Navy equivalent of a Supply Sergeant?, for a contact Options

[Spike]

Amusingly enough, while I was in Afghanistan recently, a land locked country, I worked with a lot of marines, roomed with marines. I also was freinds with a submariner.

I ask you this, what the fuck was a submarine jockey doing in the mountains? did they have an asset in the resivoir above the city? That would have been good to know... though I have to wonder how they got it up there!


Oh, and since everyone else was talking personal guns.... I rather like my USP in .45, thanks. I was set to loan it to my dad to kill the racoon that pulled itself up the tines of the pitchfork it was impaled upon, but apparently the paracritter decided that a little fence vandalism was enough to assuage it's wounded pride (and lungs...) and took off rather than come back for round two.



But back to the OP. Army supply people cross level, the same guy can work at a unit (with the rifles too), then find himself shuffling paperwork (making stuff disappear in ways that no one looks for it) then find himself in a warehouse (do I need to mention it? Ok... lots and lots of stuff...)

And unlike Marines and Naval people, they mostly speak English. ;)

[Crakkerjakk]

"Latrine," and "bivouc(sp?)." You guys speak french. :P

The USP is a really nice pistol though. If I had gotten a .45 instead of a .40 I might have gone with that instead of my Sig, but from all the reviews I could find, the Sig is just slightly better in that caliber than the USP.(Slightly. They're both amazing firearms.)

[Spike]

Oui, Oui...

I did say 'Mostly' English. At least we don't pee on people's heads and try to sleep on mideval torture racks. Should I mention the distinctive yawping of Marine Cadences? How do they go again...

Ha hu hup wagh furglebarger?

Summoning Cthulu were you? :D


To be honest, I think the 40 USP might be a slightly better purchace. I've only heard good things about that calibre, the gun fits easier in the hand (and I have big hands), fires like a dream and holds more ammo. What's not to like?

Sort of a waste for me, however. I've learned I'm tragically doomed to be a nutsack shooter (where all my bullets tend to go, regardless of where I aim), while with a rifle I can reliably hit targets out to 600 meters. Go with your strengths I say.

Ok, my strength is the Ma Deuce, but it's a bit hard to lug one of those around. Maybe I should look forward to becoming a troll? How many years left until goblinization? :D

[Kyoto Kid]

[Crakkerjakk]

I've been marched somewhere by an army guy. It made baby Chesty cry. *Shudder* I mean, keep in mind, my parents have seen the changing of the guard at buckingham palace, and in their(admittedly biased) opinion, Marines at boot graduation march better than those guys.

And our cadences are awesome. We still get to curse and talk about napalming schoolyards. Plus there's one about our quadrapelegic girlfriend.

Also, if all your shots are going towards the groin, you may be anticipating recoil. Quick way to check this is go shooting with a friend, have him load your mags, and throw a empty shell casing in one of them. When the gun goes click and you're not expecting it, if your sights dip down, you're muscling the weapon.

But yes, my strength is the M-16. I'm not as good as some Marines I know, but I can reliably hit a man sized target at 500 yards from the prone 9 out of 10 times, with just iron sights.

[Spike]

Oh, I won't disagree with you on how the army marches! Just that you don't need to learn a new language to understand the guy shouting...

As for my bad pistol habits... yeah, I just never get to shoot much, so its not a surprise that I got some bad habits going. Ironically, in gaming I'm always the pistol guy, and in real life I'm a badass with the heavy machineguns and reasonably scary with rifles...

Too many John Woo movies, not enough Heat, I guess. 8)


Of course, now I need to go into the basement to see what sort of potentially dangerous artefacts might be stored down there, courtesy of WWII? Would make for an interesting SR adventure, wouldn't it...

[Crakkerjakk]

Well, if Marines march better... And if Marines speak Jarhead... Obviously, speaking Jarhead makes you a better marcher! Therefore, if you want to march all purdy, you DO need to learn a new language!

I r Smrt.

Speaking of Heat, apparently they show the gun battle scene with the cars in Marine OCS as a textbook example of fire and movement. I had a boot louie who swore it was so.

[Spike]

I can believe it. Seriously I can. That end battle was both incredibly cinematic, and yet very much how a MOUT scene might play out.

I say this with all the authority of someone who's entire career has been spent in the company of helicopter types instead of infantry types... ;) Of course, having heard from people who were there upon leaving the theatre for Black Hawk Down has to be the ultimate cinematic coolness. Yeah, buddy, not only did I shake the hands of famous people, i had the people the famous people were playing tell me what was and was not accurate.... freakin' awesome!


Oh.. and shadowrunners should totally be able to expend all their multithousand rounds of ammo in one five second pass and then ask to withdraw to rearm and reload.... :love: Where is my Vindicator?

[Crakkerjakk]

My personal favorite in Blackhawk down is where the one guy chunks a grenade perfectly into , like a five story window. Had to be like a 150 yard throw. No sweat. Only super unrealistic part I saw.

[Austere Emancipa...]

The BHs ambling along at a jogging pace combined with the absolute accuracy of the RPG-men firing at the flying helos was pretty ridiculous too. Plus there's the whole issue of the fire control systems in AH-6 Little Birds (ie. there's not supposed to be any).

The one scene I would've loved to see is an AH-6 making a minigun run against a cow-riding militia team -- a brilliant chance to get to see 100rps-induced chunky salsa on screen wasted.

[Butterblume]

We needed about 2h training to march better than every other unit in the Bundeswehr, except the other companies in the Battalion. Marching is more like a state of mind than an actual physical challenge :D.

Since Spike mentioned Black Hawk Down, here is what Gary Brecher has to say about Colonel Steele (Captain at that time) http://www.exile.ru/2006-January-26/war_nerd.html.

And just to get back on the topic of water, I myself were a lifeguard and swimming instructor. I even won a few competitions (lifeguard competitions around here are much more fun than normal swimming), as did the kids I trained. I never swam with boots, since footwear was forbidden *g*, but i was really good at swimming in clothes.
There are of course some 'moves' how to overpower some panicky drowning guys, so I wonder why crackerjakk didn't mention that.

[Crakkerjakk]

Cause I had already been in the water eight hours, still had to go through six more instructors, and not only did they outweigh me by 40-60 pounds, they knew all those fancy moves. I was conserving energy as much as possible.

[Spike]

I wasn't trying to claim perfect accuracy for it. Steele was a goob in the movie, sure.

The big issue with the RPG's was this: The Nightstalkers (160th SOAR, the flyboys...) specialized in night operations, yet were under orders to fly only during the day... and to take the same route out of the airport every time.

The Somalis would launch something like 300 RPG's at any helicopter they saw. It was volume of firepower more than accuracy that brought down the blackhawks, something that's hard to show in a movie.


er... thats RPG for rocket Propelled grenade. Looking back I can just see the sky filled with old unused hardbacks...

[Crakkerjakk]

LMAO

[Herald of Verjig...]

[Thain]

Let's face it, old FASA "perfect bound" paper backs are only good for saturation targets. Also, I don't see how any branch of the service that employs a "Colonel" can be discribed as speaking English.

For a nice film look at recusing panicy drowning victims, consider renting The Guardian, Mr. Demi Moore isn't actually all that bad... heck, its more acutrate than a lot of other military movies.

It does bug me that one of the two female students at A-School is shown with long, beautiful blonde hair. Sure, from the breif shots of her on screen, she's wearing it regulation... but no one, not no one, goes to Rescue Swimmer school with long locks. It's like putting a 6'9" guy in a fighter cockpit, it just don't happen!

[Crakkerjakk]

I did kinda want to see that, but I want to stab Ashton Kutcher in the eyes every time he opens his mouth. Severely detracts from the enjoyment of any movie he's in.

And I didn't say we spoke English. Marines speak Jarhead, colloquially known as Jarine.

"So I was PMing the 3865s when the Company Guns came over and was like, WTF, Over? And I was like "Just waiting on the JTF HQ for ROE, gunny." And he was all "Tuefel, you best get your meatbeaters out of your pockets and go square away the Quadcons before Top gets here, Oorah?" and I was all "Rgr that, Gunny. Oorah." Then we dropped three a-kits to the 3614 and SSgt was pissed, so we spent the rest of the day policing the area on our knees. Big green weenie strikes again, Oorah?"

[Spike]

[Crakkerjakk]

I'm outa practice, I've been out for about three and a half years. It used to be worse. Oh, and also, editted to remove the f-word, because that would have been in there about.... 12 times. At least.

[Marmot]

Man, I had a great day going until I came here and saw that and understood every word of it.

I think I'm going to go somewhere and cry.

Anyway, traceback some. Shotgun qual is hilarious in practice. GM takes you to the fantail, hands you the weapon and tells you to hit the ocean with five shells.

And yes, some people fail.

That's GM for Gunner's Mate, by the by. Not those folks who throw the RPGs at us during SR sessions when we start any sentence with 'well, that's not the way they showed us...' when anything remotely involving our branch of the service pops up.

[Spike]

Is it sad that I'm less inclined to believe that is the actual test than I am to believe people fail it?

[Marmot]

I always held out faith that there was a 'real' shotgun qualification that involved clays or something but it really is more or less 'demonstrate that you can use the damn thing and make the shot go in (roughly) the direction it needs to go (hint, sailor, the direction not YOU or your shipmates are in)'.

Sadly such a test was about as forthcoming as a C-GU11 or the mythical PRC-E8 radio I got sent to find for being the FNG. For the record, I did find the PRC-E8 and the subsequent nights on long watches only confirmed my success.

[toturi]

[Spike]

[Crakkerjakk]

We always told our new guys to go find the BA eleven hundred November with the ST Ring Attachment, or the ID Ten Tango Forms.

I was told to ask gunny for the PRC-E7. The whole shop paid for that one. it was still funny.

We watched the Navy pistol qual once. They threw a fifty-five gallon drum off the side of the ship, then gave everyone ammo, stood them in a line on the flight deck elevator, and told em to shoot the barrel. We couldn't fricken believe it.