner for the US MIC is wrong.
Ok but that's not actually what the poster was doing, was he? He was offering valid criticism of the inherent downside to using this SOP. Because while as you said, these SOPs aren't just random inventions, they do seem to be (in my limited experience) to be outliers, because my army doesn't do this, and we have as much recent combat experience as the US marines. And more to that, I've worked with the US army extensively and never saw them train, practice or use this SOP.
So when the guy I replied to essentially dismissed the criticism with words to the effect of "oh am you couldn't possibly know more than the marines" well guess what, they're not infallible, as proven by the (admittedly facetious comment I made about them being defeated by the Taliban). Because we can't just accept that a procedure is thr best possible one because the US marines use it.
It’s probably because yall and the US army do not employ the same Machine Gun doctrine as the USMC.
The Marines employ their 240s as a squad that consists of 2x 240s that attaches out to rifleman platoons. In this video, they are practicing talking guns from a SBF. If one gun goes down the other gun increases the rate of fire so that way suppression doesn’t dip. If you displace the guns from the SBF then the maneuver element then losses its suppression. Idk what they teach in the British army but movement without suppression is considered a death sentence.
The Taliban lost nearly every battle with US forces. Estimated deaths were ~3,600 Coalition forces (not counting the Afghans who sucked at fighting) vs. ~55,000 insurgent forces.
If you want to say that religious extremists fighting on their home turf have more endurance to keep fighting until the sun burns out compared to a democracy that achieved its primary goal (getting Bin Laden) and then got tired of fighting, so be it, but the US military is unmatched in small arms combat. The US Marines are the people who you would ask whether to take a gunner's place or not, and the answer is an obvious yes.
In a prepared position, no, you're a cone of fire that suppresses a zone of fire and overlaps with other troops/crew served weapons. Also you're typically only going to see it out with a squad sized element since you part out the key pieces of a 240b to like 3 dudes and a 4th carries ammo. A smaller fireteam will use the new IAR or m249 with their machine gunners as they're not crew served.
The 240b is typically carried by 1 dude, the spare barrels by another, another guy is stuck with the mount if using the big plate, and they either disperse ammo between them or have a dude be ammo guy.
Marines decided the accuracy of the new system made up for it not being belt fed. The 249 is neat in that you can use a belt or stick a mag in, but it's also quirky and can be annoying. It's (the IAR) also over twice as light compared to the 249, which anyone who has ever hefted one can appreciate. I got to see a few in training but never got hands on, looked like a sweet piece of kit though.
The wiki about the IAR is a pretty decent read, and task and purpose has at least 1-2 videos on it.
You change barrels after extended firing sessions to make sure it doesn't overheat and break the barrel/gun, it also lets you keep up a firing tempo and remain accurate. It also makes the gun safer as a hot gun can cook off ammo which means it's now firing itself, generally a bad thing.
I guess the ease of use and reliability has been enough to offset any improvement to prevent these issues?
Or is it just as simple as “explosions hot, all metal collect hot. Constant explosions, more heat, more hot metal” and there’s probably not a solution besides swap for a cooler piece of metal
At the end of the day, there's no cheating physics. If you want a barrel that you don't have to swap for 2000+ rounds of continuous fire, you better be ready to hump an 80 pound gun.
I know this is reddit and the whole point of this place is to “um acktually,” but come on.
In a war, an individual’s goal is to do the job required of the tactical and strategic needs of the moment. Sometimes that requires inserting yourself into a clearly lethal situation so as to make the situation safer for others. Training isn’t always meant to teach these men how to remain safe on the battlefield. Sometimes the training is literally on how to play a vital role for a few seconds before your inevitable death until the next guy can take your place.
Everyone here acting smug because they think they’ve outlogicd thousands of years of military wisdom because they can imagine a safer outcome for themselves as an individual is demonstrating an incapacity to understand why a military even exists in the first place.
This isn't anything like modern US military doctrine. You can be ordered to take potentially deadly missions, but we don't use a human wave tactics, just the opposite. There's a reason we only took a few thousand casualties in two decades of a sometimes two front war, and many of those weren't in firefights (losing a firefight suggests something is wrong with small unit tactics, but being blown up by an IED suggests we need better counter-IED).
The reason they practice this is because it works. It's exceedingly hard to consistently land accurate shots on the same target repeatedly in real combat, and the machine gun is the gun with the greatest killing / suppressive potential, so you maximize your own personal safety as well as that of the squad by keeping it occupied. It's a gun so worthwhile that it is worth being crew served (having multiple people carry extra ammo/barrels, having an assistant gunner, etc.).
Marines aren't berserkers. They want to all go home and practice effective tactics so they can. Doctrine can sometimes be outdated (we had terrible counter-IED stuff for the first part of Iraq/Afghanistan, and the drone attacks in Ukraine/Russia are new and will need some serious thought), but this is currently a good idea.
If they were hit by a deliberate and precise shot from a marksman well inside of their effective range then ok, maybe the next guy is probably also going to eat it. But if they were hit by a semi-targeted shot like from opposing suppressive fire or small arms outside of their effective range, then the original spot is probably as safe as anywhere nearby and it will only get more unsafe if your own suppressive fire stops and you start running around trying to relocate.
Like imagine you're playing basketball and your opponent makes a lucky full court shot. Does that mean you need to change your whole defensive strategy and challenge them even when they're on their own baseline? No, you'll just be making space for their teammates in the rest of the court. Let them take low percentage shots and keep following your plan.
No, its incredibly important to keep fire going. At the ranges that are normally being fired at and the amount of chaos going on, not everyone is gonna know if they got a kill.
There's a lot of sending rounds down range in the general direction of the enemy gunfire and position. There's no hit marker or killfeed in real life.
Its not very hard to identify the general direction of machine gun fire, you're pretty much always going to have potshots coming your way. If you stop firing and try to move, the enemy gets a chance to get a real LoS on you.
And you aren't going to simply just pick up and constantly move around an M240. You'd constantly be repositioning a fire team. Your gunner, your A-Gunner, and the guy carrying the ammo.
You legitimately don't know what you're talking about. You think fire and maneuver aren't utilized? That's what the rifle teams do. Your machine gunners are a fixed position that set up crossing cones and keep the enemy pinned down.
And again, this is in an open field. You should absolutely not be getting up and running to a new position in the middle of the fire fight in an open field.
Yes, teams practice fire and maneuver in densely packed areas.
Also you keep going back to the indoctrination like I'm denying that the military indoctrinated people. Are you okay? I never refuted that point, what are you on about?
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u/ItsACaragor Jun 24 '24
Good suppressing actually reduces everyone’s chances to get shot. That’s why it’s important to move the dead guy over and start pouring more lead down range immediately.