Thread: LSW...the Armys view...

http://www.emilitarymanuals.com/milman1900-1920.html

This site sells all types of Military Manuals, in CD or PDF.

There seems to be a vast range of subjects as well.

Sequence of Musketry Training, 1917 (Paperback) Is it this one?

SK

Originally Posted by Stonker

From memory,, about 10 years ago - when I was trying to use MM 1908 to point up the utter bollox that the SASC had packed into a new policy on APWT and field-firing

If this was the replacement of the 1980s vintage "Shoot to Kill" (to the young 'uns, this was the era of being able to pass your APWT based only on shots fired from the prone position), with the mid-1990s "Operational Shooting Policy", I'd think you were promoting excellence as an enemy of "good enough".

Yes, the OSP may have had its flaws at introduction, but I'm sure you'll agree it was a huge improvement on what went before. Suddenly, non-gravelbellies were being mandated to actually train their Jocks, not just keep putting them through the APWT until they scraped a pass.

At the time, I wrote a paper on the subject - which said that OSP was worthy, and used justifiable statistics to show that if TA Inf was to adopt it to the letter, it would become the training ME, absorbing at least a third of all training (I've still got it somewhere on backup, if anyone is actually sad enough to want to see it. I know that Bde forwarded it to Sch Inf and SASC...)

I will admit starting out by trying to prove that there wasn't actually the range space in Scotland to carry out the mandated training for all resident units. But there was.

I agree that "static silhouette targets" are an unrealistic training mechanism, and also feel that comparatively too much emphasis is given to firing on static ranges; the real measure of training has to be LFTT. This wasn't because we spent too much time on Gallery Ranges, it's because we spent too little time on Field Firing.

On the other hand, the only way to get the basic skills down pat is to put in the range time - once you have them, you're not thinking "please don't let me ND" on the LFTT range, you're thinking "aim a bit low left from the kneeling for a good hit" or "give it a bit of right, there's a wind blowing".

As for manuals, my Mum gave me a 1942 copy of Lt.Col. Barlow's "The Elements of Rifle Shooting"; while it's somewhat Bisley-centric, what is interesting is how the ARA was trying to make service rifle competition relevant; it describes the gas-mask shoot, and shows the use of landscape targets that don't involve silhouettes.

Originally Posted by SKJOLD

Sequence of Musketry Training, 1917 (Paperback) Is it this one?

SK

In a word, no.

Originally Posted by Gravelbelly

Originally Posted by Stonker

From memory,, about 10 years ago - when I was trying to use MM 1908 to point up the utter bollox that the SASC had packed into a new policy on APWT and field-firing

If this was the replacement of the 1980s vintage "Shoot to Kill" (to the young 'uns, this was the era of being able to pass your APWT based only on shots fired from the prone position), with the mid-1990s "Operational Shooting Policy", I'd think you were promoting excellence as an enemy of "good enough".

Yes, the OSP may have had its flaws at introduction, but I'm sure you'll agree it was a huge improvement on what went before. Suddenly, non-gravelbellies were being mandated to actually train their Jocks, not just keep putting them through the APWT until they scraped a pass.

I have no idea what happened after AOSP was introduced: I moved away from Inf Bn stuff, and into MoD not long after it blighted my life as a TA Training Major. I do know that at the time of introduction, it included paragraphs in red ink, signifying that they were mandatory - and therefore to be skimped only if you wanted to retire early and in disgrace - which were intended to be advisory, rather than binding, yet no guidance was included as to what flexibility one might exercise at unit level..

A shedful of the book was intended to be open to interpretation: given that barely 40% (from memory) of the ranges in the UK were capable of meeting the APWT requirements it laid out (for want of distance alone - the percentage went down another 10% if you looked for ranges properly licensed for automatic fire using weapons without bipods), that would have been unavoidable - yet it gave no hint as to who might exercise their judgement, or how you could compare an APWT fired on one range with one fired on another.

It was - without a doubt - the shoddiest piece of staff work I have ever come across. And the bit that pi$$ed me off more than anything was that the Cabbagehead author[s] thought that putting pegs in the ground to mark 'bounds' in a shoot on a gallery/ETR.CGR range somehow resembled combat.

It was utter sh1te.

AOSP was what you get from transferring limited-career-prospect Cpls to the SASC, promoting them prematurely (and without experience) to WO2, keeping them in 'Schools' and away from operations for the rest of their career, then declaring them to be more expert than the Infantry in the operational use of firearms, and finally (from this sheltered background, with no preparation worth the name) promoting them from WO to Staff Officer (do not pass QM, do not collect £300) , to write Army-wide policy - in the case of AOSP, in response not to a clear operational requirement, but - in time-honoured Brit fashion - to the whim of a passing D Inf.

Ab-so-fecking-lutely bananas.

Originally Posted by Spank-it

http://www.emilitarymanuals.com/milman1900-1920.html

This site sells all types of Military Manuals, in CD or PDF.

There seems to be a vast range of subjects as well.

All types of Military Manuals?

No - all types of American Military Manuals.

MM 1908 - being Brit - is not among the manuals catalogued.

Could you upload it via pdf Stonker?

Originally Posted by Mobat

Excellent summation of the issues. Do you know where I can get a copy of the 1908 Musketry manual?

Here it is (and my recollections are slightly flawed - it is dated 1909, and known as Musketry Regulations).

This site is selling a facsimile of the 1914 reprint, but it will be substantially the same as the 1916 edn. Cost: £11.50

http://www.naval-military-press.com/...ments1914.html

Originally Posted by Stonker

Originally Posted by Mobat

Excellent summation of the issues. Do you know where I can get a copy of the 1908 Musketry manual?

Here it is (and my recollections are slightly flawed - it is dated 1909, and known as Musketry Regulations).

This site is selling a facsimile of the 1914 reprint, but it will be substantially the same as the 1916 edn. Cost: £11.50

http://www.naval-military-press.com/...ments1914.html

A 1910 Edition of Pt. 2 can be found here in multiple formats, can't save the pdf tho.

Originally Posted by rampant

Originally Posted by Stonker

Originally Posted by Mobat

Excellent summation of the issues. Do you know where I can get a copy of the 1908 Musketry manual?

Here it is (and my recollections are slightly flawed - it is dated 1909, and known as Musketry Regulations).

This site is selling a facsimile of the 1914 reprint, but it will be substantially the same as the 1916 edn. Cost: £11.50

http://www.naval-military-press.com/...ments1914.html

A 1910 Edition of Pt. 2 can be found here in multiple formats, can't save the pdf tho.

Should there be a link in that last post of yours, Rampant?

Originally Posted by Stonker

Originally Posted by rampant

Originally Posted by Stonker

Originally Posted by Mobat

Excellent summation of the issues. Do you know where I can get a copy of the 1908 Musketry manual?

Here it is (and my recollections are slightly flawed - it is dated 1909, and known as Musketry Regulations).

This site is selling a facsimile of the 1914 reprint, but it will be substantially the same as the 1916 edn. Cost: £11.50

http://www.naval-military-press.com/...ments1914.html

A 1910 Edition of Pt. 2 can be found here in multiple formats, can't save the pdf tho.

Should there be a link in that last post of yours, Rampant?

I think this is the intended link:
http://www.archive.org/details/muske...lati02greauoft

I have downloaded the PDF without difficulty, it takes a while because it is 11 MB,. This is due to it being scanned as pictures rather than text.

I also tried the EPUB; that is smaller but it is unedited optical character reader (OCR) output plus the plates. Some of the text is very poor, but can generally be understood.

Part 2 is how to build ranges, some interesting things about targets, but have not read it all yet.

I remember back when I was cadet I tried, unsuccessfully, to interest the unit is using the harmonisation setting on the No 8's sights to shoot at landscape targets.

Originally Posted by Stonker

Originally Posted by Mobat

Excellent summation of the issues. Do you know where I can get a copy of the 1908 Musketry manual?

Here it is (and my recollections are slightly flawed - it is dated 1909, and known as Musketry Regulations).

This site is selling a facsimile of the 1914 reprint, but it will be substantially the same as the 1916 edn. Cost: £11.50

http://www.naval-military-press.com/...ments1914.html

I have ordered a copy, along with the manual SKJOLD found. If I get it by the weekend I will read it then, otherwise it could take a while.

Originally Posted by Mr Happy

The complaint, and this is probably extremely difficult for Falmschirger with his 20 years of Firefights to appreciate, is that if your machine gun is too accurate then when engaging a running target at 400m all the bullets either hit or all the bullets miss. To explain in a little more detail for those of us on crack but based on personal experience, five rounds fired in one second period will all go through a 1’ square box, which makes hitting a running man at 400m quite tricky. But a GPMG which is less accurate will, in the same second, put down around 7 rounds and these, courtesy of the Gimpy jumping around, put 7 rounds into a 2’ square box (e.g. four times a larger area). So a question then: Which weapon, when engaging running targets, targets at ranges difficult to work out and/or grouped targets, would you prefer to use?

So by your reckoning we would all be better off with blunderbuss's? Using the lead or ambush method, a machine gun which is more accurate will require less rounds to drop the target in the hands of an experienced gunner. Your gunners may be shit so require a weapon system with a large cone of fire to hopefully hit the target. My gunners will hit the target.

Confusingly, on the range the answer will probably always be the LMG with its heavy wind resistant rounds and accuracy, but in the field without range markers the same rounds from a GPMG I think are far preferable.

Range markers? Can't your section commanders work out ranges in the field then? Maybe you should get them out for a bit of judging distance?

As OOTS says and where Falmschirger may be accurate about accuracy and what may be colouring his opinions somewhat is Herrick (and maybe Telic, I don’t know), there, as far as I can see, is a lot of long range engagement and therefore I imagine that the LMG could make a difference over the Gimpy. But surely a 3 more L96’s per section would be an improvement over the IW too??

Mid and long range engagement in the desert environment, short and mid range in the green zone. Surely you know that? I prefer the GPMG above all other weapon systems as my gunners are trained to hit the target and usually do. Maybe you could train your gunners to do the same. Alternatively you could send them to me and i'll do it for you.

What an excellent thread this is.

Can't help getting a feeling of deja-vu when I red Falss's posts. His thinking is the same as ours was 30-40 years ago, so I can well understand his frustration with some posters. I used both LMG (Bren) and GPMG on operations, the LMG was good in the jungle, the GPMG more suited to desert and more open terrain (again as Falls's experiences confirm).
I remember having it drummed into us when we converted totally to GPMG that "It's an area weapon." And so it was though our gun teams practiced like crazy to accurately engage point targets at longer ranges too, by perfecting the double tap. The SASC frowned on that... bursts of three to five rounds being their preference (except when they arrived to coach our shooting teams for the likes of CENTO, Prix LeClerc, etc. Told you I was old!).

I was a little disturbed when I read, years ago, that the GPMG was no longer the infantry section's FSW and fully appreciate why the Paras insist on keeping them as such.

BTW. The Para Bns sensible decision to take as many GPMGs as they could lay their hands on to the Falklands was as a result of SF experiences in Dhofar. How I wish the powers that be would listen to combat experienced soldiers in this day and age.

Fascinating stuff Stonker, Falls - watch your blood pressure Bro'!

With all this debate between the L4, the GPMG, and the LSW, I wonder about the thinking of the (new) LMG - fulfilling the role of putting a belt fed weapon in the section, whilst maintaining the maneuverability of the LSW/L4. That said, the extra hitting power of 7.62 is always welcome... I think I'd like to have GPMG's (and a LSW/DMR in 7.62) available.. but at what level? Section? Platoon? Company?