Intel from a Marine

[Jerry D]

This might be just another urban legend type email I received but it was very interesting to read,
Jerry D
--------------------------------------------
Subject: Intel from a Marine

Enjoy guys.

Hello to all my fellow gunners, military buffs, veterans and
interested guys. A couple of weekends ago I got to spend time with
my son Jordan, who was on his first leave since returning from Iraq.
He is well (a little thin), and already bored. He will be returning
to Iraq for a second tour in early '06 and has already re-enlisted
early for 4 more years. He loves the Marine Corps and is actually
looking forward to returning to Iraq.

Jordan spent 7 months at "Camp Blue Diamond" in Ramadi. Aka: Fort
Apache. He saw and did a lot and the following is what he told me
about weapons, equipment, tactics and other miscellaneous info which
may be of interest to you. Nothing is by any means classified. No
politics here, just a Marine with a bird's eye view's opinions:

1) The M-16 rifle : Thumbs down. Chronic jamming problems with the
talcum powder like sand over there. The sand is everywhere. Jordan
says you feel filthy 2 minutes after coming out of the shower. The M-
4 carbine version is more popular because it's lighter and shorter,
but it has jamming problems also. They like the ability to mount the
various optical gunsights and weapons lights on the picattiny rails,
but the weapon itself is not great in a desert environment. They all
hate the 5.56mm (.223) round. Poor penetration on the cinderblock
structure common over there and even torso hits cant be reliably
counted on to put the enemy down. Fun fact: Random autopsies on dead
insurgents shows a high level of opiate use.

2) The M243 SAW (squad assault weapon): .223 cal. Drum fed light
machine gun. Big thumbs down. Universally considered a piece of
shit. Chronic jamming problems, most of which require partial
disassembly. (that's fun in the middle of a firefight).

3) The M9 Beretta 9mm: Mixed bag. Good gun, performs well in desert
environment; but they all hate the 9mm cartridge. The use of
handguns for self-defense is actually fairly common. Same old story
on the 9mm: Bad guys hit multiple times and still in the fight.

4) Mossberg 12ga. Military shotgun: Works well, used frequently for
clearing houses to good effect.

5) The M240 Machine Gun: 7.62 Nato (.308) cal. belt fed machine gun,
developed to replace the old M-60 (what a beautiful weapon that
was!!). Thumbs up. Accurate, reliable, and the 7.62 round puts `em
down. Originally developed as a vehicle mounted weapon, more and
more are being dismounted and taken into the field by infantry. The
7.62 round chews up the structure over there.

6) The M2 .50 cal heavy machine gun: Thumbs way, way up. "Ma deuce"
is still worth her considerable weight in gold. The ultimate fight
stopper, puts their dicks in the dirt every time. The most coveted
weapon in-theater.

7) The .45 pistol: Thumbs up. Still the best pistol round out there.
Everybody authorized to carry a sidearm is trying to get their hands
on one. With few exceptions, can reliably be expected to put `em
down with a torso hit. The special ops guys (who are doing most of
the pistol work) use the HK military model and supposedly love it.
The old government model .45's are being re-issued en masse.

8) The M-14: Thumbs up. They are being re-issued in bulk, mostly in
a modified version to special ops guys. Modifications include
lightweight Kevlar stocks and low power red dot or ACOG sights. Very
reliable in the sandy environment, and they love the 7.62 round.

9) The Barrett .50 cal sniper rifle: Thumbs way up. Spectacular
range and accuracy and hits like a freight train. Used frequently to
take out vehicle suicide bombers ( we actually stop a lot of them)
and barricaded enemy. Definitely here to stay.

10) The M24 sniper rifle: Thumbs up. Mostly in .308 but some in 300
win mag. Heavily modified Remington 700's. Great performance.
Snipers have been used heavily to great effect. Rumor has it that a
marine sniper on his third tour in Anbar province has actually
exceeded Carlos Hathcock's record for confirmed kills with OVER 100.

11) The new body armor: Thumbs up. Relatively light at approx. 6
lbs. and can reliably be expected to soak up small shrapnel and even
will stop an AK-47 round. The bad news: Hot as shit to wear, almost
unbearable in the summer heat (which averages over 120 degrees).
Also, the enemy now goes for head shots whenever possible. All the
bullshit about the "old" body armor making our guys vulnerable to
the IED's was a non-starter. The IED explosions are enormous and
body armor doesn't make any difference at all in most cases.

12) Night Vision and Infrared Equipment: Thumbs way up. Spectacular
performance. Our guys see in the dark and own the night, period.
Very little enemy action after evening prayers. More and more enemy
being whacked at night during movement by our hunter-killer teams.
We've all seen the videos.

13) Lights: Thumbs up. Most of the weapon mounted and personal
lights are Surefire's, and the troops love `em. Invaluable for night
urban operations. Jordan carried a $34 Surefire G2 on a neck lanyard
and loved it.

I cant help but notice that most of the good fighting weapons and
ordnance are 50 or more years old!!!!!!!!! With all our technology,
it's the WWII and Vietnam era weapons that everybody wants!!!! The
infantry fighting is frequent, up close and brutal. No quarter is
given or shown.

Bad guy weapons:

1) Mostly AK47's . The entire country is an arsenal. Works better in
the desert than the M16 and the .308 Russian round kills reliably.
PKM belt fed light machine guns are also common and effective.
Luckily, the enemy mostly shoots like shit. Undisciplined "spray and
pray" type fire. However, they are seeing more and more precision
weapons, especially sniper rifles. (Iran, again) Fun fact: Captured
enemy have apparently marveled at the marksmanship of our guys and
how hard they fight. They are apparently told in Jihad school that
the Americans rely solely on technology, and can be easily beaten in
close quarters combat for their lack of toughness. Let's just say
they know better now.

2) The RPG: Probably the infantry weapon most feared by our guys.
Simple, reliable and as common as dogshit. The enemy responded to
our up-armored humvees by aiming at the windshields, often at point
blank range. Still killing a lot of our guys.

3) The IED: The biggest killer of all. Can be anything from old
Soviet anti-armor mines to jury rigged artillery shells. A lot found
in Jordan's area were in abandoned cars. The enemy would take 2 or 3
155mm artillery shells and wire them together. Most were detonated
by cell phone, and the explosions are enormous. You're not safe in
any vehicle, even an M1 tank. Driving is by far the most dangerous
thing our guys do over there. Lately, they are much more
sophisticated "shape charges" (Iranian) specifically designed to
penetrate armor. Fact: Most of the ready made IED's are supplied by
Iran, who is also providing terrorists (Hezbollah types) to train
the insurgents in their use and tactics. That's why the attacks have
been so deadly lately. Their concealment methods are ingenious, the
latest being shape charges in Styrofoam containers spray painted to
look like the cinderblocks that litter all Iraqi roads. We find
about 40% before they detonate, and the bomb disposal guys are
unsung heroes of this war.

4) Mortars and rockets: Very prevalent. The soviet era 122mm rockets
(with an 18km range) are becoming more prevalent. One of Jordan's
NCO's lost a leg to one. These weapons cause a lot of damage "inside
the wire". Jordan's base was hit almost daily his entire time there
by mortar and rocket fire, often at night to disrupt sleep patterns
and cause fatigue (It did). More of a psychological weapon than
anything else. The enemy mortar teams would jump out of vehicles,
fire a few rounds, and then haul ass in a matter of seconds.

5) Bad guy technology: Simple yet effective. Most communication is
by cell and satellite phones, and also by email on laptops. They use
handheld GPS units for navigation and "Google earth" for overhead
views of our positions. Their weapons are good, if not fancy, and
prevalent. Their explosives and bomb technology is TOP OF THE LINE.
Night vision is rare. They are very careless with their equipment
and the captured GPS units and laptops are treasure troves of Intel
when captured.

Who are the bad guys?:

Most of the carnage is caused by the Zarqawi Al Qaeda group. They
operate mostly in Anbar province (Fallujah and Ramadi). These are
mostly "foreigners", non-Iraqi Sunni Arab Jihadists from all over
the Muslim world (and Europe). Most enter Iraq through Syria (with,
of course, the knowledge and complicity of the Syrian govt.) , and
then travel down the "rat line" which is the trail of towns along
the Euphrates River that we've been hitting hard for the last few
months. Some are virtually untrained young Jihadists that often end
up as suicide bombers or in "sacrifice squads". Most, however, are
hard core terrorists from all the usual suspects (Al Qaeda,
Hezbollah, Hamas etc.) These are the guys running around murdering
civilians en masse and cutting heads off. The Chechens (many of whom
are Caucasian), are supposedly the most ruthless and the best
fighters. (they have been fighting the Russians for years). In the
Baghdad area and south, most of the insurgents are Iranian inspired
(and led) Iraqi Shiites. The Iranian Shiia have been very adept at
infiltrating the Iraqi local govt.'s, the police forces and the
Army. The have had a massive spy and agitator network there since
the Iran-Iraq war in the early 80's. Most of the Saddam loyalists
were killed, captured or gave up long ago.

Bad Guy Tactics:

When they are engaged on an infantry level they get their asses
kicked every time. Brave, but stupid. Suicidal Banzai-type charges
were very common earlier in the war and still occur. They will
literally sacrifice 8-10 man teams in suicide squads by sending them
screaming and firing Ak's and RPG's directly at our bases just to
probe the defenses. They get mowed down like grass every time. ( see
the M2 and M240 above). Jordan's base was hit like this often. When
engaged, they have a tendency to flee to the same building, probably
for what they think will be a glorious last stand. Instead, we call
in air and that's the end of that more often than not. These hole-
ups are referred to as Alpha Whiskey Romeo's (Allah's Waiting Room).
We have the laser guided ground-air thing down to a science. The
fast mover's, mostly Marine F-18's, are taking an ever increasing
toll on the enemy. When caught out in the open, the helicopter
gunships and AC-130 Spectre gunships cut them to ribbons with cannon
and rocket fire, especially at night. Interestingly, artillery is
hardly used at all. Fun fact: The enemy death toll is supposedly
between 45-50 thousand. That is why we're seeing less and less
infantry attacks and more IED, suicide bomber shit. The new strategy
is simple: attrition.

The insurgent tactic most frustrating is their use of civilian non-
combatants as cover. They know we do all we can to avoid civilian
casualties and therefore schools, hospitals and (especially) Mosques
are locations where they meet, stage for attacks, cache weapons and
ammo and flee to when engaged. They have absolutely no regard
whatsoever for civilian casualties. They will terrorize locals and
murder without hesitation anyone believed to be sympathetic to the
Americans or the new Iraqi govt. Kidnapping of family members
(especially children) is common to influence people they are trying
to influence but cant reach, such as local govt. officials, clerics,
tribal leaders, etc.).

The first thing our guys are told is "don't get captured". They know
that if captured they will be tortured and beheaded on the internet.
Zarqawi openly offers bounties for anyone who brings him a live
American serviceman. This motivates the criminal element who
otherwise don't give a shit about the war. A lot of the beheading
victims were actually kidnapped by common criminals and sold to
Zarqawi. As such, for our guys, every fight is to the death.
Surrender is not an option.

The Iraqi's are a mixed bag. Some fight well, others aren't worth a
shit. Most do okay with American support. Finding leaders is hard,
but they are getting better. It is widely viewed that Zarqawi's use
of suicide bombers, en masse, against the civilian population was a
serious tactical mistake. Many Iraqi's were galvanized and the
caliber of recruits in the Army and the police forces went up, along
with their motivation. It also led to an exponential increase in
good intel because the Iraqi's are sick of the insurgent attacks
against civilians. The Kurds are solidly pro-American and fearless
fighters.

According to Jordan, morale among our guys is very high. They not
only believe they are winning, but that they are winning decisively.
They are stunned and dismayed by what they see in the American
press, whom they almost universally view as against them. The
embedded reporters are despised and distrusted. They are inflicting
casualties at a rate of 20-1 and then see shit like "Are we losing
in Iraq" on TV and the print media. For the most part, they are
satisfied with their equipment, food and leadership. Bottom line
though, and they all say this, there are not enough guys there to
drive the final stake through the heart of the insurgency, primarily
because there aren't enough troops in-theater to shut down the
borders with Iran and Syria. The Iranians and the Syrians just cant
stand the thought of Iraq being an American ally (with, of course,
permanent US bases there).

Anyway guys, that's it, hope you found it interesting, I sure did.

[darrels joy]

More than very interesting.

This didn't come up on any Urban Legends sites so we copied it & we sent it on

Joy & Darrel

[thebrad]

Maybe this information is not classified - but still useful to our enemies! With the Internet it doesn't take a lot of time to come up with enough puzzle-pieces to put the whole picture together. Spend a little time and you can figure out how many troops - and what kind of troops are in every part of every conflict... add that to information like the M249 and the M16/4 have jamming problems in the desert - maybe useful info. Maybe this Marine could be sent back with some useful info: clean your weapon! Break it open everyday and clean that moondust out... we didn't seem to have many problems.

[Arrow]

Brad thank you for avery wise reminder in regard to careless talk. I'm sure Jerry will be more than glad to have Trav take the post down. The internet can bring a false sense of security and we forget it's not "just us four" and "no more".

Arrow>>>>>

[Jerry D]

This is just a bit of Info on the Old M-16 from a Russian site http://world.guns.ru/assault/as18-e.htm
# 1967. US Army adopted the XM16E1 rifle as a standard "US Rifle, 5.56mm, M16A1", on 28 February 1967.
# 1965 - 1967. Field reports from Vietnam began to look much more pessimistic. M16 rifles, issued to US troops in the Vietnam, severely jammed in combat, resulting in numerous casualties. There were some causes for malfunction. First of all, during the introduction of the new rifle and its ammunition into the service, US Army replaced originally specified Dupont IMR powder with standard ball powder, used in 7.62x51mm NATO ammunition. The ball powder produced much more fouling, that quickly jammed the actions of the M16 unless the gun was cleared well and often. This pitifully combined with the fact that the initial M16 rifles were promoted by the Colt as "low maintenance", so, for the sake of economy, no cleaning supplies were procured for new M16 rifles, and no weapon care training was conducted for the troops. As a result, soldiers did not knew how to clean their rifles, and had no provisions for cleaning, and thing soon turned bad. To add the trouble, the ball powders also had a different pressure curve, so they produced higher pressures at the gas port, giving the rise to the rate of fire, and, thus, decreasing accuracy and increasing parts wear.
# 1967 - 1970. The deficiencies discovered in previous years began do dissolve. 5.56mm ammunition was now loaded using different powders that produce much less residue in the gun action. The barrel, chamber and bolt of the rifles were chrome-lined to improve corrosion resistance. Cleaning kits were procured and issued to troops, and a special training programs were developed and conducted ever since. Earliest cleaning kits could be carried separate from rifle only, but since circa 1970 all M16A1 rifles were manufactured with the containment cavity in the buttstock, that held the cleaning kit. At the same time (circa 1970) the new 30 rounds magazines were introduced into service instead of the original 20 rounds ones, to equal Soviet and Chinese AK-47 assault rifles, which had 30-rounds magazines from the very beginning.
Also on the Discovery Channel they had a very good documentary on the differences between Kalashnikov's AK-47 and the M-16 and how the AK-47 didn't jam as much because it had looser tolerances the LAPD will agree to the very little knock down power of the M9 when dealing with people on Drugs and 15rds of ammo not in a major organ won't knock down someone on angel dust(Phencyclidine, PCP). Unless your dealing with mil-specs are troop movements everything this email I got passed is viewable on Google or in the library ,Also various sections of PF have most of this info in one form or another. If Trav or any other Moderator wants to censor this or any post just besure to make a notation at the bottom that this has been censored and by whom and no problem and leave -------- where the words were so its known what doesn't meet the censor .

[SuperScout]

Thanks for posting the original story. It has so much truth to it that it should be required reading for all concerned about our warriors, and even those that say they're concerned. Particularly noteworthy is the comment about the press and their attendant negativity. Interestingly enough, if one were to be transported back in time to the Vietnam war era, the very same anti-military press would be writing the very same anti-military stories. I seriously question their patriotism, while fully understanding their motivation.

[BLUEHAWK]

Good info, Jerry... thanks.

The "Loose Lips Sink Ships" thing is certainly important, but I don't think it applies to that kind of information. If the enemy doesn't know this stuff already then they are a whole lot stupider than I thought they were.

[catman]

Sis, Brad...I can see your concerns and to a point concur. Do not see that any OPSEC issues are at hand here. These are basic statements and generally any short comings mentioned are just echoing the same gripes the troops have had for years.

Can not see myself killing this thread. David has full veto power over my decision and I will stand behind his actions.

Trav

[Arrow]

Just tryin' to show my respect forBrad's opinion.It may be interesting information for us butBrad's the one takin' the fire. I'll justdo my own thing with it and not pass it on.

Happy Trails....

Arrow>>>>>

[thebrad]

Chaulk it up as mostly a 'mood' on my part. Seem to be in a mood most everyday lately anyway. I get older everyday and things that used to bother me a little now bother me a lot. Here's one: We really know very little about the insurgent groups that we are at war with relative to what can be found out about us. Most of that information about the US Forces is generated from within the US by the US. Sure - nothing above is anything new... because this kind of information is so commonplace. That said: I do apologize for letting a frustration with a larger problem show through on an insignificant detail.