Ever since my granddad told me about Captain Yates, LBH has been a major source of intrest to me. I used to believe the perception of "Custer the Heroic Jackass" until I first visited the battlefield. Walking the ground as a volunteer with a metal detactor during the '83 dig really opened my eyes.

Ever since then I have been a member of most of the LBH groups, I've spent waaaaaayyyy too much money on various books about LBH, and dragged my long suffering wife and kids to three boring vacations (at least for them!).

Custer may have been an ass, and certainly he was guilty of underestimating what was camped in the valley and certainly he should have taken time to properly scout the villages and it is also certain that the smart choice would have been to wait for General Terry to close up with the rest of the column. But GAC was a typical cavalry officer, raised in the Civil War and with too many images of Murat lurking in his head. But he did his best, too bad he was let down by Reno and Benteen.

Group,

I think the Little Big Horn deserves it's own thread, because I'm sure we still want to read about "really bad weapons", too.

Tony

Yup, I guess that's the smart thing to do when you're trying to avoid genocide.

Similar situation in the Maori Wars in New Zealand. The British redcoats got fed up with failing to draw the Maori guerrillas into open, set piece battles so they changed strategies and concentrated on locating and destroying the Maori villages. Amazing how a people lose the will to fight when their crops have been burned and their women and children slaughtered.

Ah the benefits of civilization. :(

(Still catching up on things here)
I see the Ross rifle has already been mentioned. I recall my uncle, who was a British tank driver right through WW2, mentioning that he went ashore at Juno Beach on D-Day supporting the Canadians. The weapons that were issued to those tank crews were Ross rifles, the idea being that more No. 4 .303s were freed up for use by the Canadian infantry. During the course of the assault, a couple of .303s and Stens found their way into the tanks and the Ross rifles got left behind before they even had to be used.

As a hunting rifle, the Ross is a fairly decent weapon, the problem with it is that it was never designed for combat use (and how many times have we heard that description?). A lot of stories from WWI tell how the bolt would get so gummed up with dirt/carbon that it would often take two men to work it. So as a combat rifle the Ross is on the list for bad weapons.

Other horrible rifles would include the French Lebel and Berthier rifles. With their 3 round magazines and akward bolt design they are often described as "little more than a musket more useful to hang a bayonet from."

Interesting that the Ross Rifle was a failure (under trench warfare conditions) but the LMG conversion of the Ross Rifle, the Huot Automatic Rifle, probably would have been a big success had the war not ended before the final production version was ready for mass manufacture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huot_automatic_rifle . Its a pity that the Ross Rifles provided to Britain during WWII hadn't undergone that conversion.

The whatifs and mighthavebeens of military weapons can sometimes be a real eye opener.

When the Bren was first introduced into the British Army, many thought that it was too heavy, had a poor rate of fire and an small ammo capacity...who know that it would turn into the weapon that it did?

The Boys antitank rifle is considered to be the best design of that breed, but its service life can be measured in a handful of months before it was overtaken by tank development.

Atomic Annie, Davy Crockett, the Northover Projector, endless scores of machine guns, the list is endless

Alway found it amazing how resourceful armor crews can be in securing long arms for the crew. Especially with the way they handle in the Iraq where much like Artillery and other non-infantry units, they could be expected to be able to do infantry foot patrols or run in convoys in other designated vehicles.

One of the many reasons why you could see US troops carrying AKs. Yet, that is another story altogether...

I was going to mention the M240 co-ax on the Bradley during the first Gulf war. THe jamming problems were so bad the tracks in my platoon either used the 25mm exclusively or as the platoon sergeant did liberate an Iraqi RPK and fire it from the commanders hatch.

Lee,

Outside of the trenches the Ross wouldn't have been too bad at all, and tanks wouldn't have been the worst place for them. The weapon had such a bad rep (not undeserved) that there was no chance soldiers would use it. Those "zipperheads" would probably use captured Mausers and MP40s long before they would have used the Ross!

I can see why the Lebels and Berthiers were crap, French doctrine really did emphasise bayonet use over firepower.

Tony

For a long time, personal weapons for tankers was limited to a pistol per man and maybe a submachine gun or two for the crew. The US started to move away from this during WWII when the crews of tank destroyers were issued M1 carbines. When the TD Branch was closed after the war, tankers went back to a M1 TSMG or a M3 Grease Gun.

When the M1 Abrams entered service, a M16 was issued with the tank, it was strapped in place under the TC's stand and was a welcome addition as the M3 was finally departing service (too many rebuilds of worn-out weapons).

I was surprised at the decision to remove the M16 when M1A1 was fielded, the official reason was that too many tankers were complaining about the length of the M16. Since the intent of the weapon was to arm a dismounted tanker, the length of the flaming thing shouldn't have been an issue.

As for myself, like many other tankers, I owned two personal weapons that rested in the arms room. Officially for targeting shooting and hunting, I had a Remington 870 pump shotgun with a folding stock that would have rode with me in the TCs hatch; for those times when somebody was crawling up the sides with a satchel charge. My second was a semi-automatic CAR-15, just in case I had to go dismounted.

My first sergeant used to ride me about both weapons, that is until I found out that he had pulled a few strings and had a M-14 waiting for him.

Yes Virgina the Beretta M9 is a wonderful pistol, but then so many US tankers were scrambling for M1911A1s, and every long arm they could scrounge, steal or requisition for the duration....

Considering that their rifles, automatic rifles, most of their machine guns and all of their grenades were obsolete, utter pieces of crap, I can't blame them for resorting to bayonets. :D

Wow learn something new. Didn't realize that M1 when first issued had M16 aboard. Yeah I agree with you that it didn't make sense to take them off the M1A1s.

It one of those things when people who were in charge of planning failed to realized that if the tank was disable and crew survive they would need something to defend themselves with.

Interesting combination of personnel weapons. I totally get the shotgun. Another weapon that seems to never be issued enough.

In my M-1A1 we dumped the M-3's and picked up 4 M-16A2's.

Are they still using the M3? I thought they were due for replacement by the M4.

It was originally issued for the dismounted OP that tankers put out at night. When it first showed up, there was a lot of confusion about how to stow it, since the manual said strap the M16 this way, but don't load a magazine and remove the sling as they might get caught when the turret was traversed. Me, being a dumbass, slapped a magazine in, wrapped the sling around the barrel and strapped the M16 in so that the magazine faced into the turret (backwards, in other words) and never had a lick of trouble!

And then had several of the transition instructors tell me that what I did was impossible. This was usually followed by my patented blank look followed by a rather pointed glance at what I had done. Gee! Guess you shouldn't have told me that I couldn't do it!

I checked with a NG tanker buddy of mine and tells me that the ole M-3A1 is still sitting in their arms room, two per M-1A1 and 2 per M-88. The damn thing just won't go away!!!!

I think it all depends where the unit is based at and where they went. I also heard that some tank units had been issued M4s due to the fact that once over in Iraq, they may be pulling dismounted duty... No it doesn't surprise me that M3 are still in some armories too. It like the M1911 when they replace them with the M9. It one thing to say so on paper and another to actually get to the point where it done....

Back when I was in the regiment all our A2's had a pair of M4's stowed in them, at least till our CO gave them to heavy because he didn't want us to get "too agressive".

An officer worried about cav being too agressive?!?! :eek:

And this was a cav officer? What was he, one of those Judge Advocate weenies "tasked" over to Armored Cavalry so he could get command time?

Telling a trooper not to be too agressive is sort of like asking a hooker to become a virgin...its a fine sentiment, but the chance of that happening is slim and none...and slim is out of town!

WPPA and daddy was a general, and he was being groomed for stardom. This is the joker that had a hard rule that only troopers with assigned rifles could have ammo, and a max of 210 round less any expended without prior clearance from an officer- top couldn't even give it. Got pulled from my tank because I was caught stealing ammo from hq platoons stash and put on mid to 8 radio watch in the TOC an the assigned bitch for every patrol that came along (here- you get the radio and the 240...). Thankfully about two-thirds through the tour we got a new CO who fixed the ammo problem, got us some more M4's and told us there was no such thing as too much force. He heard about what I did to get in the doghouse and promptly got into a fight with top to see which of them got me as a driver, but wound up being his gunner.

Why am I not surprised...:rolleyes:

I guess I was just lucky, most of my officers were mustangs, ROTCs or Citadel/VMI grads. Didn't run into many WP and going by the couple that I did run into Thank GAWD!!!!!! Both were "moved" over to Armor, the first was a Engineer and the second was a Judge Advocate. Both were notable in that everyone in the unit was carrying a calander and counting the days until they rotated out of the unit.

In fairness I have to make a point to his credit and one to another grad of WP, the previous CO's attitude may have sucked but it did work out for us in fallujah very well. All the locals liked us and while they never helped us they didn't hinder us nor shoot at us. (They all thought the G on the sides of our tanks meant that we was the good guys) It was very nice to be able to do a raid and not have the local version of the cop alarm going off.

As to west pointers: 1Lt (at the time) Hertling (Imay have jacked the spelling, its been a while) was another daddy was a general type, and was aware that he came from the point. When he arrived at the troop fresh as grass he did the usual speech and dismissed all the men but the senior NCO's (and I wasn't one of them but I was close enough to hear) "Sergeants, I'm a green as grass officer who doesn't have a fucking clue how to run a tank platoon outside the classroom, please help me out."). Dude rocked. He wasn't afraid to goof and he always gave credit to who deserved it, yet never caved in when people screwed up. Next to the definition of outstanding officer in Webster's should be his picture.

Sounds like he was a man who had some quality instructors.

the M-4 wasn't around in 1990 as far as i know, a few guys picked up car-15's, close but not the same as M-4's

FYI:

WPPA: West Point Protective Association. The not-so-informal group of graduates of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, who are often accused of protecting each other, regardless of their level of competence or errors committed. Term is generally frowned upon by members of the WPPA.

Tony

Here's a bit of insider trivia....

West Point and Virginia Military Institute have a long standing revelry going back to the Civil War.

West Point has more football victories than VMI.

VMI has more graduates that make it to Army Chief of Staff.

Hmmmmm

A long-standing revelry? I love those unintentional weird mistakes...:p

Oh 1990...I see. We didn't even have them at the 82nd in 1990 -- we went to Desert Storm with M16A2s.

Colin Powell came from City College of New York, where Michio Kaku also teaches and does his studies. Makes you wonder about the quality of people coming from City College of New York -- excellent.

An by the way, Michio Kaku was an infantryman!