Infantry Discussion Thread 10: Shovel Edition [NO FWORDS]

[Crookfur]

Post your army's PME reading list, categorized by rank and branch

I don't know about the entire list because frankly I'm not that well read myself. However one unusual entry on the junior officer list will be George MacDonald Fraser's The Complete Macauslan because whilst it's a very funny and entertaining read it does have a lot of insight into the junior officer's place in a battalion and how he should go about dealing with the less than stellar (useless) troops he might end up having to command.

[Federated Kingdom of Prussia]

No one actually cares (indeed, no one actually knows enough about to begin with) what people a few thousand years ago actually did.

Maybe you don't, but I know plenty of people who do. Mattis himself says that Gates of Fire is among his top two books on leadership.(skip to 10:27 for that part. Yes, it's a bullshit moto page.)

Notice how the fiction novels disappear once you get into field officer territory, too. Curious, that, how the books become more and more prone to reading with practical air about recent history, shedding the classics entirely once you get into flag officers. Then, it's nothing but modern history since the end of the Cold War. Perhaps they should be reading all about medieval warfare instead! The fools! Darius taught us everything about counter-insurgency in the Information Age!

So when Epaminondas concentrated his forces at one small spot of the Spartan line at the Battle of Leuktra, rather than go with what had always been done and evenly disperse his forces, he wasn't doing anything that modern militaries can't learn about? The Romans didn't literally write the book on the Fabian strategy?

Literally everything you need to know about history is contained in the century span of 1917-2017, since there is where the modern age of historical knowledge begins. Arguably anything before WW1 is pretty much superfluous to actually know anything about. Cultural osmosis provides more than adequate knowledge of Thermopylae or whatever, and no one knows enough about it to actually say anything meaningful anymore. That was all said and done in the 19th century. Really that should be the emphasis area.

What am I reading. I suppose is it equally unimportant to learn about the American Founding Fathers as it is to learn about the Greco-Roman politicians that they learned about. Is the Thirty Years War and the Peace of Westphalia irrelevant to modern politics? Maybe the Crusades don't really have anything to do with Christian-Islamic relations?

[Korva]

My soldiers read hieroglyphs instead of field manuals.

[Laritaia]

really Victoria is the only book a military man should read

[Torrocca]

My soldiers read hieroglyphs instead of field manuals.

cuneiform or get out loser

[Grand Viscovian Kingdom]

I have a question, I'm looking for a rifle that can perform reliable in extremely cold and snowy conditions and that is also accurate enough to be used in a mountainous area, I'm looking for something that specifically uses 5.56x45mm, what are my options

[Laritaia]

pretty much all of them

[Torrocca]

use m1 garands for best results

[Grand Viscovian Kingdom]

use m1 garands for best results

I want something chambered in 5.56x45mm, while I like 30.06, I prefer 5.56 for a standard rifle

[Gallia-]

My soldiers read hieroglyphs instead of field manuals.

gaylas study nothing but sun tzu and hannibal to the exclusion of all other

this makes them the ultimate scholar-warriors better than your shitty dewds

My soldiers read hieroglyphs instead of field manuals.

cuneiform or get out loser

gayla military history is relayed solely through bead counting, oral histories accompanied by dances, and firewalking

No one actually cares (indeed, no one actually knows enough about to begin with) what people a few thousand years ago actually did.

Maybe you don't, but I know plenty of people who do. Mattis himself says that Gates of Fire is among his top two books on leadership.(skip to 10:27 for that part. Yes, it's a bullshit moto page.)

Notice how the fiction novels disappear once you get into field officer territory, too. Curious, that, how the books become more and more prone to reading with practical air about recent history, shedding the classics entirely once you get into flag officers. Then, it's nothing but modern history since the end of the Cold War. Perhaps they should be reading all about medieval warfare instead! The fools! Darius taught us everything about counter-insurgency in the Information Age!

So when Epaminondas concentrated his forces at one small spot of the Spartan line at the Battle of Leuktra, rather than go with what had always been done and evenly disperse his forces, he wasn't doing anything that modern militaries can't learn about? The Romans didn't literally write the book on the Fabian strategy?

Literally everything you need to know about history is contained in the century span of 1917-2017, since there is where the modern age of historical knowledge begins. Arguably anything before WW1 is pretty much superfluous to actually know anything about. Cultural osmosis provides more than adequate knowledge of Thermopylae or whatever, and no one knows enough about it to actually say anything meaningful anymore. That was all said and done in the 19th century. Really that should be the emphasis area.

What am I reading. I suppose is it equally unimportant to learn about the American Founding Fathers as it is to learn about the Greco-Roman politicians that they learned about. Is the Thirty Years War and the Peace of Westphalia irrelevant to modern politics? Maybe the Crusades don't really have anything to do with Christian-Islamic relations?

dod better be calling up all these classical phds who spent 30 years studying herodotus, hannibal, etc.

clearly they know more about the relevant history of today's wars than people who spent the same 30 years studying the ottoman empire's collapse, the rise of wahhabism through the 20th century after the end of ww1 thanks to saud, and the recent histories of conflicts in central and sw asia and why they failed to achieve their aims

it's so simple!

[Taihei Tengoku]

I have a question, I'm looking for a rifle that can perform reliable in extremely cold and snowy conditions and that is also accurate enough to be used in a mountainous area, I'm looking for something that specifically uses 5.56x45mm, what are my options

Anything modern works. If the rifle is particularly new it might have a free-floating barrel but otherwise accuracy is a function of having optics and being trained.

[Torrocca]

use m1 garands for best results

I want something chambered in 5.56x45mm, while I like 30.06, I prefer 5.56 for a standard rifle

did i stutter, my friend???

[Grand Viscovian Kingdom]

I have a question, I'm looking for a rifle that can perform reliable in extremely cold and snowy conditions and that is also accurate enough to be used in a mountainous area, I'm looking for something that specifically uses 5.56x45mm, what are my options

Anything modern works. If the rifle is particularly new it might have a free-floating barrel but otherwise accuracy is a function of having optics and being trained.

Yes but I need something that would work for a force centered around air cavalry, helicopters are a center of my military strategy and I need a weapon accurate enough for use in mountainous terrain but small enough to be used by soldiers getting to battle in helicopters

[-AlEmAnNiA-]

XM16e2

[Korva]

Anything modern works. If the rifle is particularly new it might have a free-floating barrel but otherwise accuracy is a function of having optics and being trained.

Yes but I need something that would work for a force centered around air cavalry, helicopters are a center of my military strategy and I need a weapon accurate enough for use in mountainous terrain but small enough to be used by soldiers getting to battle in helicopters

C7A2

[Crookfur]

Anything modern works. If the rifle is particularly new it might have a free-floating barrel but otherwise accuracy is a function of having optics and being trained.

Yes but I need something that would work for a force centered around air cavalry, helicopters are a center of my military strategy and I need a weapon accurate enough for use in mountainous terrain but small enough to be used by soldiers getting to battle in helicopters

Pretty much all current 5.56mm assault rifles fit that bill. Seriously just pick the one you think is sexiest and it'll do the job.

If you really need ultra confirmation just pick a western nation with lots of snow and mountains and use what they use. IIRC the US use m4s, Canadians use C7/C8 (aka m16/m4) Swedes use the AK5 (aka FN FNC), Norwegians are transitioning to HK416s, the Swiss have the Sig 550 family and the Austrians have the AUG.

[Laritaia]

FAMAS G2

[Gallia-]

Anything modern works. If the rifle is particularly new it might have a free-floating barrel but otherwise accuracy is a function of having optics and being trained.

Yes but I need something that would work for a force centered around air cavalry, helicopters are a center of my military strategy and I need a weapon accurate enough for use in mountainous terrain but small enough to be used by soldiers getting to battle in helicopters

Pick a gun based solely on what looks best.

[Taihei Tengoku]

Anything modern works. If the rifle is particularly new it might have a free-floating barrel but otherwise accuracy is a function of having optics and being trained.

Yes but I need something that would work for a force centered around air cavalry, helicopters are a center of my military strategy and I need a weapon accurate enough for use in mountainous terrain but small enough to be used by soldiers getting to battle in helicopters

Yes, I'm saying literally any modern 5.56 service rifle (AR-15, AR-18, Galil, etc) works. Air cavalry is just light infantry in helicopters, marksmanship in the mountains isn't really different than marksmanship anywhere else, and helicopters really aren't that cramped compared to a BMP.

Just pick the rifle you think looks the coolest.

[Crookfur]

No one actually cares (indeed, no one actually knows enough about to begin with) what people a few thousand years ago actually did.

Maybe you don't, but I know plenty of people who do. Mattis himself says that Gates of Fire is among his top two books on leadership.(skip to 10:27 for that part. Yes, it's a bullshit moto page.)

Notice how the fiction novels disappear once you get into field officer territory, too. Curious, that, how the books become more and more prone to reading with practical air about recent history, shedding the classics entirely once you get into flag officers. Then, it's nothing but modern history since the end of the Cold War. Perhaps they should be reading all about medieval warfare instead! The fools! Darius taught us everything about counter-insurgency in the Information Age!

So when Epaminondas concentrated his forces at one small spot of the Spartan line at the Battle of Leuktra, rather than go with what had always been done and evenly disperse his forces, he wasn't doing anything that modern militaries can't learn about? The Romans didn't literally write the book on the Fabian strategy?

Literally everything you need to know about history is contained in the century span of 1917-2017, since there is where the modern age of historical knowledge begins. Arguably anything before WW1 is pretty much superfluous to actually know anything about. Cultural osmosis provides more than adequate knowledge of Thermopylae or whatever, and no one knows enough about it to actually say anything meaningful anymore. That was all said and done in the 19th century. Really that should be the emphasis area.

What am I reading. I suppose is it equally unimportant to learn about the American Founding Fathers as it is to learn about the Greco-Roman politicians that they learned about. Is the Thirty Years War and the Peace of Westphalia irrelevant to modern politics? Maybe the Crusades don't really have anything to do with Christian-Islamic relations?

A big part of the issue is what is more important: reading the classical stuff, which requires a fair bit of extra work to get the required lessons out of or a more contemporary work that contains the same lessons but presents it in a more familiar, accessible and directly relevant context. The same lessons are being taught and whilst original primary sources are nice they are something that are probably best left for those with a pressing interest to pursue at their own leisure.

[Gallia-]

Yes. Hence "cultural osmosis". The only things it doesn't work with are things we don't understand, which is probably within the past 50-100 years depending on how much coverage an event has in the news. So basically anything in living memory is about the only thing people who work for a living need to concern themselves with.

The good joke is that "upper class education" was also literally just a hobby. Which is why you studied Latin/Greek/whatever and the classics, instead of useful, practical things, in an academic setting.

[Taihei Tengoku]

The TT reading list is vom kriege and battle leadership, everything else is tribal knowledge or subject matter education

Yes. Hence "cultural osmosis". The only things it doesn't work with are things we don't understand, which is probably within the past 50-100 years depending on how much coverage an event has in the news. So basically anything in living memory is about the only thing people who work for a living need to concern themselves with.

The good joke is that "upper class education" was also literally just a hobby. Which is why you studied Latin/Greek/whatever and the classics, instead of useful, practical things, in an academic setting.

The whole point of upper class/classical education was so that you didn't work (because work sucks and is for poors) and instead learned things that are interesting in parlors. The Prussians in the 19th century then turned the university into a factory for bureaucrats who were expected to do nothing but work, confusing matters greatly. An early example of irregular forces leveraging asymmetric capabilities in the hybrid environments of the institutions of British society?

[Sevvania]

use m1 garands for best results

I want something chambered in 5.56x45mm, while I like 30.06, I prefer 5.56 for a standard rifle

Though the "Use Garands" remark was probably something of a joke, there /is/ the AC-556.

Garand-esque goodness in a slightly more contemporary format, chambered for an intermediate cartridge.

[Torrocca]

I want something chambered in 5.56x45mm, while I like 30.06, I prefer 5.56 for a standard rifle

Though the "Use Garands" remark was probably something of a joke, there /is/ the AC-556.

Garand-esque goodness in a slightly more contemporary format, chambered for an intermediate cartridge.

how dare you insinuate that i'd ever joke about the legacy of Jean Cantius Garand?

[Federated Kingdom of Prussia]

dod better be calling up all these classical phds who spent 30 years studying herodotus, hannibal, etc.

clearly they know more about the relevant history of today's wars than people who spent the same 30 years studying the ottoman empire's collapse, the rise of wahhabism through the 20th century after the end of ww1 thanks to saud, and the recent histories of conflicts in central and sw asia and why they failed to achieve their aims

it's so simple!

Nice straw man.

Nowhere did I say the classics are the only thing people should study. But parts of history shouldn't be excised simply because 'they're old' and 'nobody cares'.

A big part of the issue is what is more important: reading the classical stuff, which requires a fair bit of extra work to get the required lessons out of or a more contemporary work that contains the same lessons but presents it in a more familiar, accessible and directly relevant context. The same lessons are being taught and whilst original primary sources are nice they are something that are probably best left for those with a pressing interest to pursue at their own leisure.

Admittedly it's true that classical scholarship can be more rigorous in terms of the languages one needs to learn, becoming more familiar with vastly different societies, etc. But large parts of this have to do with the research of classical antiquity(I.e. Reading primary sources in their original language, or archaeology work), rather than studying subjects which don't need much more research(such as simply reading about Socratic logic) as part of a larger study in history.

The good joke is that "upper class education" was also literally just a hobby. Which is why you studied Latin/Greek/whatever and the classics, instead of useful, practical things, in an academic setting.

Studying the classics is plenty useful for my purposes. Dumbasses who take liberal arts majors because they think it's going to be easy are the future McBurger's cooks. In any case I question why you want to shit on what is again the original reason universities were created: studying really old history.