Fuck you, some brit! It was a Canadian, MCpl Rob Furlong, 3VP who made that shot. 2,430 meters w/ a MacMillan Tac-50. We had a SERE briefing last winter from the guy who was his spotter that day.

Hey Z.O.E., what's the deal w/ those .50's on the Strykers? Are those things set up for MILES, or are those rods alongside the barrel just for reinforcement? BFA, maybe?

I've seen some of the Americans w/ the PEQ-15As around here too. Beats those old PEQ-2s and PAQ-4Cs we have. Can't believe you guys have ELCANS on those MGs though... Fuck, LMG is heavy enough as it is w/o adding a big fat optic like that. Don't you guys have ACOGs anyway? Your guys' 203's are also quite a bit longer than ours.

Anyway, a few more days and I'll be back in the "real" world. Look forward to hearing from you, if you haven't deployed or something.

- Iron

SERE is like survival escape resistance evasion?

Evasion, then escape, but yes.

We only got a brief, not the full course, mostly telling us what sorts of unpleasant things were in store for us if we got captured, and roughly how long we needed to resist until any information we revealed would be non-critical.

From what I know those 3 rods that go around the barrel of the .50 cals is the BFA adapters. As for Miles for it, I'll have to ask around. When they let us mess with the Strykers they let us get inside and play with all the cameras in it. Apparently there are 9 cameras, all the screens are touch screen, and the .50 cal turret is controlled by a joystick, its very very close to like playing a video game, which is kinda scary. You can also zoom with the optics on the turret. They really didn't give us real in depth details about most of the systems, didn't even allow us to take pictures inside of the vehicle. Talked with the most of the infantry men who had been in Iraq with them, and they all love and praise it.

As for the optics, I the only things I have worked with are the m68s, ccos, and those old PEQ-2s. That was when I was with my old infantry unit. As for the ELCANS and Acogs, beats me, majority of my friends who are over there say they use the ACOG, well mainly with the M240s because its got the 7.62 X 51 and it can go pretty far. One says he really likes the Acog because of the Chevron, and it has compensator built in for .308/7.62X51 bullet drop for 400 + meters. I myself am considering getting an 4X ACOG for my own rifle, my M1A for my own protection and fun at the range, but those fuckers are expensive.
As of the some of them using the ELCANs, may be an unit thing, or the soldiers bought it for themselves to use. Heh, one of my friends who was a SAW gunner with 10th mountain, didn't like any of the optics and just used the regular iron sights on it through his tour.

As for the weight issue, all infantrymen are pack mules. Always have and always will be. When I was at Ft. Lewis, going through the infantry area/barracks areas for the Rangers and Stryker Brigade up there, you can see them doing PT in full battle rattle, running and all that fun stuff. Full battle rattle is all combat gear on, my friend who was up there when he was part of the Ranger Reg, they use to weigh them with all their crap on before they would go do PT with all their shit on, some life heh.

As for the 203s, I have no idea, I really don't work with those or ever think I will be stuck in a position be a grenadier, seeing how I am a lefty when it comes to shooting and that thing is made for rightys, along with all the lmgs, and AT-4, they are not left hand user friendly.

You guys can be a little weird down there in regards to stuff for lefties. I don't think any of the rifles I saw on the Americans over here had ambidextrous safeties or mag releases. Hey, you could always join the Canadian military! :p

As for the Strykers, well, after finishing a tour in the back of a LAV-III (which shares the same chassis as the Stryker), let me just say that I wouldn't have ridden in any other vehicle. Those poor bastard Americans around here all roll around in Humvees and RG-33s, and they get hit all the time. IEDs also fuck the guys in the Humvees a lot harder, and I suppose we should all be thankful that EFPs have not yet migrated to Afghanistan.

I tried to get my hands on an ACOG over here, but didn't work out. C'est la vie, maybe next time. Some people were saying that you guys don't get mag chargers to load your mags, that you have pull the rounds off the stripper clips one at a time? Is that actually true? Guys were saving the chargers and apparently bartering them off to the Americans for stuff.

The RWS on the Stryker is the same one as the one on our RG-31, I believe. The daysight is great, and works well into the twilight hours b/c the aperature on the camera is so huge. The thermals are also excellent, however... They need to put a variable zoom on that thing. That's probably my only complaint.

As far as weight goes... Trust me, I know a thing or two about weight after this tour. I could give you a laundry list of the stuff we took along when we went on dismounted ops, but suffice it to say it was a lot.

I'll email you some of the pics I took while I was over here, maybe even post them here. We'll see.

Ya, EFPs are nasty buggers. I think they even cut through the Abrams, I really don't know. As for the stripper clips, yes we use em. We get chargers but, the use of them is highly discouraged. When using the Charger and stripper clips to put the rounds in the mag, you fuck up the magazine. They call it Goal Posting. Where the top of the magazine starts to bend out to the sides, making the gap at the top wider, and allowing rounds to more easily come out. This apparently causes the notorious double feeds in the m16 rifle series. So loading one round in at a time is emphasized. Well that was what was what they told me when I use to be infantry. I really don't know, the M16 likes to jam a lot. In reality when I was working with the thing I never had it jam on me once, even when using blanks. Hell in Ft Lewis we used the old ones from Vietnam, with full auto and that fucking thing didn't jam on me either..... Must be the environment, and luck I guess.

I think the best quote I've seen that describes what an EFP can do was from the Washington Post. The gist of it was, a .50 machinegun round weighs less than 2 ounces and travels at roughly 900 m/s. An EFP 8" in diameter can throw a copper slug weighing 9 pounds at roughly 2000 m/s, or Mach 6. The more sophisticated charges can form long-rod penetrators, and apparently even fin-stabilized penetrators for greater accuracy, though I suspect that sort of creation is beyond most insurgent bombmakers. I suspect that unless the EFP hit an Abrams in a top-attack profile, though, the tank should be able to withstand your garden-variety EFP.

As for the bit with the chargers... I did not know that. Certainly, I've never had any feed issues related to that goal-posting phenomenon. The most times guys have failures w/ the C8s is b/c the mag is not seated properly, and the action does not pick up a round. Solution is... make sure you don't load 31 rounds in the mag by accident, and make sure the mag is seated by giving it a good whack when it's in the mag well. Double feeds though... Haven't seen one yet.

Anyway, I'll be around. Off to Cyprus tonight!

Another problem is what happens after the EFP hits a vehicle..... The vehicle catches fire and burns to a molten wreck. Apparently military personal inside hummers, or anything that have seat belts have to wear them even when in combat situations. If they don't they, forfeit their life insurance, probably due to the high roll over rates due to the extra armor add to the hummers. Well thats what one of my friends told me when he got back. So you're stuck with the choice of getting stuck in while your vehicle gets burnt to a crisp or forfeiting your life insurance in order to bail out.

The insurgents are not stupid people, they always find clever ways to use their IEDs. Same friend told me they would actually put them in the walls of houses under construction or being fixed, to hit military vehicles, cause of the high profiles in the vehicles. Also in guard rails, buried in sidewalks, ect. The ones they really don't like are the IR ones, that can be set up and left alone and still go off.

Same guy lost one of his best friends to an EFP. Got cut in half by a EFP when it hit his hummer, they now set them up on the drivers side of the roads, in hope of getting the driver, instead of the TC. Getting the mobility kill, and if there is one IED, count on 2 or more to be in that area.

They also seem to be targeting the Buffalo, setting up 3 EFPs at different angles and blowing them at once trying to take it out.

Heh, I never load 30 rounds, 28 always.

Eh... We have seatbelts in the LAV, but we never wore them. Would be impossible to get out if something happened, and we have to switch up the air sentries in the back periodically (during the summer months, so they'd get to cool down w/ the a/c, and now mostly b/c you get blisters on your ass from sitting so long in the back). The RG-31s you always had to be belted in, though thankfully I only had to ride in one once w/ the sniper det.

I'm well aware that insurgents are not stupid people... At least, it's the smart ones that tend to do a disproportionate amount of damage. We've seen them adapt to our TTPs and SOPs over the course of the tour, placing IEDs just outside our usual search areas, or putting them on the side of the road to target dismounts. They use diesel to melt the asphalt so they can bury them under paved roads, and they masquerade as road repair crews to achieve the same effect. At the same time, I've seen the results of insurgents whose bombs go off in their faces, miswired IEDs, and emplaced directional charges in, well... the wrong direction. Like I said, the insurgents in Iraq are more clever about making and placing IEDs than the Afghans are, but that doesn't make the Afghans stupid.

So far, I can't recall the EROC packages getting hit. They tried to hit one of our CLPs on my last day while I was still outside the wire... They made the mistake of doing so while the CLP had a pair of Kiowas and an Apache orbiting overhead. Quite the fireworks show, and I won't lie, it's hilarious listening to the pilots over the radio. "I have one guy w/ a bicycle... coming in w/ .50..."

As for me, I loaded 29, w/ a few trace thrown into the mix.

BTW, you say you USED to be infantry? What are you now?

I am still qualed to be Inf, on all my paper work it lists me as an infantry man. However since I am going to the dark side, and plan on going in as an officer, I can't be deployed till I finish all my schooling and training. The Inf unit I use to work with both as an enlisted soldier and cadet right now is on its way to Iraq. I have been transferred to a Quartermaster unit, then got sent to another unit which is a Transpo unit. Been there for almost a year. Working with logistics, and being an APL pretty much. Hardly any officers around, most get sent to middle east the minute they finish school...... so they just love using the cadets to do admin, and chase down AWOLs, and inventories, its alright I guess giving me a taste of what its gonna be like in the big army working the logistics side, along with all the paper work. Funny thing is we got a few ex 11bs/infantry in our unit too, but as drivers. Never really ask why they left though a couple for the 3rd ID, even one that has ranger tab...

Right here. So far awaayyy! Erm why don't you just email me? I mean, it's not like you don't know it. If you really cared for me... why hadn't you emailed me..? You hurt my feelings. And send me pictures, of your gay ass CRX and of Eddie or Luis or whoever still hangs out with you, you freaking outcast you! So yeah. We'll trade pics! ooOoOOO nothing sexy though.

Ah, how I miss the Nexican Ragamuffin and Lurt. They had me getting paranoid everytime anyone vaguely ethnic started looking at my car, once upon a time. >_>
_________________
"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies." – Thomas Jefferson
Thothie

I remember once we spotted that car, pulled it over, and beat the driver to a bloody pulp. Then we got in the Kia and drove off laughing and wondering ... ''Was that even Thothie?'' but we didn't care. We would scream at every black Maxima we would see in LBC.

black maxima

lbc eh?

2.5 or 3.5?