Home Forums Modern Rules of thumb in combat

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  • #135108
    Avatar photoNick Riggs
    Participant

    Hi, can anyone point me at references that discuss rules of thumb in combat decision-making? Not having any infantry or armour experience, I don’t know if there are practical hints and tips that a section/squad leader would apply to decide what to do next. I’ve looked through publications such as FM 3-21.8 The Infantry Rifle Platoon and Squad but they seem quite academic and short of practical advice. It seems to me that there must be simple guidelines to follow, or tactical leaders would be overwhelmed by the decision-making process… any suggestions?

    #135113
    Avatar photodeephorse
    Participant

    I think I know what you’re asking, so I’ll give an example from my infantry training with the British Army in the mid to late 1970s.

    Consider an infantry section (squad, if you’re American) moving tactically across country.  They come under fire.  First they take cover, second they try to locate the enemy, third they return fire to try to suppress the enemy.  The section commander then has to assess the strength of the enemy in order to decide whether or not the force he has at his disposal is sufficient to deal with that threat.  Generally a section could take on and defeat one or two enemy riflemen.  All the preceding actions are Battle Drills and properly trained soldiers would be expected to carry them out automatically.

    Now consider that same section as part of a platoon advancing across country.  This time the section commander assesses the enemy as being more than just a couple of riflemen, maybe with a light machine gun too.  His section cannot hope to defeat that force by itself and so he lets the platoon commander know.  The platoon commander goes forward to make his own assessment and decides that the force that he has at his disposal can deal with that enemy.  He then forms his plan of attack, gathers his NCOs in a safe place to issue orders for the attack, and it goes forward from there.

    There’s a bit more to it than just that, but it illustrates the point.  Can I deal with the threat I’m facing?  If yes then do A, if no then do B, and so on up the formation.  You train in these Battle Drills over and over again so that it becomes second nature, and so that you are not overwhelmed by the decision making process.  The fewer decisions you have to make the easier it becomes to deal with a problem  I was a footslogging infantry platoon commander as so my training and experience is limited to just that type and level of operating.  I have no idea of what mechanised infantry, tanks or combined arms did, or do now,  but they must have had, or have, similar Battle Drills and decision making ‘trees’ too.

    Play is what makes life bearable - Michael Rosen

    #135114
    Avatar photoNick Riggs
    Participant

    Thanks Deephorse, that’s exactly the sort of thing I’m after! It sounds like the leader of a tank unit would go through a similar thought process.

    #135122
    Avatar photoJemima Fawr
    Participant

    Never pass up an opportunity to get a brew on.

    My wargames blog: http://www.jemimafawr.co.uk/

    #135125
    Avatar photodeephorse
    Participant

    So true.  I was fortunate enough to have all my tea made for me!

    Play is what makes life bearable - Michael Rosen

    #135126

    A friend of mine was a tank commander in Europe during the Cold War.  They had target prioritization.  Specialists, flankers and then the nearest threat.  So, if you are in a tank  and there is an anti-tank weapon at effective range and a nearby infantry platoon and another armored vehicle  to the flank, you would kill the AT weapon, the vehicle and the infantry platoon in that order…assuming you survive.  😀  The same could be said for infantry.

    Another friend told me a  story when he was in infantry training.  The drill instructor said, “Gentlemen!  If you see a man with a flame thrower, you shoot him first cuz he will rain scunion* on you!”

    These principles work surprisingly well in wargaming.

    John

    *Back  in the day, I suspect scunion meant something different than “weed”.

     

     

    John

    "Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power."

    --Abraham Lincoln

    #135134
    Avatar photoNick Riggs
    Participant

    Thanks John. I wonder, has anyone ever seen this sort of information or discussion in a book, after action report, analysis of soldier decision-making under pressure, etc?

    #135144
    Avatar photoMartinR
    Participant

    If you are interested  in combat decision making, then I’d recommend Brains and Bullets by Mackay(?) and The Stress of Battle by Rowlands. These are both more about operations research and how stress affects unit performance in battle, but they give interesting tactical insights too.  As noted above, keeping it simple is best.

    I generally find WW2 training manuals are less dry and more intuitive than modern ones as they are aimed at mass conscript armies, and they cover drills very well. Chris Sharp has translated the Russian one, Nafziger has the1942 German one (German squad tactics? but it goes up to company level) and the British Infantry Field raft and Tactics 1944  has been endlessly reproduced. See egThe British Army Handbook 1939-45. Everything you ever wanted to know about how to clear a wood, take a village, deal with a pillbox or walk safely down a road.

    "Mistakes in the initial deployment cannot be rectified" - Helmuth von Moltke

    #135148
    Avatar photoNick Riggs
    Participant

    Thanks Martin, I’ll have a look at those WW2 manuals.

    #135181
    Avatar photoJohn D Salt
    Participant

    Here’s a collection of (mostly WW2-based) rules of thumb I have met over the years, with notes as to source where I can remember them. Is this the sort of thing you had in mind? It occurs to me that one might be able to make a start on designing a set of WW2 tactical rules using some of these. I think I would be in favour of trying to follow most of them, although Wintringham’s advice (from the Spanish Civil War) not even to consider moving out of a defensive position under bombardment until 50% casualties seem remarkably steely in these casualty-averse times, and Skorzeny’s maxim about surprise probably applies more to kidnapping people from palaces than to a rifle company at the front.

    INFANTRY
    No fire without movement, no movement without fire
    Plan for a 3:1 superiority of force for an attack to succeed
    A section can attack a few riflemen, an MG needs a platoon attack [British Army]
    A platoon will usually go into action about two dozen strong
    You won’t see the enemy until he opens fire, perhaps not even then
    100m is the minimum field of fire for a defence, 200m desirable [British Army]
    Defence requires rifle overlap between sections, rifle interlock and LMG overlap between platoons, LMG interlock between companies [British Army]
    At 200 yards, you have little to worry about a German paratrooper with an SMG. At 100 yards, he will miss you if you are quick. At 50 yards, he will cut you in half with bullets in a few seconds [Tom Wintringham]
    Attackers become visible at 300 metres, defenders at 30 metres [Speight and Rowland]
    20 to 30 per cent casualties in rifle companies is the cost of doing business
    Soldiers, like mules, should not be expected to carry more than a third of their own body weight [Marshall]

    ARTILLERY
    Don’t think about moving under bombardment until you have 50% casualties [Tom Wintringham]
    Most casualties from artillery fire occur within the first (18 seconds/40 seconds/minute) of fire
    Use two-thirds of the maximum range of a battery as the planning range
    It takes about two batteries assigned to counter-bombardment to neutralise one enemy battery
    A battery going into action stops for nothing [Gun Buster]

    ARMOUR
    The winner of a tank battle is the side that shoots first [Gee, Hardison]
    It takes one or two shots to hit a tank at 300m, eight to ten at 1000m [Biryukov and Melnikov]
    Expect on average one dead and one wounded for each tank knocked out
    A half squadron is the minimum amount of armour for any task

    COMMAND
    If you can achieve complete surprise, you have two minutes to do whatever you like unchallenged [Otto Skorzeny]
    When giving orders, plan to take one-third of the available time to prepare and deliver your own orders, and two-third for your subordinates to prepare and deliver theirs [British Army]
    If an attack fails and is driven to ground, the survivors should renew the attack without orders on the next whole hour [Russian Army]
    Expect on average one blue-on-blue incident per battalion/day of combat [Paul Syms]

    SIGNALS
    Communications should be established down and to the right [British Army]
    You should send sitreps every 15 minutes when in contact [British Army]
    Do not expect tactical codes to be secure for more than 30 minutes
    10% of stations don’t get the order to change frequency

    MEDICAL
    A casualty has the best chance of survival if evacuated to a field hospital within one hour (“the golden hour”)
    From small-arms fire, expect about two wounded for every dead casualty, for HE fire, about ten

    All the best,

    John.

    #135182
    Avatar photoJohn D Salt
    Participant

    I’d recommend Brains and Bullets by Mackay(?)

    Leo Murray. Recently re-issued under the less good title “War Games”.

    All the best,

    John.

    #135187
    Avatar photoNick Riggs
    Participant

    Thanks John!

    #135190
    Avatar photoTony S
    Participant

    These principles work surprisingly well in wargaming.

    I’ve always thought good rules should have certain things in common.  (And by “good” I mean rules that attempt to reflect the realities of combat as best they can, while still being a decent game).  Tactics that work in real life should also work well in good rules.

    Thanks for posting your “rules of thumb” John.  Fascinating.  I believe the Germans also trained their small unit commanders to default to do something.  Better an aggressive bad decision than no decision at all.  I remember gaining a glimmer of that dictum when I played Chain of Command the first few times, and feeling paralyzed with indecision as I tried to figure out a way to my objective, without losing my entire platoon.

     

    #135201
    Avatar photoJust Jack
    Participant

    Here are some I recall from modern times:

    The only real formation in combat is skirmish line.  Localize the contact, build the firing line, establish fire superiority, and get moving.

    Violence of action will carry the day.  Immediate action drills must be rehearsed relentlessly to ensure unity of effort and break the inclination to go prone.

    The ambush mentality must be adopted and applied in every situation it can be.

    Casualties wait until the gunfight is finished and the objective is consolidated on.  It really sucks to get kicked out of a house/compound because you were tending to other things when the bad guys decided they wanted it back.

    When it’s time, use HIS kit, not yours, and remember you’re not an MD, nor is a bunch of pissing and moaning going to help; get him breathing, stop his bleeding, wrap it up and get him out of there.

    You never have enough leaders in combat; span is limited to arm’s length while bullets are flying.  A platoon with a platoon commander, platoon sergeant, guide, three squad leaders, and nine fireteam leaders is still not enough.

    The T/O is in threes for a reason (division of three regiments of three battalions of three companies of three platoons of three squads of three fireteams).  This works out perfectly for base of fire, assault element, and reserve, and when things go to shit you must adapt on the fly to meet the threat but you must also not leave that framework, and don’t ever get caught “with all three legs in the air.”

    You must keep a reserve, as large a percentage of your overall force as the tactical situation will allow, because once there is contact  commanders only control the units that are not engaged.

    ”Don’t reinforce failure” is a tenet of maneuver warfare, but that doesn’t mean you can’t commit your reserve to buy your assault element room to maneuver, even if it’s to pull back.  Too many leaders want to push a second axis of advance and now you’ve got two (or worse, three!) separate fights going on.

    The bad guys are going to show up where you didn’t want them to, so fire plans/schemes of maneuver must show the alternate, and especially the supplemental positions/responsibilities.

    Employ machine guns in pairs.

    Unit boundaries must be unambiguous and adhered to.

    Comms will go to shit, so don’t forget the good old Signal Plan using pop-ups and smoke, and review it every single day.

    Every single man must know the Signal Plan, at least cease fire and need help ASAP, and have the means to carry it out.

    It’s okay to tell higher headquarters to clear the net while there’s shooting going on.

    Water, batteries, ammo, and cigarettes are all you really need to survive 😉

    V/R,

    Jack

    #135227
    Avatar photoNick Riggs
    Participant

    Thanks for that Jack! Some great food for thought.

    #135243
    Avatar photoJust Jack
    Participant

    You bet.

    V/R,

    Jack

    #138460
    Avatar photoNick Riggs
    Participant

    More questions!

    What does a squad/section do when it’s suppressed? Does this vary depending on its mission and cover? Or does the unit always instinctively try to fall back if possible (or surrender even)?

    In many games, suppressed squads can be ‘unsuppressed’ through leadership. In reality how often does this work, and how much time does it take? Many accounts say that once troops have gone to ground it’s hard to get them up again. Is this the same thing or something else?

    John – you mentioned 100m as the minimum range required for adequate defence. How does this work in Urban Ops, when many (if not most?) of the ranges between cover will probably be under 100m?

    #138463
    Avatar photoPatrice
    Participant

    What does a squad/section do when it’s suppressed? Does this vary depending on its mission and cover? Or does the unit always instinctively try to fall back if possible (or surrender even)?

    I’m not sure that the drill books say much about what you must do when you’re suppressed or pinned…?

    (Um, French Army regulations say what a prisoner must do, it doesn’t answer your question but I know some people will like this).

    http://www.argad-bzh.fr/argad/en.html
    https://www.anargader.net/

    #138464
    Avatar photoian pillay
    Participant

    Water, batteries, ammo, and cigarettes are all you really need to survive 😉 V/R, Jack

    Never understood this until I read your post. My mate was in Afghan and saw some action. Got himself some oak leaves for gallantry. When I asked how he managed, he replied, ..”I had plenty of fags mate…”

    Both your and Johns replies are very insightful.

    Tally-Ho! Check out my blog at…..
    http://steelcitywargaming.wordpress.com/

    #138465
    Avatar photoMartinR
    Participant

    It depends what you mean by “suppressed”. The meaning varies between armies and periods. The modern NATO definition of neutralisation is very different to the WW2 one.

    A pinned unit is normally one unable to advance by fire and movement, in which case the drill is to go on shooting at the enemy until the platoon Co tells you something different. A suppressed one is presumably in a worse state. Wait until whatever is causing the suppression goes away and resume your previous mission?

    "Mistakes in the initial deployment cannot be rectified" - Helmuth von Moltke

    #138468
    Avatar photoJohn D Salt
    Participant

    It depends what you mean by “suppressed”. The meaning varies between armies and periods. The modern NATO definition of neutralisation is very different to the WW2 one.

    A pinned unit is normally one unable to advance by fire and movement, in which case the drill is to go on shooting at the enemy until the platoon Co tells you something different. A suppressed one is presumably in a worse state. Wait until whatever is causing the suppression goes away and resume your previous mission?

    A snippet I have recently picked up from a summary of the work of 2ORS in North-West Europe says (quoting verbatim):

    “Four degrees of severity of morale effect can be distinguished; they are:

    (i) to stop movement,
    (ii) to stop firing — neutralisation,
    (iii) to produce some sort of longer term neutralisation which persists for a time when firing has ceased,
    (iv) to produce a complete collapse.”

    This seems to me a very neat classification, ripe for thieving by the sensible wargames rule writer. I don’t think it would be too far from widely-accepted terminology to call these “pinned”, “suppressed”, “neutralised”, and perhaps “beaten”. Although those aren’t all approved APP-6C effect verbs, the current distinction between suppression and neutralisation — that neutralisation lasts for some time after the fire is lifted — is preserved. For wargames purposes one might simply remove “beaten” elements, not bothering to differentiate between psychological collapse and physical destruction. I quite favour keeping them around, so that they can be taken prisoner — the lack of prisoner-taking in most modern tactical rules continues to be, as Wells put it in “Little Wars”, “a feature at once barbaric and unconvincing”. I suspect that “neutralised” troops would also usually give up if overrun by enemy infantry, or perhaps try to run for it if they approach too close. Exactly what combinations of terrain, visibility, enemy proximity, and weight of fire produce what reactions is something I have no good data on, but I imagine that people do not usually attempt to run from dug-in positions.

    All the best,

    John.

    #138469
    Avatar photogrizzlymc
    Participant

    I believe that in a snippets file you sent me is a measure of 25pdr equivalents to achieve levels one and two.  One could then extrapolate to three and four.  The degree of cover would have to form the other axis of a matrix.  I have never heard of artillery bombardment reducing an entrenched force to collapse, and when you look at the first world war race to the parapet, even those enormous bombardments were not enough to cause more than a game turn of neutralisation.  So my guess is that proper trenches require an order of magnitude greater than out in the open, and overhead cover might require an order of magnitude more.

    #138472
    Avatar photoJust Jack
    Participant

    Nick,

    “What does a squad/section do when it’s suppressed?”
    To prove Martin’s point above, I think everyone is going to have their own expectations of what this looks like.  From my perspective, taking fire does not equal having an impact on troops, it must be some level of ‘effective’ fire, which is as easy to define as… well, you get it.  Man, we could fill pages talking about different variables within the immediate tactical situation and how they might affect men taking fire.

    In terms of people being shot at, I’m pretty close to John’s ‘morale states.’  For me the lowest ‘form’ of being affected by enemy fire is what I call “pinned,” which means men go to ground and work to return fire.  Then you’ve got “suppressed,” which means the fire is effective enough that the men have gone to ground and are only seeking cover, they are not (or are no longer) willing to return fire.  To discuss men collapsing/running, here we really need to define what we’re talking about, real life or a wargame, and at what echelon.

    As an example, I play what I call ‘perspective-based wargames,’ meaning if I’m playing a company-level battle then I am the company commander and I make decisions in the game at his level; I do not make decisions at the platoon commander’s or squad leader’s level, so when a squad is taking fire that is very effective, a unit can go from ‘happy’ to ‘suppressed’ and even falling back in a heartbeat.  The point being, in my opinion, in real life, let’s say 95% of the time when a Western squad falls back in the face of the enemy it’s because the squad leader made a tactical decision that falling back was the best option available to him at that moment in time, not ‘the men broke and ran, completely routing from the battlefield.’  So in game terms, the dice results ‘decided’ the enemy fire was super effective against my squad and compelled that squad to fall back, even though I as the player/company commander did not want that to happen.  In my view that was the squad leader exercising his own initiative; if we were playing a lower level game, where I’m now the squad leader, that changes how I’d look at things.

    “In many games, suppressed squads can be ‘unsuppressed’ through leadership. In reality how often does this work, and how much time does it take? Many accounts say that once troops have gone to ground it’s hard to get them up again. Is this the same thing or something else?”
    Again, too many options here.  The short answer, I suppose, is yes, absolutely, small unit leaders can get their men up and moving again, sometimes even under very heavy fire; if that weren’t the case, units wouldn’t take heavy casualties, one guy would get hit and the entire operation would ground to a halt.  Quite alarmingly, I’ve seen several accounts of this in contemporary engagements in Afghanistan; take fire, take cover, call for supporting fires, sit tight until it arrives, then police up the casualties and go home.  Again, subject for another day.

    In any case, in terms of ‘how does it work?’, well, that’s what I was talking about in my initial reply about ‘you can never have enough leaders.’  How it works is that small unit leaders have to get up, expose themselves to fire by moving amongst little knots of men and putting their hands on them to direct their fire and/or get them moving.  My experience was that radio comms immediately breaks down once the gunfight begins; it’s not like the movies where guys are chatting back and forth, fire a couple rounds, chat some more, fire a couple rounds, chat.  In real life most guys shut up once the shooting starts, they sure as hell don’t want to respond to queries, and they can’t hear you anyway because it’s not just a couple rounds flying it is a veritable cacophony, so the most effective means of communicating is moving to them and getting face to face.

    So when you say “how long does it take?’, well, it depends on a whole host of different factors.

    Again, if you’ve got particular situations in mind, please lay them on me and I’ll throw my two cents at ya, and if you do, please throw in the echelon we’re talking about (squad/platoon/company/battalion) as it certainly has an effect my answers.

    Ian – Glad to be of service 😉  I quit smoking several years ago, it’s like a dear friend died, I still daydream about it…

    V/R,
    Jack

    #138475
    Avatar photoMartinR
    Participant

    I believe that in a snippets file you sent me is a measure of 25pdr equivalents to achieve levels one and two. One could then extrapolate to three and four. The degree of cover would have to form the other axis of a matrix. I have never heard of artillery bombardment reducing an entrenched force to collapse, and when you look at the first world war race to the parapet, even those enormous bombardments were not enough to cause more than a game turn of neutralisation. So my guess is that proper trenches require an order of magnitude greater than out in the open, and overhead cover might require an order of magnitude more.

    My recollection from both John’s OR reports as well as the more generally available analyses of both WW2 and Cold War artillery fire weights is that trenches increase survivability by a factor of 20, however at least one study (iirc the bombardment for the Wesel crossing) cited instance where the weight of HE delivered was sufficient to induce even the most entrenched defenders to surrender, with the effects persisting for some hours after the barrage ended. But we are talking a LOT of firepower, and it still took a ground assault to capture the ground. Apologies, I’ve probably mangled several things together there. Rowland and Speight have analyses of barrage weights vs combat effectiveness in The Stress of Battle.

    For our preferred grand tactical rules, elements of platoon size  are automatically eliminated in close assault if they are suppressed (the non moving, non firing, persistent until reorg type), and in higher level games with company sized elements, massively penalised but still with some marginal effectiveness to represent pockets of resistance. If they aren’t actually assaulted, the units will all eventually sort themselves out once the source of suppression goes away.

    "Mistakes in the initial deployment cannot be rectified" - Helmuth von Moltke

    #138478
    Avatar photoDCRBrown
    Participant

    John,

    Agreed, Brains and Bullets by Leo Murray is an excellent, “deep thinking” book.

    DB

    #138491
    Avatar photoJemima Fawr
    Participant

    John, Agreed, Brains and Bullets by Leo Murray is an excellent, “deep thinking” book. DB

    Are there pictures?

    My wargames blog: http://www.jemimafawr.co.uk/

    #138498
    Avatar photoNick Riggs
    Participant

    Thanks for the thoughtful responses.

    John: a handy set of morale states that I shall work with, and a good suggestion about prisoners.

    Jack: I’m thinking about real life (or perhaps a game where the squad’s reaction to fire is not under my direct control as a player). ‘Man, we could fill pages talking about different variables within the immediate tactical situation and how they might affect men taking fire.’ – Sounds great!

     

    #138501
    Avatar photoJohn D Salt
    Participant

    We seem to have wandered off the topic of rules of thumb on to the question of behaviour under extreme stress — also an interesting topic, but I’ll make a separate post it. Returning to the original topic:

    Rules of thumb I took to mean rough and general numerical performance estimates or norms, whereas Just Jack has put more emphasis on things to do when it’s not otherwise clear what you should be doing (arguably closer to what the OP was asking for).

    More numerical rules of thumb, which I didn’t call to mind last time:

    INFANTRY
    For casualty production, an MG is worth nine rifles, and an 81mm mortar is worth 3 MGs [Dave Rowland]
    A platoon is typically about a quarter “gutful men” who will go anywhere and do anything, a quarter who will make themselves scarce as soon as the fighting starts, and a half “sheep” who will follow the example of others [Lionel Wigram]
    An infantry platoon carries only enough ammunition for about five minutes of rapid fire

    ARTILLERY
    The suppressive effect of artillery shell bursts is felt about 40% further than the casualty-inflicting effect [“War on the Mind”, Peter Watson]

    ARMOUR
    An anti-tank gun will on average account for two enemy tanks until it is itself destroyed [WW2, Biryukov and Melnikov]

    OBSTACLES
    Defensive minefields should be laid with sufficient density to achieve 70% field stopping power
    An obstacle loses at least half its value if not covered by fire
    A wet gap crossing requires at least two crossing points, each with at least two bridging vehicles [British Army]

    Some “what to do” rules of thumb I’ve met:

    ATTACK
    In the attack, keep close enough to your own artillery fire that 10% of your casualties are from that cause [French Army, WW1]
    “Don’t put everything in the shop window” [21st Army Group]

    DEFENCE
    Always keep an all-round defence [British Army, at least since “The Defence of Duffer’s Drift”]

    MEETING ENGAGEMENT
    In mobile operations, up to a third of the force can be devoted to the counter-recce battle [Red Army]
    “Hold ’em by the nose and kick ’em in the pants” [George Patton], or, equivalently, “Pincers and bags make the Fascists squeal” [Red Army WW2]
    The side that wins an encounter battle is the first to smother the other with fire [Erwin Rommel]
    The side that wins a meeting engagement is the first to bring its artillery into action [Red Army]

    GENERAL
    Battalion mortars should be centralised in attack, decentralised in defence
    Always keep an anti-tank reserve of 10% of A/Tk weapons under the hand of the senior commander [Red Army]
    Shoot people, and especially tanks, from the flanks
    “One slow, four quick”: Slow preparation, quick advance, quick attack, quick reorganization, quick withdrawal [PAVN]

    Some rules of thumb seem subject to the vagaries of fashion:

    If ambushed at close range, assault directly into the ambush without waiting for orders [British Army, sometimes]
    If ambushed at close range, throw smoke and move out of the kill zone by fire and movement [British Army, some other times]

    Under air attack, all arms should enagage the attacking aircraft with all available weapons [British Army, sometimes]
    Under air attack, only specialist air defence troops should engage attacking aircraft [British Army, some other times]

    It occurs to me that if there are rules of good things to do, there are also rules of bad things to do, or good things not to do. We might call these “rules of hammer on thumb”.

    Some “what not to do” rules of thumb:

    “I must do something; this is something; therefore I must do it”
    “Order, counter-order, disorder”
    Don’t take obvious cover (see Monty Python’s “How not to be seen”)
    Don’t run away — reinforced by a particularly robust WW1 French rule to shoot runaways, because “The example of the runaway is infectious, the example of the wounded is not” [“Les Leçons du Fantassin”, André Laffargue]

    All the best,

    John.

    #138502
    Avatar photoJohn D Salt
    Participant

    Never understood this until I read your post. My mate was in Afghan and saw some action. Got himself some oak leaves for gallantry. When I asked how he managed, he replied, ..”I had plenty of fags mate…”

    This reminds me of a conversation I had many years ago with a colleague at Eurotunnel who had the same first name and birthday as me, but has been a Warrant Officer in the Royal Marines, and served in the SBS (“We do everything the SAS can do, and walk on water”). He had referred to one of his old comrades as “a hard man”, so I asked him what, by SBS standards, counted as a “hard man”. His reply: “He once did Annapurna on a tin of fruit cake and forty Benson & Hedges”.

    All the best,

    John.

    #138533
    Avatar photoAlbert of Winterpig
    Participant

    ‘Soldiers, like mules, should not be expected to carry more than a third of their own body weight [Marshall]’

    nobody has ever convinced a British Squaddie of this, they tend to want either nothing at all, or the lot including the sink (kitchen, for the use of).

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