MILITARY WET DREAMS
You might already be tired of hearing me rant against military equipment for survivalists, but the responses to yesterday's post force me to once again touch on this topic. Yes, that's right, it is all your fault- you made me do this. Let's just jump right back into the MRE debate. I'm even more right than even I realized. MRE's don't have two thousand calories, they have closer to 1200. I was reading the list of ingredients on a civilian version and it only contains 800+ calories. I went to Google it and got the figure of 1200 average. I assume the civilian version is ripping us off, so an additional fifty percent calories is about right. No way it is two thousand. And for those concerned with more than calories, let's compare. An MRE is $6. A jar of peanut butter is $2. Calories are 1250 and 3000. Protein is 13% and 120%. Fat is 36% and 400%. Carbs are 51% and 36%. Carbs are the only area PB lacks compared to an MRE. It wins for cost, compactness, protein and fat. Military MRE's are made for a balanced diet and to combat taste fatigue. Civilian homemade MRE's should only be used for a short time, in an emergency situation such as bug-outs. Whole grains and legumes are your long term food source. For a time, the military will eat much better than civilians. Until their meals can't be resupplied. The military depends on resupply. A civilian depends on in house stockpiling.
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The military is still fighting World War II. Communication is better, which is about it. Yes, munitions are much smarter, but that is more of a result of our running out of resources than our brilliance. Necessity rather than being smarter. So, in essence, we are not only still fighting WWII, we are fighting it more like the Germans now. Other than the computer chip, how many weapons did we invent that the Nazi's didn't? Even the computer chip might have gotten its scientific start in Germany, although I admit that might fall into pure speculation. If I had the time for more research, I think it would really be interesting to debate whether we ever actually advanced economically or intellectually or if things pretty much came to a halt in 1929 ( you could even ask if it didn't happen sooner, as the farm sector collapsed ). The Great Depression halted our forward progress and we used the war to steal more knowledge and resources. There might be something to the need for continual land expansion after our frontier was settled, as our economic model was continuing resource conquest. But be all that as it may, fundamentally our military is pretty much immobile and incapable of systematic change.
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So why does everyone fall to their knees and genuflect towards all things military? We're not worthy! I think it should be recognized as hero worship, as a celebration of mans true nature, that of a warrior. I'm not making fun here, I'm actually of the mind that war is a necessary survival trait of the species and warriors deserve a revered place. But appreciating the warrior spirit and sacrifice should not mean that we blindly accept the equipment and tactics that are adopted. They are political acts, not practical ones. Let's please remember that I was in the Army, supposedly after a time of turmoil and discontent that was replaced by a professional force, well equipped and motivated and trained. I was motivated, but almost all my experiences in the military pointed out the reality of the other aspects to be otherwise. I didn't go in because I needed employment, I had always wanted to join the military. But it sucked. The training was marginal. They tried to cover so much that they ended up with almost no reinforcement or follow up. OK, call me an idiot. I can't read or hear something one time and remember it forever. Yet that is almost the kind of training we had.
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I've bitched and moaned about the equipment before. The M-16 and M-60 were hideous pieces of crap. Thirty years later, the M-16 continues to be a piece of crap. It takes three shots to kill a Skinny? Were did the weight saving in ammunition go? BDU's were much less comfortable to wear than the OD fatigues. And provided no more real camouflage than if the fatigues had simply been dyed darker. Thank goodness I got out before I had to wear the beret. Oh, what a great idea- no visor to keep the sun out. The Hummer was an extremely over priced low quality hunk of crap. A shade tree mechanic could fix the old jeeps, the Hummers were monsters to work on. The 9mm to replace the .45 was a hideous decision. Forget the caliber disadvantage, the Colt was much better designed.
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If we are still fighting WWII, but this time with the disadvantage of far less resources and industrial capacity, why do we need any new equipment other than to pay for the military-industrial complex? And if the military keeps changing- but for the worse- what makes you think they should be emulated in any way other than for their fighting spirit? Their equipment and tactics suck. Other than studying them for what they will do fighting against you, ignore everything else. Survivalists aren't resupplied. Assault weapons are meant to use a lot of resupplied ammunition. And at close, dangerous, range. If you want a better model of how to fight, look at the insurgents against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Respect our military? You bet! Emulate them? Dangerous.
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8 comments:
Army equipment sucks bigtime,I hated the boots more than anything.MRE's taste like crap and cause constipation.The entrenching tool was OK,not for digging,but as a weapon.1200 calories,WHAT A RIPOFF!
Never trust a statistic you didn't fake yourself." -- Winston Churchill
How about a primitive weapons post? Something like the 4 winds shotgun from Kurt Saxon? Nobody ever gets tired of Kurt Saxon's old stuff.
I respect the troops.My nephew is in the army.
Don't waste your resources on Kurt Saxon, if you look long enough you'll find he plagiarized EVERYTHING he ever wrote, in fact most of his recipes are right out of THE JOY OF COOKING or FANNIE FARMER.
I don't want to spend much time on NAZISM, but Hitler was just a violent thug, there wasn't anything mystical about his "powers". Just sheer horrifying brutality, nothing more nothing less.
Well we're already in the COLLAPSE, regardless of what the gizzards of wall street and the raving loonies in DC claim. So how are you surviving so far ?
As I remember it the VC would just stick a bit of dried rice in their mouth and suck on it till they could chew it. This is while they were 'it' in that game of "tag".
One can do that with any grain, while either hiding or fleeing.
One account of surviving a Nazi work detail, involved stealing raw potatoes and slowly eating them.
It can be done, it might suck, but you might as well get over trying to live like a country club republican or like bill and hillary clinton for that matter.
So you have to spend your time watching "Super Cop" or "BFF" cutting up sheets of newspapers, so you don't have to wipe with your hand !!! boo hooo....
I think you are kind of comparing apples and oranges here. You point out that a survival situation and life in the military are separate, but leave no room for things that work in both situations.
I have to disagree with you on training. Maybe I had a different experience than you did, but I think my training was top notch. I agree that the military has made some fairly hairbrianed decisions, but it is still effective.
Would I choose a .223 over a .308? No, but I am just as effective inside 500 yards with one as I am the other. So, I own both and practice with both. I think the choice to move to the 5.56/.223 was based more on wounding capability over lethality. If you wound someone on the battlefield, you take at least two guys out of the fight, the wounded and the aid giver.
I think the biggest lesson I learned in the military was that of misery. We trained to do more with less in the worst conditions possible. We trained to be miserable. You can debate over and over the quality of tactics and gear, it is the mindset that wins battles. And that is something that is hard to learn outside a military environment, especially in today's pussyfied America.
Ok, class, history lessons are in order. This gives an early history of US rations.
http://www.qmfound.com/history_of_rations.htm
This gives a history of mainly WWII rations:
http://www.qmfound.com/army_rations_historical_background.htm
The value of history is to show the various attempts and mistakes in trying to feed a vast amount of people. These are mistakes we do not have to make and successes we should be able to emulate. For instance, during The Revolutionary War:
l6 oz; beef 6.8 oz. peas
18 oz. flour 1.4 oz. rice
16 oz. milk .1830 oz. Soap
1 qt. spruce beer .0686 oz. candle
Gosh, I have personally seen M-16's shoot hundreds of rounds and not fail. Got to disagree with you on that one. As for the M9 versus the .45 I can't disagree with you. I own and love the 1911. In fairness a Beretta 9mm (stainless) is on my list.
"The military depends on resupply. A civilian depends on in house stockpiling."
..and the military will depend upon the civilian stockpile for resupply afterward.
It has obviously been a while since you have been in the military. The original MRE's did pack 2000 calories a pop. They changed it because Soldiers were coming back from the field in the heavy weight division. I like MRE's because they last for a very long time. I wouldn't buy them though. I do however get them by the case every now and then through my resources.
As far as training goes, I must have had a better time of that than most because that's all I do is train... and train and train. I have trained in the worst conditions and trained by the best of instructors. I have friends who were SEALs and Special Forces. I even used to have a 1SG who was prior Delta. I have found that training involves what you put into it. It is not just the skills they expect you to pick up but how you use them in a given situation. Military gear is now second to none. There was a time when there was a lot of catching up to do but the Military has come around. There have been a lot of stupid decisions made of course, it is a bureaucracy after all. The beret, the ACU and the Striker. My biggest rip with the military is the tendency to rely on technology and not train the basics. Where it is true the Military has a very large footprint, it is that way for a reason. The reason is that they maintain a superior edge in battle through better training and better equipment. There are hundreds of things that can be taken away from the Military and applied in individual survival. The the bigger pieces are better suited to Militias than than the individual though. As far as emulating the Military? I would say that depends on your goal. If you are content to be a hermit and die by ones and twos as the mobs of starving surbanites overwhelm your off grid homestead then individual survival or small group survival is for you. If your goal is to help rebuild a grand nation and thwart those mobs and masses, I say emulating the Military is a way to go.
Please disregard Rogue Ghost's post, he's nothing more than a glorified REMOTE CONTROL AIRPLANE OPERATOR, with an inordinate fascination with comic books and fantasy.
Military gear is not "second to none", it's that which fulfilled the contract requirements while being made as cheaply as possible.
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"My biggest rip with the military is the tendency to rely on technology and not train the basics."
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It's your fault that you joined the Army (and flew remote control airplanes) instead of the Marine Corps. You might have learned the authority that a well-trained RIFLEMAN can command. American Riflemen organized to defend a nation (against the greatest Army of the day) and a way of life predicated upon the ideal that we could enjoy Community AND Autonomy. A properly trained Rifleman can operate alone or as part of a larger group, thus multiplying his effectiveness rather than getting bogged down by The Machine.
The US Army, and the US Military Machine as a whole is committing the same sins as the British Army hundreds of years ago, & we've paid for it since Vietnam.
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