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Originally Posted by Graebarde
5. Jester.. every Marine is a rifleman first, hence the BAM is a rifleman/person first right   |
That term became politicaly incorrect then they went to WM's and even that became politicaly incorrect. I have no clue what it is now.
But I want to find the advertising bozo who came up with that and put it on the market. I have had countless discussions with folks of all MOSes who chime that. I simply ask them, "whats your mos? I always thought 0311 was Rifleman" and they ain't got it. Although every Marine has the MOS of 0300, which is basicaly trained Marine. And there is a big difference between your 2nd Phase of 3 weeks under well controlled field training in Boot Camp and another three weeks of MCT and maybe a week or two field op a year and being a REAL RIFLEMAN or Infantryman.
It isn't about hefting a rifle, thats a small part.
As for someones comment that support weapons won't be to common.
In a Rifle Company there are 3 Rifle Platoons and 1 Weapons Platoon, and usualy the weapons platoon is the largest platoon in a company.
So, I would say that there are a good number of crew served support weapons around. A belt fed machinegun is a support weapon as are rocket launchers and certainly mortars.
And keep this in mind, those beasties require the riflemen to carry ammo for the crew served support weapons, so there is no getting out of it if you are just hefting a rifle.
As for how effective they will be:
I have a freind, a she. She works as a field surveyor constructing roads. She joined the Army NG with the hopes of becoming a zero. As a result of her basic training and keeping up with the boys she ended up with multiple stress fractures and a pelic fracture not from any injury just from the stress she was placed in. And it is common knowledge that Basic Training is pretty safe and well controlled not like in the regular units or even in the field or combat where alot of the safetys are removed.
It is also common knowledge that women in the military even in support units tend to suffer more injuries than the men, we are talking about 20% and that is in peacetime support units.
As for the whole Twilight thing, I think there would be alot of coed units for 1 simple point, when would the last time the U.S. forces in Europe would of had replacements? Alot of units would just reconsolidate and reconsolidate and reconsolidate merging unit upon unit upon unit, merging units with others to maintain a national integrity.
So, we would end up with ALOT of composite units when several were formed just to get enough bodies to call it a and not just a couple people.