Now I do not know for you but to me. This Gun Bunnies* look like they are a happy bunch of Troopers to me! Grumpy
* Now before somebody gets their underwear in a knot. The Term Gun Bunny is a nick name of the the Artillery Branch of the Army.
Just like the other ones are Long Range Snipers or Red Legs. As back in the Old Army, the cannon cockers wore a Red Stripe down the side of their trousers. By the way, Men wear Trousers & women and little girls wear pants!
U.S. troops landed in Iceland last week ahead of the start the largest NATO military exercise since the Cold War, and apparently, they left their mark in the most appropriate way possible: by drinking every last beer in the nation’s capital.
A significant number of bars in downtown Reykjavík were forced to make emergency beer runs under the onslaught of thirsty American sailors and Marines in town for the start of Trident Juncture 18, Iceland Magazine reports.
Local media estimate that 6,000 and 7,000 U.S. military personnel exhausted beer cellars across the Icelandic capital in the span of a single weekend.
Almost as good as a DD-214.
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The details from Iceland Magazine are, frankly, hilarious (emphasis ours): The local news site Vísir reports that the brewery Ölgerð Egils Skallagrímssonar, which makes the popular Gull, had to send out emergency supplies to the bars. According to the sources of Vísir, the soldiers preferred local beers over imports and were very willing to sample different microbrews as well as the more popular standard lagers. The local blogger Eiríkur Jónsson spoke to restaurateurs who said they had never experienced a similar situation. Bar owners who ran out of beer tried to solve the issue by borrowing from bars which were better stocked, whilemembers of the delivery team from Ölgerðin were called out to help the bar owners cope, but “they were fighting an overwhelming force,” as Eiríkur puts it.
Nearly 50,000 troops from 29 NATO allies (plus Sweden and Finland) are participating in Trident Juncture 18, backed up by 65 naval vessels, 150 aircraft, and more than 10,000 vehicles — all of which makes for thirsty work. And if anything, Trident Juncture will leave NATO leaders with one important strategic conclusion: When all else fails, you can always drink the enemy under the table.
Now I had been very lucky in my time in Mr Reagan’s Army. As I had for the most part had some pretty good Leadership. But this guy if half the stuff about him is true. Was leagues ahead of them.
It just goes to show, that when the shit hits the fan. Usually Folks like him show up and lead the way.
RIP Sir, as you really earned your pay! Grumpy
When the United States Army Went to War Armed with French Weapons
France. What a silly place, am I right? They eat frogs, they’re on their, like, millionth government since the Revolution, and they keep needing us ‘Muricans to save them during world wars. Well, that is one way of viewing the Franco-American narrative, I suppose, if one were to overlook the incredibly vital French aid during the American Revolution (thousands of troops, a Navy, and literally tons of weapons) and all the French thinkers that influenced the Founding Fathers.
And then there’s that little problem of the U.S. Army using mainly French weapons when it entered World War I.
“But ASO, surely it was only a few weapons, right?” the interlocutor might ask. Sure, gentle reader, just a few weapons: just several hundred thousand automatic rifles, machine guns, grenades, artillery pieces, and tanks. That’s all.
“But how could this happen?” the astonished reader asks.
Simple. It’s what happens when you build a small Army – less than 200,000 men – meant for fighting small wars on small islands and entirely neglect modernization.
On April 6, 1917, when the U.S. declared war on Imperial Germany, the U.S. Army had about 200,000 Soldiers on active service, approximately 80,000 of which were National Guardsmen called up for the 1916 Mexican Border Expedition. Getting the Army up to size wasn’t the problem; with authority of the National Defense Act of 1916, the President and Congress could call up the approximately 350,000 Soldiers in the National Guard and institute the draft. No, the problem was how to arm these Soldiers.
Once upon a time – back in the Spanish-American and Civil Wars – this wasn’t too big of an issue. Regular troops were augmented by units of U.S. Volunteers, most of whom were armed by their states or from stores of small arms kept by the Federal government in arsenals across the country. But that was back when war was relatively simple and you could equip infantry units with weapons like the muzzle-loading 1861 Springfield or the 1873 Springfield trapdoor rifle. With 1,000 men to a regiment, it was pretty simple to do the math: 1,000 rifles, some tents, a small wagon train, a blacksmith forge, and travelling kitchens would get you what you needed. Not so in 1917.
The first problem was force structure. The National Defense Act of 1916 had changed the organization of infantry regiments to reflect the changing nature of war: they now had machine guns and automatic rifles. Further, General John Pershing – Commander of the American Expeditionary Forces – added even more weapons to the list in 1917 to increase a regiment’s lethality: Stokes mortars, 37mm light field guns, and grenade launchers affixed to rifles. He also flexed infantry regiments up to a wopping 3,200 men, arranged in three battalions. The infantry regiment formed the core of Pershing’s main functional maneuver element: the division. Each division contained four infantry regiments, three field artillery regiments, three machine gun battalions, one regiment of engineers, and battalions of support troops. Each of these divisions contained 28,000 men. That was a lot of men to equip. Indeed, the first four divisions to arrive in France in the fall of 1917 -the 1st, 26th, 2nd, and 42nd – numbered over 112,000 men; this was over half the size of the Regular Army when war had been declared. There were simply too many men who needed arms and equipment.
The other problem was modernization. The Army was just not ready for the modern age. Their machine-gun was still the 1895 Browning, nicknamed the “potato digger” because its recoil drove it into the ground. The Army’s field guns were still of Spanish-American War vintage. The 1903 Field Gun was actually quite good, but had been stuck in the development stage for nearly two decades. The Browning Company had manufactured a new machine gun and automatic rifle, but there were barely any models of these excellent weapons on hand when war was declared, and it would take over a year for them to actually get pushed to France in any numbers that would matter. The service’s main rifle, the M1903 Springfield, was excellent, but was also lacking in numbers. Facing the daunting task of equipping the first four divisions to head to France, the War Department turned to its allies for help.
Thus it was that the French opened their stores of weaponry and began arming the Doughboys that were arriving in France by the thousands in the fall of 1917. To the regimental machine gun companies and the machine gun battalions went the M1914 Hotchkiss machine gun. The Hotchkiss was gas-actuated and air-cooled, firing an 8mm Lebel round and had to be crewed by three men, due to its weight and the need to incessantly feed 24-round strips of ammo into the gun. Its weight – 110 pounds with the tripod – caused it to usually be carried around on carts, adding to the difficulty of getting it into battle. However, U.S. machine gun battalions racked up excellent records using the Hotchkiss and even learned how to use them for laying down machine gun barrages.
U.S. troops with the Hotchkiss, 1918. (Library of Congress)
Far less popular than the Hotchkiss was the M1915 Chauchat automatic rifle. Now, the concept of automatic rifles was that there would be one auto rifle squad in each infantry platoon, giving that platoon the ability to lay down some serious suppressive fire. And it was a good concept. The problem lay in the Chauchat. It was slow, heavy, and seemed to jam at the worst possible times. The jams were not usually caused by the weapon itself, but by the magazine’s idiotic design that left half of the side open – open to the ubiquitous mud of the Western Front. Small wonder then that it jammed. However, in the hands of well-trained and meticulous soldiers, the Chauchat could be a force multiplier.
An old French couple, M. and Mme. Baloux of Brieulles-sur-Bar, France, under German occupation for four years, greeting soldiers of the 308th and 166th Infantries upon their arrival during the American advance. (Library of Congress)
Another infantry weapon adopted from the French was the Vivien and Bessières – or V-B in Doughboy parlance – rifle grenade. Fitting to the barrel of a rifle, the grenade was projected by the pressure from the bullet going off in the rifle’s chamber. V-B squads could deliver a barrage of deadly grenades on top of attackers or right before entering an enemy trench. There were, however, issues. The V-B was tooled for the French 8mm round, while the American rifles were 7.62mm. This difference sometimes caused the V-B not to go off because the 7.62mm rounds did not carry enough force. Still, the U.S. didn’t have any rifle grenades at the outbreak of war, so it was better than nothing.
While the Americans would get their primary field mortar from the British with the Stokes Mortar (a few lucky units got the British Lewis machine gun as well, which was very effective), they got their infantry support gun from the French: the Canon d’Infanterie de 37 modèle 1916 TRP, or simply, the 37mm gun. Doughboys, not quick to be wordy, called them “one pounders.” These small guns were crewed by two men and could be quickly moved around the battlefield to knock out machine gun nests or other medium targets. Some men used them as “sniping guns,” rolling them out into No-Man’s Land, firing off thirty-five rounds in a minute, then limbering up and getting the hell out before the Germans could respond with a murderous barrage. But the 37mm was still not a field gun.
U.S. troops using a 37mm gun near Chateau-Thierry in 1918. (U.S. Army Signal Corps Photo)
Moving from the 37mm to field artillery, the two most striking French gifts to the Americans were the 75mm field piece and the 155mm field piece. The French 75 was possibly one of the most successful field guns of all time. It was deadly accurate and could keep up a high rate of fire due to the pneumatic firing device that absorbed the recoil of the gun and left the barrel sited after every shot. This alleviated the need to re-site the gun after a round was fired. U.S. troops got so proficient with the 75 that they could fire on the recoil, leading to such a high volume of fire that French advisers pulled out their hair in worry and German prisoners demanded to know where the American 75mm machine gun was. The gun even led to its own mixed drink being named for it, the French 75.
Less popular in alcoholic memory, but well-liked by the infantry who followed behind its powerful explosives was the 155mm Schneider howitzer. It provided the heavy type of barrage that Doughboys would need to break a German attack or take apart enemy entrenchments. It was a mix of old and new – pneumatic firing like the 75, but on a rickety gun carriage with wooden wheels that shook and rattled when the gun was fired. The U.S. purchased more than 1,300 of these for the American Expeditionary Force.
Along with the guns came the tanks. One tank in particular: the Renault FT-17. Since at the beginning of the war the U.S. wasn’t even thinking about tanks, they had to borrow the Renault from the French when it came time to think about a Tank Corps. The Renault was small – it could only fit two men: a driver and a commander/gunner. The commander communicated with the driver by kicking him in the head or shoulders, since the tank was so loud that the men couldn’t hear each other. And since the driver couldn’t see anything at all, this type of communication was vital. The U.S. would work on their own tank variant, with supervision by George Patton, but the war would end before it saw action. For more on the Renault, check out this War Stories Podcast.
During the war, the massive U.S. industrial machine would roll into action, turning out millions of small arms, thousands of field guns, and hundreds of tanks. But the fact remains that the first battles fought by U.S. troops in the fall of 1917 and the spring of 1918 were done so with mainly French weaponry, with some from the British. For the most part the equipment was good; but there is no doubt that fewer lives would have been lost had the U.S. fielded the Browning .30 caliber machine gun and Browning Automatic Rifle earlier in the conflict (although loss of life was more to do with poor American strategy and tactics than armaments). This shocking lack of readiness would be seen twenty-four years later, as the U.S. faced the Second World War. While the Army had a massive amount of equipment available, most of it was from the stocks of World War I – and therefore out-of-date. It would take another year and a half before the U.S. Army could begin to bring their weapons on the battlefield in parity against their enemy.
Both of these examples stand as a warning to the current U.S. Army: ignore modernization at your peril, and at the peril of thousands of lives of American service members. Because France can’t always be around to bail us out of trouble.
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About the Author: Angry Staff Officer is an Army engineer officer who is adrift in a sea of doctrine and staff operations and uses writing as a means to retain his sanity. He also collaborates on a podcast with Adin Dobkin entitled War Stories, which examines key moments in the history of warfare.
All I can say is that Lot must of had balls of solid brass! Thank God that they won as I can even think of what would’ve happened if Hitler had won this one!
(This film also showed how confusing Combat can be!)
https://youtu.be/ZxbFB7myZIw
Of course, at the same time. Sally Lou was boffing some 4-F Jody. Who was making a sh*t load of money working in the War Industry.
And all the while she was spending his GI allotment. That he was sending her while deployed overseas.
But then I am just a Cynical ex Grunt! Grumpy
WASHINGTON —
A former medic with the 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne) who heroically fought his way up a mountain to render aid to his Special Forces teammates and their Afghan commando counterparts will receive the Medal of Honor.
Former Army Staff Sgt. Ronald J. Shurer II will receive the Medal of Honor at an Oct. 1, 2018, White House ceremony for going above and beyond the call of duty April 6, 2008, while assigned to Special Operations Task Force 33 in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom. Photo courtesy of Ronald J. Shurer II
White House officials announced that former Army Staff Sgt. Ronald J. Shurer II went above and beyond the call of duty April 6, 2008, while assigned to Special Operations Task Force 33 in Afghanistan during Operation Enduring Freedom. He will receive the highest military award for valor at a White House ceremony Oct. 1.
In April 2008, Shurer was assigned to support Special Forces operators working to take out high-value targets of the Hezeb Islami al Gulbadin in Shok Valley.
As the team navigated through the valley, a firefight quickly erupted, and a series of insurgent sniper fire, rocket-propelled grenades, and small arms and machine gun fire forced the unit into a defensive fighting position.
Around that time, Shurer received word that their forward assault element was also pinned down at another location, and the forward team had suffered multiple casualties.
With disregard for his safety, Shurer moved quickly through a hail of bullets toward the base of the mountain to reach the pinned-down forward element.
While on the move, Shurer stopped to treat a wounded teammate’s neck injury caused by shrapnel from a recent RPG blast. Rendering Aid
After providing aid, Shurer spent the next hour fighting across several hundred meters and killing multiple insurgents.
Eventually, Shurer arrived to support the pinned down element and immediately rendered aid to four critically wounded U.S. units and 10 injured commandos until teammates arrived.
Soon after their arrival, Shurer and his team sergeant were shot at the same time. The medic ran 15 meters through a barrage of gunfire to help his sergeant.
Despite a bullet hitting his helmet and a gunshot wound to his arm, Shurer pulled his teammate to cover and rendered care.
Moments later, Shurer moved back through heavy gunfire to help sustain another teammate who had suffered a traumatic amputation of his right leg. Keeping Enemy at Bay
For the next several hours, Shurer helped keep the large insurgent force at bay while simultaneously providing care to his wounded teammates. Shurer’s actions helped save the lives of all wounded casualties under his care.
Shurer also helped evacuate three critically wounded, teammates down a nearly vertical 60-foot cliff, all while avoiding rounds of enemy gunfire and falling debris caused by numerous airstrikes.
Further, Shurer found a run of nylon webbing and used it to lower casualties while he physically shielded them from falling debris.
Shurer’s Medal of Honor was upgraded from a Silver Star upon review
____________________________________Thank God, that we can still grow such MEN! Grumpy
The M1 rifle was used in all theaters of combat during World War II. 1LT Waverly Wray, the airborne officer referenced at the beginning of this article, could be counted among the greatest warriors these United States could produce.
1LT Waverly Wray was born in 1919 and raised in the wooded hills around Batesville, Mississippi, perhaps a forty-five minute drive from where I sit typing these words. An expert woodsman steeped in fieldcraft from his youth, Wray was described by his commander, LTC Ben Vandervoort, thusly, “As experienced and skilled as an Infantry soldier can get and still be alive.” At 250 pounds Wray was an intimidating specimen, yet he was also a committed Christian man of character. He fastidiously eschewed profanity and sent half of his Army paycheck home each month to help build a church in his hometown.
Immediately after jumping into Normandy with the 82d Airborne, 1LT Wray set out on a one-man reconnaissance at the behest of his Battalion Commander. Wray’s mission was to assess the state of German forces planning a counterattack against the weakly held American positions outside Ste.-Mere-Eglise. Wray struck out armed with his M1 rifle, a Colt 1911A1 .45, half a dozen grenades, and a silver-plated .38 revolver tucked into his jump boot. Hearing German voices on the other side of a French hedgerow, Wray burst through the brush and shouted, “Hande Hoch!” Confronting him were eight German officers huddled around a radio.
For a pregnant moment, nobody moved. Then seven pairs of hands went up. The eighth German officer reached for his sidearm. 1LT Wray shot the man between the eyes with his M1.
A pair of German soldiers about 100 meters away opened up on Wray with MP40 submachine guns. 9mm bullets cut through his combat jacket and shot away one of his earlobes. All the while Wray methodically engaged each of the seven remaining Germans as they struggled to escape, reloading his M1 when it ran dry. Once he had killed all eight German officers he dropped into a nearby ditch, took careful aim, and killed the two distant Wehrmacht soldiers with the MP40’s.
Wray fought his way back to his company area to report what he had found, blood soaking his ventilated jump jacket. His first question was to ask where he could replenish his supply of grenades. When American forces eventually took the field where Wray had waged his one-man war against the leadership of the 1st Battalion, 158thGrenadier Regiment, they found all ten German soldiers dead with a single round each to the head. Wray had completely decapitated the enemy battalion’s leadership singlehandedly. Wray stopped what he was doing and saw to it that all ten German soldiers were properly buried. He had killed these men, and he felt a responsibility to bury them properly.
Waverly Wray survived the savage fighting in Normandy only to give his life for his country at Nijmegen, Holland, during Operation Market Garden later in the year. He has a granite marker in Shiloh Cemetery in Batesville, Mississippi, near the church he helped build. 1LT Wray was, by all accounts, an exceptionally good man who died six days before his twenty-fifth birthday. Wray died to ensure the blessings of liberty for further generations of Americans.
John Garand’s Rifle
Those who lived it have told me that there was only one M1 rifle and that it wasn’t called the Garand. The .30-06 rifle we call the Garand was the M1, the M1 Carbine was the Carbine, and the M1A1 Thompson was the Thompson. There was always only one M1.
John Cantius Garand was a Canadian-born gun designer who developed the M1 rifle in the early 1930’s. Those who knew him say that old John Cantius pronounced his name differently from the way we do. In his Canadian dialect, Garand rhymed with “Errand.”
Early versions of the M1 were gas trap designs based upon the flawed presumption that ported barrels would wear appreciably faster than the non-ported sort. This same misconception is what drove the Germans to attempt the ill-fated G41 gas trap rifle before settling on the much more reliable piston-driven G43 design. In short order, the M1 was standardized with the familiar gas piston action.
The M1 rifle soldiered on everywhere during World War II from European plains to fetid South Pacific jungles.
5.4 million of the rifles ultimately rolled out of four wartime factories. The M1 served with distinction in all services and in all theaters throughout World War II as well as the war in Korea. The weapon saw fairly widespread issue among ARVN forces early during the conflict in Vietnam as well. An M1 rifle cost the government about $85 during the Second World War. This equates out to around $1,200 today.
If properly maintained the M1 rifle offered a quantum advance in firepower over the bolt-action designs of the day.
Morphology
For all its justifiable accolades, the M1 was a flawed design. The thing weighs about ten pounds and remains exceptionally bulky, even by the standards of the day. The eight-round en-bloc clip is extremely difficult to fill by hand, and the gun is nearly 44 inches long. Ammunition typically came issued in these disposable spring steel clips. However, early in the war troops frequently had to fill their clips manually from ammo that was packed on single stack five-round Springfield clips, something that was all but impossible to do under pressure.
Despite its few warts, the M1 represented a quantum advance in firepower when compared to the bolt-action repeaters in common service at the time. Interestingly, there are anecdotal accounts of some old school soldiers trading their M1s for bolt-action 1903 Springfields early in the war in the Philippines out of distrust of the autoloading action. However, it did not take long for troops on both sides of the line to come to respect the prodigious firepower of the M1.
Practical Tactical
The M1 rifle was a big, heavy, bulky beast, but it was also reliable, accurate, and rugged. Generations of GIs came to adore the gun.
The M1 sports a unique manual of arms. The safety is a pivoting tab in the front of the trigger guard that soldiers on in modern Springfield Armory M1A rifles today. This design is comparably accessible with either hand. The rigid charging handle reciprocates with the bolt and can be manhandled or even kicked if the action gets gummy.
To put the gun into action you retract the bolt until it locks to the rear automatically. Place a loaded 8-round clip in place in the action and press it down with the thumb until it locks. The bolt will then snap shut of its own accord. One must be fairly quick to snatch the thumb out of the way lest it gets badly pinched. Troops of the day described the resulting painful injury as “M1 Thumb.”
The M1 rifle fed from an 8-round en bloc clip. This means the clip becomes part of the action when loaded into the rifle.
The M1 will fire eight rounds as fast as the trigger can be cycled. On the last round fired the action locks open and the empty clip ejects out the top making a distinctive metallic springing sound in the process. Much hay has been made that this sound might signal to the enemy that the weapon is dry. The World War II combat veterans with whom I have visited discounted this concern. They said this sound was typically lost in the bedlam of battle.
The safety on the M1 is a pivoting tab located in the front of the trigger guard. It is comparably accessible with either hand. The rigid charging handle reciprocates with the bolt.
Denouement
When I was a young buck you could get beautiful M1 rifles through the mail for $165 from the DCM delivered straight to your door. Alas, I didn’t have $165, and the paperwork requirements seemed unduly onerous. I did ultimately land a high-mileage DCM M1 some years later for a good bit more than that. My M1 sports a meticulously repaired crack to the upper handguard and the stigmata of hard use. I love the gun and would not trade it for a specimen that was new in the box. Like Waverly Wray and the other hard men who wielded these old guns to defeat tyranny around the globe, my M1 rifle has character.
A friend who landed on Omaha Beach on June 6, 1944, summed up an Infantryman’s relationship to his primary weapon better than I ever could. He once told me that for nearly a year some part of his anatomy was touching that rifle. Whether he was patrolling, sleeping, shaving, or crapping, he kept that M1 rifle close at hand no matter what.
The M1 is an innately accurate and imminently reliable battle arm. It is not unstoppable, nor does it shoot divinely straight. However, the design certainly earned the respect and legendary status it has gained over the decades. Big, fat, heavy, and mean, the M1 was a gun that quite literally saved the world.
Special thanks towww.worldwarsupply.com for the replica gear used to outfit our period paratrooper.
Technical Specifications
M-1 Garand Rifle
Caliber 7.62 x 63 mm/.30-06 in
Weight 9.5 lbs
System of Operation Gas—Semiautomatic
Length 43.6 in
Barrel Length 24 in
Feed 8 round en bloc steel clips
Sights Protected Front Blade and Adjustable Rear Aperture
____________________________________ Some more stuff I found out about this Stud of a man!
*DISTINGUISHED SERVICE CROSS Citation:
The President of the United States takes pride in presenting the Distinguished Service Cross (Posthumously) to Waverly W. Wray (0-1030110), First Lieutenant (Infantry), U.S. Army, for extraordinary heroism in connection with military operations against an armed enemy while serving with Company D, 2d Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82d Airborne Division, in action against enemy forces on 7 June 1944, in France. While his platoon was engaged in a heavy fight with the enemy, First Lieutenant Wray, completely disregarding his own safety, crawled under devastating machine gun fire and although wounded, fought on until he had destroyed two enemy machine gun positions. Returning to his platoon he reorganized it and, securing a re-supply of ammunition, led it in a successful attack upon the enemy. Only after he had driven the enemy from his platoon sector did he accept first aid for his wounds. First Lieutenant Wray’s valiant leadership, personal bravery and zealous devotion to duty at the cost of his life, exemplify the highest traditions of the military forces of the United States and reflect great credit upon himself, the 82d Airborne Division, and the United States Army.
Headquarters, First U.S. Army, General Orders No. 51 (1944)
*SILVER STAR
Rank: 1st Lieutenant (Lieutenant)
Unit: Executive Officer Company D, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division “All-American”, U.S. Army
Details: Citation unavailable.
*PURPLE HEART
Rank: 1st Lieutenant (Lieutenant)
Unit: Executive Officer Company D, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division “All-American”, U.S. Army
RIDDER VIERDE KLASSE DER MILITAIRE WILLEMS ORDE (MWO.4)
Rank: 1st Lieutenant (Lieutenant)
Unit: Executive Officer Company D, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division “All-American”, U.S. Army
Awarded on: October 8th, 1945
Action: For having distinguished himself during the fighting by the 82nd Airborne Division in the area around Nijmegen between September 17th and October 4th 1944 by having performed outstanding deeds of courage, tact and loyalty and having repeatedly displayed outstanding devotion to duty and great perseverance and in all respects having set a praiseworthy example to all in those illustrious days during which he lost his life.
Details: Royal decree no.31 Awarded posthumously.
