1 Primero.

2

Dos

3 Tres

4 Two open threads back to back?

5 Wow. I got pushed down like a fat chick.

6 Having served in the old day's & in the present day wars...it's like comparing apples & oranges.  That Body Armor (Plus Ammo, Water, Comms Gear, etc) they are wearing, along with those Afghan elevations is no joke.

Theodore

7 Quatorze!

8 Theodore, thanks. I am in awe that those lightfighters can hump that armor all over hell and creation, especially at those elevations. But even when we had humongous rucks on, no one ever went supine. Always prone. And always, always facing out, weapons ready.

9 my Preferred Position was on hands and knees, sucking wind and trying not to puke.

If you could roll over on your back, so much the better.  Humping all that gear at that altitude must be a MegaBitch, and those guys have my total respect

10 Hey, XBrad, sorry for the crosspost.

11 I'm not criticizing. At the end of many a roadmarch I hit the quick release on my ruck shoulder straps and let that heavy bastard drop. THEN I laid on it.

12 **puts rdbrewer on the "kill slowly and painfully" list**

13

Not even remote related:

Holy crap!  I hope the MFM doesnÂ’t get a hold of this, or it will blow up into another media barrage on the scale of the Meg WhitmanÂ’s Latina felon, starving, kidnapped in some ultra-advanced society and forced to come to the backwoods of the armpit of the world, housekeeper story.

14 Who's the guy wearing the piss pot? 

15

Unrelated, do any of you grunts ever remember doing the rucksack flop in the old days?

You mean without having Sarge put his boot in your ass almost immediately?  Umm.. no.  Can't say as I recall ever getting away with that.

16 do any of you grunts ever remember doing the rucksack flop in the old days? Ohhh, it was pretty rough in the Air Force. Sometimes I would get stuck with a chair that had a squeeky wheel. I'd be rolling down the aisle and the squeeking would wake up some of the operators. It was hell, I tell ya.

17 > 14 Who's the guy wearing the piss pot? Posted by: Ike Stands out, doesn't he. I assume he's an ANA.(Afghan National Army)

18 One thing they bring up at that site that's worrisome is the fact that A-stan is awash in heroin and hash. I wonder if the military is thinking about the fact that some of our guys are almost certainly going to come back with heroin addictions, just like the Russians did?

19 Revision to #17 No gun. Must be a translator.

20

RTOs could get away with it sometimes in the pre-ASIP era before the radios and batteries shrank.

Only guys I knew who got away with it 2000-2004 at Campbell were the company mortar guys with the baseplates. Tube and bipod guys had to suck it up.

I went from Weapons Squad (M122 bipod for M240B GPMG, 600 rounds belted 7.62mm) to RTO then back. No flops for us. The WSL was a Ranger School Distinguished Honor Graduate. Moved up to the PSG slot by OIF1.

If I could make out a shoulder patch on these guys, I would be talking mad shit right now.

 

21 Did the rucksack flop all the time. With 100 lbs of high speed, light weight equipment you cram into those things nowadays, all powered by batteries if you got down in the prone odds are 2:1 you ain't getting back up. At least this way one of the more muscle bound dudes can help pull your ass up.

22 Comrade Arthur, Some morons have already covered the Air Force's gallant contributions to the war here: http://tinyurl.com/24mam6v You donÂ’t go to war with the office supplies you want, you go to war with the office supplies you have.

23
You always rested either by taking a knee, or in the prone.

I was always in some god-forsaken shitty jungle setting. 

24

Rucksack flop...ah the memories, and the nightmares. Odd that twenty years later I still have anxiety dreams of letting my buddies down.

25 Thanks for the plug. I read Ace all the time. To see a plug for War News when I do not expect it always makes me blink my eyes .... and yes .... I was blinking my eyes.  XBrad .... thanks again. 

26 Yeah, RTOs with a PRC77 usually got a pass on the flop. But that was about it. But I can fully understand the difficulty of getting up from the prone. I usually rolled around for about 30 seconds and looked like beached whale trying to get up.

27 Dan, Let's just call them 10th MTN DIV and go ahead and give 'em some shit anyway. SSG Lee

28

Rucksacks?  I have heard of those. LOL

 

Cav, we ride.

29 To this day I take a rest prone, facing out, weapon at the ready. 

30 ................at least back in my day we would ride................right up to the point where the shit and the fan got together. Then we got happy feet fast!

31 Back in the 80's in Alaska, what with carrying all that snivel gear and Arctic Type II bags, the rucksack flop was all the rage.That did not mean it was condoned, we light fighters just had to do it stealthily. Being an AG on a 60 made for plenty of flops!

32 Afghanistan IX - X... as a Team Leader (Bravo Company 1-32 Infantry) my equipment weight breakdown was as follows:

Large/Long IOTV with ESAPI plates...... 44 lbs
ACH (Helmet)........................................ 3 lbs
M4 w/ M203 w/ ACOG w/ PEQ-15...... 10 lbs
12x 30 round magazines.......................... 12 lbs
20x HEDP 40mm rounds......................... 10 lbs
2x Star Cluster 40mm rounds................... 1 lbs
2x Parachute Flare 40mm rounds.............. 1 lbs
4x Smoke 40mm rounds........................... 2 lbs
PSQ-20 Night Vision............................... 2 lbs
MBITR (radio)......................................... 2 lbs
Spare MBITR battery............................... 0.5 lbs
3 liters water (Camelbak).......................... 7 lbs
100 rounds linked 7.62mm........................ 7 lbs
2x 60mm HE rounds................................. 7 lbs
assault pack extra food/water/ammo.......... 15 lbs

Total for a Light Infantry Team Leader:        123.5 lbs

My Automatic Riflemans (SAW Gunner) weapon weighed  22 lbs loaded and he had to carry 800 - 1000 rounds in Afghanistan (an additional 28 - 35lbs in ammo)..... it was bad enough going over the mud walls separating afghan fields but once you got in the mountains it was suckfest all the way and most of us would go black on water by the time we got to the top....

We didn't flop all the time because we would find a good ditch or something to be behind where you couldn't see over if you did flop... our Gun Teams defintly DID NOT flop ever... when the shit popped off you wanted that MG to lay down the scunion...

Flopping like that was always best if you had some decent size rock or tree to be behind.... you could sit back and shoot your weapon no problem with good cover...

Best.

33 Yeah, there were no ruck-sack flops when I was in either but that was training. Soldiers train hard so they can fight easy. When I finally went to war, I noticed how some of the training bullshit went right out the window.

34

I believe someone is referring to the "chrome" position.  Was when I was in 69-71.
I don't recall doing the rucksack flop.  But that was in the days you carried spare Cs in socks tied to the front of your webbing, like big sausages.  Maybe didn't have a ruck.  Can't recall.  I'm sure General Grant would have issued me one if he'd thought I needed one.

The PRC 25 was a pretty good backrest, though.  That and the extra baddry.

And the Sixty.  I'm getting teary, here.

35

 When I finally went to war, I noticed how some of the training bullshit went right out the window.   Posted by: Distwalker at October 01, 2010 05:01 PM (7oX1a)

It always did, even back in the dark ages when I was in.

36 Looks like the ice-wops have a few real bad-asses among them:

Norwegian soldiers in Afghanistan unofficially use the "Punisher-skull" (from the comic/ movie The Punisher) as an emblem. ItÂ’s got the text "Jokke, we will never forget!" as a tribute to the fellow soldier who got killed by a roadside bomb in January 2010. The senior Taliban leader and bomb making expert suspected of arranging the ambush that killed Claes Joachim Olsson, was himself killed this summer in an operation by Olssons unit.

Soldiers of the "Mek 4" are spray painting the skull on buildings of suspected Taliban members as warnings to them. There are reports of several irregular patrols, where the Norwegian soldiers seem to be seeking fire fights in order to kill enemies "without a clear mandate to do so" by the Army High Command (government/ establishment).

Soldiers have also expressed a great feeling of joy (better than sex) when involved in combat: "Seeing the "red mist" in your optics is an incredible feeling".

"You become so high on adrenaline before you draw the trigger. You want to shoot all the time when you have "verified weapon" and know that the enemy is a legitimate target. When you finally get to fire, you become blood-focused. We do anything to hit, to kill. Sometimes you're lucky, I hit a Taliban warrior in the neck from 2770 meter on February 2 this year - Man, there was cheering!"

The company commander, major Kristian Simonsen, has expressed: I have utilized the troops with the intention of killing, and we have been successful. I don't reflect on having killed someone. They have chosen to enter the battlefield with the intention to kill us, that makes us equally guilty of the outcome. We are the two parties of a war".

The Telemark Battalion 4th mechanized company's warcry is "Til Valhall!" (To Valhalla!). The warcry was shouted three times by the unit after a flaming speech by an officer in a closed ceremony in relation to Olssons death.

Of course, the metrosexual pussy bureaucrats have to spoil the fun:

The unit's field priest reacted when he heard about the incident and reported the soldiers "warmongering ethics and dangerous behavior" to senior officers a while ago.

The Norwegian government is in flames over this, claiming it to be "a vengeful, and dangerous path" that the soldiers should stop following.

The subject has been a hot potato in the Norwegian press today. The defense minister (labour party) Grete Faremoe is strongly regretting the trend and calls for reactions. The leader of the moderate opposition, Erna Solberg, sees on the other hand no need to panic over the soldier's conduct.

Here's a video of them in Afghanistan chanting Til Valhal! (To Valhalla!)

37 They carry so much gear I don't know how they get back up. I rested face down in a rice paddy filled with human shit.

Our guys today are a lot better than I was.

Chuck

38 The rucksack flop was always a position that was more comfortable when you weren't supposed to be doing it...whenever I could do it without fear of repercussions, I found a better way to rest...

39

Our guys today are a lot better than I was.
Chuck      Posted by: Chuck at October 01, 2010 05:27 PM (Ae98T)

.......and they got cooler toys now than we did in our day.

Hey Chuck, Welcome Home Brother.

40 ol_dirty_/b/tard -- it's the lack of sunspots, it brings the Viking out

41 Back in the 80's in Alaska, what with carrying all that snivel gear and Arctic Type II bags, the rucksack flop was all the rage.That did not mean it was condoned, we light fighters just had to do it stealthily. Being an AG on a 60 made for plenty of flops! Posted by: The Opinionator at October 01, 2010 04:52 PM (Hjnpb) Ooooh, late-80s Ft. Rich memories! Korean War-era cold weather gear, made mostly of cotton, blue bakalavas, arctic mittens (usually known as "gorilla feet") the scratchy wool shirt and those yellowed VB boots. Yeah, the ruck flop was all the rage, especially for us RTOs.

42 34 Yeah, there were no ruck-sack flops when I was in either but that was training. Soldiers train hard so they can fight easy. When I finally went to war, I noticed how some of the training bullshit went right out the window.


I don't remember flop position being such a big deal, but then again I was combat support (Signal Corps--with emphasis on the SIGINT, IYKWIMAITYD).

But there was a great scene in HBO's The Pacific where a Marine captain recites the old litany to his company: "Never run when can you walk, never walk when you can stand, never stand when you can sit, never sit when you can lie down, never stay awake when you can sleep."

43 My son is in the Air Force Security Forces and is currently deployed to Afghanistan, and he certainly doesn't sit behind a desk all day.  AF Security Forces do things like patrol outside the wire and guard convoys as well as providing security for bases.  My son has also picked up Taliban and brought them back to his base for transport.  He wears a lot of the same gear as the guys in the picture.  I'm not saying AF Security Forces does as much shit as the marines or army, but they certainly aren't all sitting behind a desk all day.  When my son calls me from Afghanistan, he always sounds exhausted.  He works a 12 hour shift, midnight to noon and gets little time off.  Two weeks after arriving, his base was attacked when my son was on the flight line.  He and several other Security Forces airmen repelled that attack.  My brother was a marine and the marines really do most of the dirty work, but how about a little more respect for the Air Force?

44 I had forgotten about that thread, xbrad. Good times.

45 but how about a little more respect for the Air Force?


Much respect to the Zoomies!

46 Those soldiers are from the 86th BCT.

47 Mike W, I chucked in delight at "laying down the scunion", I hadn't heard that in years. Ass down, head up, brother. You keep 'em like that. My first unit, I was an RTO and every time I did a 3 to 5 second rush, I'd hit the prone and that fucking PRC 77 in the radio pocket of my ruck would slam into the back of my K pot and push it over my eyes. I'd get so pissed off you could track my ptogress with your eyes closed. Just follow the cussing. And I was issued a SAW. WTF, Sarge? Every green plastic Army man RTO gets a rifle, not an MG this is bullshit.

48 Posted by: BubbaJ at October 01, 2010 06:10 PM (sJAcv)

BubbaJ,

Please don't take offense. 99.9% of the people on this blog have tremendous respect for our military. And that .1% gets abused beyond belief (they are driven off the blog). This is just gentle fun.

And...thank you and your son for his service.

49

Yeah... I remember the tough days of Carrying my Seabag up the gangplank to get it aboard ship...

Oh... wait...

Crap, /SALUTE to those guys... heck, we even used to ditch our helmets during while doing boarding ops during storm...

50 Sorry, I plead guilty to being overly sensitive.  I'm worried sick about my son.  Sometimes he sounds horrible when he calls.  He's physically and emotionally exhausted.  He's always volunteering for extra duty. Then I talk to a Facebook friend whose son is a Marine and she hasn't heard from him in 6 weeks because he's at some remote base out in the middle of nowhere, and I am reminded to count my blessings.  God bless those Marines!

51 One thing they bring up at that site that's worrisome is the fact that A-stan is awash in heroin and hash. I wonder if the military is thinking about the fact that some of our guys are almost certainly going to come back with heroin addictions, just like the Russians did?

Ivan didn't have to take a piss test regularly.

On the other hand, neither do the ANA, at least as far as I understand the situation.

52 IllTemperedCur,

You are correct sir. Did a stint as RTO after I was 60 AG and a 90mm gunner. Last people to have the piece of steel. Was at Rich. when the 172nd became 6th ID. Hard to believe we were wearing all that old castoff gear.

53

"Being an AG on a 60 made for plenty of flops!"

I was a 60 gunner - b/f that an AG - nothing said wlecome to the infantry  like having to hump all that AG gear plus 1000 rounds of ammo on top of the rest of my kit.

54 Posted by: BubbaJ at October 01, 2010 06:10 PM (sJAcv) BubbaJ, I hope you understand we were just kidding. Many of us like to tease the Air Force, but we also recognize people that are doing hard, dangerous jobs. God Bless and keep your son. I don't think you were being overly sensitive. You were being a Dad.

55 > 22 Comrade Arthur, Some morons have already covered the Air Force's gallant contributions to the war here: You donÂ’t go to war with the office supplies you want, you go to war with the office supplies you have. Posted by: XBradTC Dude. You have no idea. One time we ran low on 3 ply teleprinter printer. We had to set up a detail to separate 6 ply into two piles of 3 ply! Most of the PTSD from my squadron traced back to that incident...

56

Sorry, I plead guilty to being overly sensitive.  I'm worried sick about my son.  Sometimes he sounds horrible when he calls.  He's physically and emotionally exhausted.  He's always volunteering for extra duty. Then I talk to a Facebook friend whose son is a Marine and she hasn't heard from him in 6 weeks because he's at some remote base out in the middle of nowhere, and I am reminded to count my blessings.  God bless those Marines!    Posted by: BubbaJ at October 01, 2010 06:47 PM (sJAcv)

Hey BubbaJ,

I was Army back in 70-71....71 was in Nam, the Air Force was always there when we called and they KICKED ASS and blew a ton of shit up for us and we owed them......................................but we love to jack them up just because they are the Air Force. It a service thing if ya know what I mean. LOL Don't even get me started on the Coast Guard. It's all good and we DO respect each other, we just don't like to show it too much. Tell your Son to stay safe and thank him for his service for me.

57 Air Force SecForces and AFSOC really don't count as "Air Force" in my opinion. I will NEVER make Air Force jokes to a PJ or combat controller.

As for the 86th BCT, I met a bunch of those guys when they came through JRTC. Seemed like a good outfit. I hope this pic is just a bullshit pic of a command element (the interpreter seems to indicate that) and there are actually some people establishing a perimeter.

58 SGT Dan, are you down at Fort Polk?

59 When hiking and camping with my kids, I sometimes do the rucksack flop out of sheer spite, in memory of merciless squad leaders chewing us out for sprawling in place. Also, I'm now entirely too old for that 'take a knee' business. The knees go first as one veers toward middle age. Trust me.

60 I was a 60 AG.  Took two guys to help me put my ruck on.  120+ pounds.  Tripod, T &E, Ammo.  That was when I only weighed a little more than my ruck.  The good old days.

61 I forgot the spare barrel.  What joy.

62 Amen Major O. When they loaded all that gear on my, I had trouble getting to the end of the barracks parking lot. And on snowshoes, it totally blew!

63 I was an 81mm mortarman in 7th Marines--Regimental motto: Prepare to March.
Truth in advertising.

So, yeah.  The rucksack flop was very popular with us.

The CO who carried a styrofoam block in his pack and loved to take us out on additional humps "for training purposes"...  He was much less popular. 

64

 I forgot the spare barrel.  What joy.    Posted by: MAJ O at October 01, 2010 09:15 PM (2eLg/)

Hump the base plate of an 81 and then get back to me. LOL Did it once......like I said, once. The piss tube was a piece of cake.

65 Check out what the squad leader with the binos is wearing under his MICH; Peltor COMTAC ear muffs with a throat mic.  First I've noticed that in a pic.

Also, notice how bad the digital camo BDUs work anywhere other than Iraq.  Now picture them in Multicam.  I have yet to figure out the usefulness of foliage green.

Finally, check out the Afghan in the background.  Translator?

66 another picture that reminds me to bless Boss Hog, my first CO, who took one look as my ASVAB scores prior to leaving for Harmony Church and changing the B to H and making me a TOW missile crewman.....

too big to hump, to slow to displace, we HAD to have a vehicle..... the most we'd do is put the track in a hide and move the ground mount forward a piece with a round.

with that launch signature, you weren't going to fire from the same place twice and live..... maybe not even once.

DEATH BEFORE DISMOUNT!

67 Old Hippie Vet,

I did get the base plate once, and only once, as well. I was one of five 11B's in an 11C platoon during OSUT at Benning. Carried it on the last big road march before graduation. That was killer. But the mortar maggots in my company in Alaska got to ride, lucky bastards.

68 Glad to see they get knee-pads - not allowed in my short day, which kinda sucked when at Pohakuloa Training Area (a virtual moonscape, except that the moon has more plants and less razor edged rocks, and probably more air too)

69 Brad,

I don't think these guys are wearing rucks--they've got lbvs certainly, but the only ruck I see is in the background, and someone is prone behind it.

As far as everybody else goes, it looks like they are sitting, yes, but sitting behind cover.  And if they are on the interior of the perimeter (the only place I'd trust a translator to be), I wouldn't freak excessively about it.

And unless the armor has gotten significantly lighter in the past few years, I wouldn't lay prone in it if given a choice, even if it was the only thing I was wearing, which, for these guys, it most definitely is not.  The plate and sides don't protect much from above, which, if you are prone, is now where the shots come from.

70 Cool picture, that remind about wars in the world.

71 The CO who carried a styrofoam block in his pack and loved to take us out on additional humps "for training purposes"...  He was much less popular. 

Posted by: Parzival at October 01, 2010 09:26 PM (qjyS1)

I'd swear he was my company commander in ITR.  The same prick who made us do the low crawl around the barracks in a muddy ditch the evening before we went home?  Because nothing beats shipping out with a wet, muddy pair of utilities in your seabag.

72 ALICE flop? We didn't "ruck" back then. We humped ALICE.

The flop depended on the load. Standard infantry load? sure... flop away. As a Marine, it was our duty to give squad leaders all the grief we could manage to muster up.

As a Dragon AG? Dragon simulator slung over each shoulder with all the other infantry crap, including rifle? No flop. I'd squat down a bit until the Dragon tube ends were grounded, then fall to my knees and pray to God that I'd die of a heart attack before our "five" was up. Never really managed to figure out exactly what time measurement "take five" was based on either.

We'd manage to do our 20 miles in under 8 hours. That's what counted back then. The usual was 6 hours 30 mins.

73 On closer exam of the pic...
I have to agree with them what says it's not a "ruck flop" at all. It's a pos on a hillside. You go prone with head down hill and you aint gonna be able to track crap but your  pot rim.

74 They are soldiers not Marines!

75

Damn this is a unit that needs,

1. Multi-cam.

2. some red bull.

3. transport.

OOHRAaaa Army get some! 

76

I'm retired USAF.

We didn't do ruck sacs.

We did ......Golf bags!

Just sayin....