Army Reserves getting ready

greenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread

Get this.

A guy I know comes in to the office today. He's wearing a sling on his arm, so I ask him what happened. Said that he hyperextended his elbow recently. I inquired further, and he explained that he did it moving 50,000 rounds of .223 and .50 cal ammunition. I asked him if he was getting ready for Y2K, as I thought he was kidding around. And he said yes! He then explained to me that he's in the Army Reserves, and he's in charge of a few hummers. Said that the hummers also have grenade launchers and a TOW missile or two. He further said that each member of his group has to have at least 6 20 round clips loaded and ready to go for their M-16's, not to mention the one already in the rifle.

Don't worry everybody, the Government says that everything's going to be OK.

Yeah right.

Happy monday to you all.

-- HunterMark (HunterMark@blahblahblah.com), December 20, 1999

Answers

HooBoy! Ain't been boring reading the last 2 weeks. Got diapers?

-- splurt (oops@brb.dash), December 20, 1999.

Huntermark:

State? Unit? Base?

Come on, I'm paranoid, I admit it. but I need a REAL fix of paranoia. Can you help me out, here? {BG}

-- mushroom (mushroom_bs_too_long@yahoo.com), December 20, 1999.


"... each member of his group has to have at least 620 round clips loaded and ready to go for their M-16's, not to mention the one already in the rifle. "

Good advice. Maybe we civilians should do the same.

Sauce for the goose...

-- let's be (strong@for.peace), December 20, 1999.


State of Oregon. Unit or base, I don't know. Said that if he got called, it will be wherever they sent him. He tends to think Portland, but may be local here in Eugene.

-- }}=HunterMark=> (huntermark@blahblahblah.com), December 20, 1999.

I didn't think the U.S. forces used 20 round mags for M-16 anymore. Can someone in the know fill me in. thanx.

-- GreenThumb (greenthumb g.i.@i.g.i), December 20, 1999.


six 20 rd. mags? h hahaha, I got about thirty thirty rounders full and ready to rock, and that's just for the Ar-15's. Got the M-14 mags divied up between armor piercing, soft point, fmj, and tracer. Ak mags are full of Russian hollow point. I'd need a pack mule to tote all these loaded mags into a firefight, amazing how heavy ammunition is.

-- Nikoli Krushev (doomsday@y2000.com), December 20, 1999.

Remember the Navy War College Report?? Look up the definition of "Killer Apps."

Must be near Implementation Time!

-- K. Stevens (kstevens@ It's ALL going away in less than two weeks.com), December 20, 1999.


Oregon, huh? Hhhhmmm. Hope they're very well trained and cautious. Hope they set up a staging area across the street. Hope they deter the looters, marauders, rioters, rapers, muggers, arsonists, terrorists, and hoodlums. Don't think they can commander the squirrels tho.

12/20/99 -- 12:09 PM

Cohen to defer cuts in Army National Guard and Reserve

WASHINGTON (AP) - Defense Secretary William Cohen has decided not to carry out a scheduled cut of 25,000 people from the Army National Guard and Army Reserve, Cohen's spokesman said today.

Spokesman Kenneth Bacon said Cohen's decision reflected a growing demand for National Guard and Reserve soldiers in U.S. military operations, including the peacekeeping missions in Bosnia and Kosovo.

Cohen also was taking into account the fact that the Army is in the midst of re-examining the role of reserves.

The Pentagon had determined in 1997, after a top-to-bottom review of its forces and defense priorities, that the Army National Guard and Reserve should be reduced by 45,000 people. An initial reduction of 20,000 was made, but Cohen has decided that the additional cuts should not be made as scheduled.

There currently are 360,000 members of the National Guard and 200,000 in the Army Reserve. The active-duty Army totals 475,000.

Bacon said Cohen has notified members of Congress that decisions on possible additional reductions should not be made until the Pentagon completes a new top-to-bottom defense policy review, scheduled for 2001.

-- Ashton & Leska in Cascadia (allaha@earthlink.net), December 20, 1999.


Nikoli,

I hope you have some TOW missle repellent spray in that pack of yours, too :-)

Seriously, I live 5 miles outside of Portland, OR, and I hope this is not a sign of things to come.

BTW, I thought the military used 30 round mags?

-- Dodging (T@W.missles), December 20, 1999.


20 rounders went away a long time ago. Also, the Last Army Reserve Unit equiped with the T.O.W. (tube launched, optically tracked, wire guided) missle was the New England 187th Reserve Infantry Brigade, Headquartered out of the now defunct Ft Devens in Mass. I don't doubt that the Guard is arming up, but the 20rnd mags and the T.O.W.s are rather usless for the kind of potential situations out there in Oregon. A few T.O.W. facts.

TOW 2 Bravo Model: Maximun Effective Range 3750 Meters. Minimum Arming Range 90 meters. Missle Cost per shot, Practice $12.000 US Dollars, Warshot, $14.500 US Dollars, System Weight, with one wartshot, 590 Kilos. Missle is capable of killing anything in the world with Armor, up to and including the M1A2 Abrams Tank. Utilizes an optical Daysight Tracker with 4X-10X power sight, and uses a thermal imaging system AN-TVS-4A for Night Fighting. Warhead has 35-40 Kilos of Octal Expolsive. The most powerfull non nuke explosive in the industry.

Used effectively in the Arab-Isreali Conflicts of the late 60's , and somewhat Used in Vietnam, tho none too well as the NVA didn't have too many tanks. The TOW came in to its own in the Gulf War. Wide open flat spaces with great L.O.S. targeting. (line- of-sight)

End of history Lesson. Tho, like I said, I don't doubt the veracity of the claim, the only thing that the T.W.O. would be mounted on would be AH-64 Apaches, or the OH-58G model Birds. If thats the case, then what the Hell is the .gov/.mil expecting? These things we lovingly called Bunker Busters are some real-time bad- ass weapons. What are they expecting anyway?

-- Billy Boy (Former 11H20 TOW Gunner) (Rakkasan@Aol.com), December 20, 1999.



6-20??? I have 20 - 30rd and thats just for my AK47, 10 -30 for my mini14 , 6 - 30 for my 9mm pistol ........... BTW he wimped out on a measly 50,000 rd. ????? 20 rd don't sound right either. sniff , sniff

-- 404 (nothingc@ngorong.gorong.gorong), December 20, 1999.

TOWs can and have been mounted on ground-based vehicles. It's kinda odd to mount a TOW or two onto a Humvee though since the launchers are pretty big. An APV, maybe (and there are a few APV designs throughout the world that carry TOWs) but a Humvee seems to be pushing it a bit.

Personally I think I'll stick with a Barrett M82A1 .50 semiautomatic. Much easier to relocate and can fire more than once without a reload. Much cheaper, too.

O d d O n e

-- OddOne (mocklamer_1999@yhaoo.com), December 20, 1999.


You ever humped 50,000 rounds in one day 404? Thought not. Focus people. Focus. Just the fact that the ammo is being distributed and that the U.S. #1 tankbusting missle is be sent out should make you wonder. Just for Example, I was a T.O.W. loader/gunner/squad leader for 5 years of my career. Out of those 5 years, I shot a total, a total of 4 missles. And for that matter, all of the Missles were manufactured in the late 60's early seventies, and had a 1 in 10 failure rate (can you say DUCK?) The focus should more be on what is the PTB have planned for such heavy duty toys...not the # of rounds.

-- Billy Boy (Rakkasan@Aol.com), December 20, 1999.

Hubby says when he got out of the Washignton State National Guard in May "99 they were using 20 round clips for their M-16s.

-- Valkyrie (anon@please.xnet), December 20, 1999.

O d d o n e

The primary gun platform for the Army is the M-996 HMMWV or Gun Jeep as we called it. The Launcher was mounted topside, with a rack of six reloads in the 'belly of the beast' Total of seven rounds could be carried, with "one up the snout" so to speak.

-- Billy Boy (Rakkasan@Aol.com), December 20, 1999.



Ohmygod! I only have seven 30 rd. mags for my AR.

I feel so inadequate.

Better make another run to the surplus store.

-- Clyde (clydeblalock@hotmail.com), December 20, 1999.


Moderation questions? read the FAQ