Colonels and brigadiers are pretty explicitly frontline officers. They're very often no more than a couple kilometers from the main battle, if not literally shooting at the enemy. Strom Thurmond was part of the initial glider assault wave in Normandy, McNair died on the frontlines, COL Gavin led a counterattack against a Nazi infantry unit with a dozen paratroopers and hand grenades in close combat, and MG W.F. Dean knocked out a T-34 with a hand grenade (and at least one other T-34 was killed by a Bazooka team under his direction). It's hardly rare for O-6s and O-7s (or even O-8s) to see fighting, even in ground forces, and it's a general rule for naval forces, and most air forces since the O-6s and O-7s will lead major naval task forces and air units. O-6s in combat arms will definitely be shooting at the enemy. O-7s, sometimes, it depends on the day, and the unit. Even O-8s have been known to dabble in the art of the hand grenade, too.
A major general or newly promoted brigadier or something might spend most of his time away from the frontlines, but only because his job usually requires him to be a office bureaucrat at that point, since new assignments for general officers are usually in staffs of Corps or Theaters (or assistants to division staff officers, which means they run the ship while the S-3 is out), rather than field commands. Generals commanding brigades or something are generally occupying forward command posts with their main force while the staff plans the battle, though. An MG might occasionally creep up to the frontline, but since MGs today have greater geographic responsibility than previous generals it's more unlikely I guess (although not that rare, really, as Monty was known to creep around the frontlines at times). A colonel or brigadier is outright shooting guys from inside his tank or something when he isn't reporting movements of tanks through his RTO though.
The only time this changes is if the unit is some weird or niche thing that lives 500 miles away in a concrete bunker tending antenna farms, or are missileers, or a field hospital, or something that will equally never see combat. Any unit that is likely to actually see combat and is commanded by a O-6 or O-7, like a brigade, will generally also see its commanding officer in combat if only because having your eyes on the battle is useful, the commander is generally the most experienced and learned guy there, and what he says goes. He will usually have a radio operator following him so he can talk to his staff who are a couple kilometers behind him in a "BCOTM" or "C2V" or something and are processing the information the commander is giving them.
Sometimes an O-8 shows up if there is a major ground operation being planned, too. This happened with 4ID at least, but O-8s are probably the start of that part of an army where you can say that the majority of them will be behind the main battle area and unlikely to be shooting the enemy, if only because the geographic scope of the area they're commanding has too many battles to be physically present at. Even a modern division, covering as much as an old style corps (maybe 50-100 km) will usually have the resources for one main effort. An O-6 still gets a rifle, and an O-7 still leads from the front, even if his division is fighting multiple battles at once.
COL A. Tack Always wasn't puking in his face mask, directing a gunship battalion over the radio, and shooting LAWs at Bimpus so you could call him a cubicle creature tho. ):<
Triplebaconation wrote:I'm pretty sure FM 7-70 said to jack bikes when appropriate.
Not having patch kits or tools (nor knowledge of how to use it) would be annoying I suppose. At least in small towns in USA it's rather rare for bike riders to have very serious toolsets or patch kits on the bike itself from looking at the bikes on the racks here. Maybe they carry tubes or something in the handlebars or under seats, but I suspect they don't, and they carry them on their person or w/e.
I'm also concerned typical Wal-Mart bikes would just bend if you start slapping 200-300 lbs of soldier on it TBH.
