PRC-77s are ubiquitous in my AO still. IMC is still truly international. What are you going to do when you go to some hole and it is the only means available? POWs used code while held. Tools in the box.

Excellent advice QRQ.

We don't see much FM in my AO, they mostly use icom's and sattelite phones.

Agree, but it depends on the environment, the urban setting, the requirements of the mission, etc. As far as code goes, it isn't just applicable for FM/AM commo and has tremendous applications in any number of situations from "wigwag", lights, ground return circuits, etc.

Jack Moroney

Well we kind of got all around the original question. But I would like to add my own .02. I was involved with some friends in a modern (i.e. ongoing) GWOT. The commo means being used are CW, FM, Packet and Internet. It runs a pretty full gaunlet of communications depending on the teams and the area. So I agree with Jack, I wouldn't leave anything out of my toolbox.

I learned my basics from Ham Radio. I was a ham for years before becoming SF Commo. While the instruction is pretty good, it is a bit lean on theory at times (way back then anyway). Ham Radio is a great foundation for anything you are going to do with commo. It has it all, from CW to the latest digial modes. And like the new stuff in the military pipelines it has software defined radios that operate in all the latest digital modes.

So my advice, pick up the ARRL antenna books, learn some basic electric theory, and if you have time - by all means learn some code - you just never know when it might be useful to communicate to the Gs in the GWOT...

BTW - in this GWOT there weren't any plugs for laptops in the area - and the internet runs through a gov't proxy in and out...

So, do they still teach map and compass land nav, or is that outdated with the small, reliable GPS receivers now available? :munchin

Yes.

No.

TR

definitely not...i'm out and about in the woods alot these days...i carry a hand-held GPS, a map and a compass...GPS is another tool in the kit, but it is not an answer unto itself...i can see where one might become very reliant on GPS out in the western desert between SA and Syria, but in the woods, in areas where relief and topography are evident, in my (hardly ever) humble opinion, map and compass are better tools...bearings vary wildly with a handheld GPS, especially in the trees or down in canyons...i find that if all i have for a nav-aids are a hand-held and a bad map, i spend more time looking at the screen of the hand-held than i do looking at the terrain...it's dangerous for a surveyor and could be fatal for a soldier...INMSHO...

Sorry, I was just stirring the pot a bit above, with the talk about code being obsolete and relying on the high tech gadgetry to make comms.

I know, I know-the devil made you do it :)

Jack Moroney

i'd keep stirring if i were you...there are a lot of folks in a lot of professions that think code, compasses, handwriting are parts of the past...i beg to disagree on all counts...

hell, i'd ride a horse to work if i had a place to keep it...

I don't think it is about what is outdated, more so, what is relevant to today's operational enviornment and being used on today's battlefield. Computer Applications replaced morse code in the POI and with more then a half-a-dozen laptops on my team, palm pilots, etc...it is necessary that newly trained Echo's have the skills needed to keep these systems functioning. Of course, they could teach both, but they just shortened the course. The course is not the end-all of education for a new SF soldier and it is imparitive to continue ones education.

p.s. Seeing the new GMV's integrated network system package that Group is testing out, new Echo's are definately going to need those computer skills.

Not that it was the sole factor, but the removal of IMC from the POI coincidentally removed the primary source of attrition from the 18E course.

This had been tried before, as COL Moroney and I are well aware.

I guess it comes down to whether you would rather for your team to have one 18E with good IMC skills, or two with the skills they have now, and no IMC.

The answer to that will depend on where you are and what you are trying to do.

TR

One thing that I am (somewhat) amazed at it the number of VFOG O5Bs that are computer professionals today. I guess it has something to do with the type of person that they are. So I am not too worried about them not learning code. If they see the need for it (and some will) they will learn it on their own.

The more things change the more they stay the same....It I was the team daddy I would set everyone down for some basic code lessons. Of course that is just me. I still have the command of Capt. Rodgers ringing in my hear "Don't forget nothing". I mean who ever thought they would need horses again??

I know one friend that worked on the simulation program that was adapted for SF, they insisted that the programmers include Mules for logistics. MULES?? Yep they are still being used in some AOs. That is the problem with our profession. We must work at all ends of the spectrum. You work with what the locals have.... UW is not going away soon. These wars of liberation will be there 100 years from now, and you can be sure that they will involve the primative (at least relative to the big boys) and the latest greatest technology.

[QUOTE=rwt_bkk]. MULES?? Yep they are still being used in some AOs. That is the problem with our profession. QUOTE]

That brings back some memories. I can remember when Jake Jakovenko and I got the tasking to go out into the hinterlands of NC to find a farrier that had a bunch of mule shoes that had to get from him/her to Central America in 24 hours.
Talk about two guys who knew nothing about mules, much less farriers, jumping thru their apex to fill a requirement by hauling a couple of hundred pounds of shoes in the back of a suburban to Pope AFB by the quickest route available.

Jack Moroney-traveling shoe salesmen for equines

Mules:

As part of our training in the Korean War era Airborne Ranger Companies, we were sent to then Camp Carson, CO for Mountain/Cold weather training. As a part of this training we were trained to work with pack mules. The instructors and mules were from a artillery unit stationed there that packed their guns on mules.

These mule skinners were a tough bunch, almost as tough as the mules! These mules were really something else to work with! A few Rangers have the teeth mark scars to prove it. A lot of the mule skinners from that unit, wound up in the Rangers. I often wondered, if like a few other Rangers in the Companies, if volunteering for the Rangers was their way out of the unit. (Once selected for the training, nobody could stop the transfer.) BTW: I didn't get bit, almost kicked though.

As far as I know, no mules were used in combat in Korea by the (8) Companies who made it there. The idea for the mule, was to aid in operations behind enemy lines. especially long range patrols and raids was a good one, in that mountainous terrain. I guess someone thought back to WW II and Burma and the Marauders as well as in the mountains of Italy to some degree.

They (mules) might be a problem for Airborne Operations without gliders though! :D

A few Koreans with "A" frames was pressed into use in most cases, when I was in Korea. I was always impressed with the load those people could carry on them! :eek: