Last year, the FA journal did an interview with Gen. Harold Moore, USA (ret). He basically said it was the artillery firing at the rate they actually melted one tube and broke the recoil mech. of others that saved his force at LZ X-ray. You saw what happen on the march to LZ Albany, when the NVA grabbed the Americans by the belt buckle and didn't let them use fire support.
Sir,this is the gentleman who wrote the book "We Were Soldiers Once, and Young", correct? Pleiku '65? I'll have to dig it out and reread it, I remember something about this being the first time B52 strikes were used for tactical targets. Just trying to provide some context for everyone else. I am well aware of the unrealistic limitations placed upon all personel taking place in the CAX, and I understand that artillery can fire much more rapidly than it is allowed to by the book, but target priority is still a big factor in who is going to the the support, right? Also the USMC does not have enough guns to fire enough missions to support every Bn in the regiment(or even just two Bn's) at the same time? Your opinion as an artilleryman could shed some light on this, since I'm looking at it from the 03 perspective.
****What a sniper and a scoped rifle can do is not an indicator of what the average grunt can do.****
I believe that every rifle issued today should have optical sights. Every rifle! Even if it is just as simple as a Aimpoint or Reflex II(which I like) it would improve hit/shot ratio immensely. Most of the 03's I know do OK, they are not snipers, but they still do OK, marksmanship wise.(I recruit from infantry platoons for our Scout-sniper platoon) We are not all black-winged angels of death, either BTW. Some of the guys in platoon are better than others, to be sure, but we have a long way to go to the point I want to be. I am taking steps to get there, but we have a ways to go. Limited by available training and, mainly, ammo allocations. We could take other steps to increase effectiveness, like increase the sense of professionalism and self discipline among the infantry enlisted man, but that is for another thread.
*** If we are talking about MOUT, a 7.62 has its advantages, but a lot of building structures will stop 7.62 almost as well as 5.56.****
Most of the buildings that I have worked on were houses and housing units(I worked construction out the back gate of Lejuene when Bertha and Fran went through) They had no structures, with the possible exception of the fridge and bathtubs, that would stop 7.62 AP or my proposed monobloc 6.5 steel core. Drywall and structural lumber will normally cause M855 to fragment at close range which is why everyone is going to it for CQB. As for major commercial buildings, only structural steel and reinforced concrete will stop steel core projectiles, and concrete can be destroyed by GPMG fire at close range. This is normally not important, as such targets are better dealt with by bunker busters/engineers or AT weapons but it can be done. The primary problem with all projectile defeat is core hardness. All lead core stuff is going to splash and not do any damage when it strikes a hard enough target. That is why I endorse steel cores. 7.62 ball is no better than 5.56 M855 at penetrating hard targets for this reason. AP is a different story. Enough for now. Semper Fi...Ken