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| Iraq-Jordan |
| Injured Marine says his unit chronically short of ammo... |
| 2004-04-09 |
| EFL - Hattip Drudge Cpl. Richard Stayskal, a 22-year-old Marine from San Jose, Calif., arrived in Landstuhl Tuesday after being wounded by automatic weapon fire in Ramadi, west of Baghdad. “I just kind of froze, my body clenched in the fetal position. I fell to the ground," Stayskal said. Stayskal, a sniper, had been deployed to Ramadi to hunt down a "mad bomber," the unit’s name for a man who had been seen planting roadside bombs targeted at U.S. and coalition forces. With little warning, a group of 15 armed Iraqis descended on the lightly armed unit. The bullet that hit Stayskal ricocheted off his shoulder, through his lung and exited from his back. It came within inches of his heart and major arteries. Countering the insurgency, Stayskal said, has been difficult for Marines on the ground. In his case, his unit was chronically short of ammunition, and his support unit got pinned down at the same time across town. The two units couldn’t help each other. "They weren’t giving us nearly enough ammunition for the situations out there. Everyone was running out. Everyone was grabbing each other’s ammunition." Any Devil Dogs out there with input about the low ammo? |
| Posted by:Yosemite Sam |
| #21 "With little warning, a group of 15 armed Iraqis descended on the lightly armed unit." This tells me something. |
| Posted by: rich woods 2004-04-10 8:19:57 AM |
| #20 There has been no description of how the team was manned up.Sounds like they got caught in the open and had to return fire not necssarily at speific targets and burned up ammo fast.Not a snafu,just circumstances. |
| Posted by: rich woods 2004-04-10 8:17:05 AM |
| #19 Sounds like they were LP/OP type setup, and were on foot. Std army load is 600 but a lot of that is on the truck/humvee/APC (Airborne carries less just for that reason). IF I remember correctly the Marines are 400 for a loadout but thats because they almost always operate dismounted. Problem could have been green troops and lack of fire discipline. Or simply they may have been grabbed at the end of a patrol - when they were RTB skosh on ammo due to useage. Or, as others point out, could have been a sniper team and they simply would not carry that much 7.62 while everyone else was carrying 5.56 |
| Posted by: OldSpook 2004-04-09 11:04:32 PM |
| #18 Stephen, you may be correct. According to article they were "hunting" a bomb layer along one of the MSRs. Not sure how far from the road they were set up or for that matter how they became engaged out of the blue by 15 Iraqis. Maybe they were set up on a building or in urban somewhere and got compromised. Hard to believe a scout/sniper team gets compromised 300+ yrds off a road. As you all know their concealment ability is damn near flawless, sniper is definitely their secondary job compared to surveillance and calling in indirect fire. Hence Surveillance Target Acquisition (STA) pronounced 'stay team'. Eyes and ears of most grunt battalions. There's got to be more to this story or something is being left out. Also, any leatherneck will tell ya Marines love to bitch by trade, this maybe an extreme case of the media picking up on something this Corporal said and running w/it. Yeah, I know, the media never does that. |
| Posted by: Jarhead 2004-04-09 9:17:27 PM |
| #17 Notknowing facts,my guess is his group was 2-man sniper team w/3-5 man fire team as escort.(Otherwise would 15 man enemy unit be imposing.)Prob. told no opposition expected so they were told to travel light-may also have been p.r.,not wanting Marines to look like they were loaded for bear.If there was a grenadier and radioman along,they would have carried less ammo than riflemen,thus requests for ammo from other members.Not to mention a M249 gunner would have gone thru ammo pretty quick. |
| Posted by: Stephen 2004-04-09 6:10:28 PM |
| #16 There's an old saying - if your out of everything except enemy - your in combat. Thank you for the perspective, Jarhead. I just don't want any insurgents to get away for want of a clip. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-04-09 5:53:33 PM |
| #15 Yep, sounds like a fight. Are there enough enemy? |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-04-09 5:05:37 PM |
| #14 "one can nerver have too much ammo" Michael> a maxim indeed, along w/water and chow. |
| Posted by: Jarhead 2004-04-09 4:52:49 PM |
| #13 On top which, one can nerver have too much ammo. |
| Posted by: Michael 2004-04-09 4:48:56 PM |
| #12 Gents, couple notes, we don't have full auto anymore. We have semi & burst. Burst is 3-rounds for one trigger squeeze. If *your* busting bursts that's about 9 to 10 trigger squeeze's per clip. Clips hold 30 but most of us go 28 rounds due to sometimes jam or wearing out clip springs w/full 30. |
| Posted by: Jarhead 2004-04-09 4:46:47 PM |
| #11 Zenster, not that easy. From back here sure, sounds like total logistics f*ck up. From the Corporal's perspective all he knows is that he's short, he doesn't have a clue as to why the wickets between getting him another couple hundred rounds were not met. This has nothing to w/odd calibers either. Maybe the re-supply train got cut off. What was the commander's intent for that unit - they usually carry 200 but going less for whatever reason? Maybe their intel dicked the dog. Who knows. Maybe supply never got word they were short - comm screw up? There's an old saying - if your out of everything except enemy - your in combat. War is not pretty or cleanly executed and things get f*cked up bad sometimes - heck that's the damn norm (SNAFU ring a bell); the easy becomes difficult and the difficult becomes impossible under the fog of war. Good men die, good plans go to sh*t as soon as the first round is fired - that is war. These are lessons learned, unfortunately usually learned the hard way. |
| Posted by: Jarhead 2004-04-09 4:42:01 PM |
| #10 Yup, an M-16 will zip through a 20-rd clip pretty damn fast on full auto. Which is why fire discipline is to fire single-shot. Leave the "spray-n-pray" stuff to the non-professionals. One shot, one kill. |
| Posted by: mojo 2004-04-09 4:39:52 PM |
| #9 Carrying 600 rounds of 7.62 ammo must have been heavy. Or atleast heavier than 5.56. |
| Posted by: Rafael 2004-04-09 4:37:02 PM |
| #8 I've never been a Marine, but my SIL was in Desert Storm, part of the 24ID. His 8-man comm unit was issued a base of 600 rounds per man for their M-16s, but part of that was because they had to provide for their own security. Don't know if that was "normal" or not. My ONE combat experience was definitely not "normal", but we had plentiful ammo. We were also the only group using M-2 carbines and 7.62 rounds, instead of the 5.56 M-16s and ammo. I defer to Jarhead on this! |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2004-04-09 4:32:55 PM |
| #7 Ammunition is cheap, our soldiers aren't, end of story. There is no reasonable excuse for our fighters to be endangered by poor supply logistics. I don't care if Stayskal's sniper rifle uses an odd caliber, the least we can do is make it easy for him to cap our foes. There's a quartermaster or materiel officer out there somewhere that needs to be busted down in rank over this. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-04-09 4:30:06 PM |
| #6 Was in the Marines in Nam.Sometimes we carried 3 bandoliers plus five full magazines.That is 120 in five magazines and 450 in the bandoliers.Fire discipline is critical.But these M-16's pump out more rounds than our M-14's(on semi-auto) did.Recently, I saw pictures of Marine grunts carrying two bandoliers.Not clear on whether this Sniper was with a fire team or not. |
| Posted by: rich woods 2004-04-09 3:36:53 PM |
| #5 thanks Jarhead |
| Posted by: Yosemite Sam 2004-04-09 3:32:34 PM |
| #4 YS - hard to say - I don't know what the exact tactical situation was. 200 ammo start is a combat load but I have no idea what Sniper's use as a base line - Unit sop dependent. Also, was he firing the Barrett or scout rifle? Did they bring their M-16s w/them? How long had they been fighting? I bet their intel only knew about cells of insurgents not squad size units & I don't what the distance was between his pos and the unit's log train when it got pinned down. Usually the STA Platoon SNCOIC or Chief Sniper takes care of the logistics for their platoons. They usually only go out in two man teams. |
| Posted by: Jarhead 2004-04-09 3:21:28 PM |
| #3 ive never been in combat, ZF, but my sense is that in urban warfar a soldier is going to fire off a LOT more shots than a sniper, say. |
| Posted by: Liberalhawk 2004-04-09 3:18:46 PM |
| #2 This is kind of weird. I thought everyone got 200 rounds of ammo. I don't know know if that's nearly enough, but I thought our guys were trained to fire aimed shots. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2004-04-09 3:04:45 PM |
| #1 Read the article, he is from Ramadi and has nothing to do with the current Falluja operation. I am sure this has to do with the suprise attack that killed 12 marines the other day. |
| Posted by: Patrick 2004-04-09 2:33:24 PM |