Sideline: A lot of people over the years have dissed the M-16 series of weapons that we were still using in the form of the M-8. It wasn't all that different from the M-4, just a slightly longer barrel and it could be "modulated" for different weaponry and stuff you could hang on it. It fired a dinky little 5.56mm diameter round. That translates as .221 caliber, same as a .22, basically. Big diff.
The difference matters, though. Because it went very fast. And, honestly, with good shot placement was very lethal.
The Army had used .30-06 rounds in WWII. Those were big honking man-killers. Then they'd gone to the .308 which was still pretty hefty. It was what we used in our medium machine guns.
Why go to the 5.56?
Took up less room. More rounds for less weight.
Lots of arguments both ways, but when I was figuring cubic space to carry all this shit, I was glad I could pack 30% more 5.56 into the space the .308 took up. And it took up less than .30-06. And waaay less than .50 caliber. All of them took up less than mortar rounds.
Yes, we brought two mortar Strykers with us. Indirect fire is a good thing. I'd have taken more but I was getting pack-rattish and I knew it. It wasn't the vehicles, it was the ammo. And the fuel to haul the ammo.
Most of this shit was going to have to go on trucks. Several trucks. The trucks were going to be our most vulnerable targets. Therefore the Nepos drove the trucks. They were the least vital group.
Why were the Nepos our least vital group?
It wasn't because they weren't Americans. I'd grown to love the little bastards like they were my own boys back when I had B company. But they simply were not as important as the U.S. infantry. Why?
The Nepos were shaping up to be good irregulars. Given enough time and opportunity and some more trainers I probably could have gotten them up to the point they were just as good as the U.S. infantry guys.
But they weren't. They were good cooks, some were sort of mechanics and they were decent irregulars. They wouldn't run from a fight and they could sort of shoot. Quality on that was coming up and would come up more.
But they were semiskilled. The U.S. infantry were highly skilled technicians on the subject of war. Let me try to explain.
The Nepos could fire their individual weapons pretty well, clean and strip them and put them together. The ones that had been trained on machine guns could fire those machine guns, clean and strip and clear basic jams. They could slap a compress on somebody who had been shot.
The riflemen in the Stryker unit could: Fire their individual weapons, clean, strip, detail clean and in many cases do minor repairs. They could do the same on a pistol, squad automatic weapon (SAW), a medium machine gun or a heavy. Didn't matter if that was their primary job. The Javelin gunners could do the same and most of the guys could work a Javelin about as well as the gunners. They could do close quarters battle, movement to contact on foot or in vehicle, set up an ambush, react to an ambush, perform battlefield first responder actions up to and including inserting an IV and in many cases stitching a minor wound. They could lay in claymores and in many cases more advanced demolitions. They could call for fire from the mortars. They could land navigate using GPS and/or map. They could perform fire and maneuver. They were trained in night movement either in march or combat.
They could all work a radio.
The Nepos, mostly because we simply had not had the time to train them with everything else going on, couldn't do most of that. And most of them, still, didn't speak English. So whether they could work a radio or not was sort of moot.
I didn't want to lose the Nepos. But if it came down to losing them or the guys who were highly trained specialists at survival, I'd take the highly trained specialists over the semiskilled any day.
So the Nepos drove the vulnerable but incredibly important trucks.
The problem being, most of them didn't know how to drive a car.
Foreseeing this as an issue as time had passed, I'd taken some of their training time to ensure they could all drive military trucks.
Driving military trucks is not like driving a car. The ones we were using were HEMTTs (Heavy Extended Mobility Tactical Trucks.) Think a four-wheel drive tractor trailer. Bit smaller than a tractor trailer but not much. They are big, boxy trucks designed to go anywhere tanks or Strykers can go.
Teaching the Nepos to use them was . . . interesting. Among other things, the Nepos turned out to have a repressed size inferiority streak. Putting them in big-assed trucks with cabs six feet off the ground suddenly put them in charge of their destiny.
It's very hard to roll a Hemitt on flat ground. They managed it. Fortunately, they had very hard heads and we had lots of Hemitts. (It's how it's pronounced.)
They eventually got the picture and got over their tendency to race each other.
Strykers:
We had a lot of Strykers. We had more Strykers than we needed. Why? Since they all used fuel?
Look, I'm a big fan of the Stryker. But the things just break a lot. All military equipment breaks. It's a function of how it's used in part. (I won't get into deep conspiracies about companies that then get to provide parts.) And who uses it. Soldiers are specialists in breaking things, not keeping them going. And they're complicated compared to the average car.
But Strykers break a lot. They were, in fact, overengineered. They had way too many moving parts. Frankly, much as I liked Strykers I wished they'd have gone with something like the LAV. Not as complicated and broke less. "Keep it simple, stupid" is a military acronym that weapons designers and generals often forget.
I had lots of Strykers because I figured by the time we got to the Dardanelles at least half of them were going to be scattered on the road behind us. I was planning on fixing any that we could. Barring that, they were going to be left behind.
We had three types. The mortar carriers. These were the latest and greatest things and actually were pretty cool. They were 120mm automortars with automated tracking and guidance. That is, instead of manually moving them around, when you got a call for fire a computer figured all the corrections and they automatically fired. Assuming everything worked. If everything didn't work, there were manual overrides including a way to work them around by hand.
But if we got in the real busy, they might come in handy. Two of them, again. For one thing, the more mortars the better. For another, redundancy. I was hoping that those wouldn't be the Strykers that broke.
Then we had Assault Gun Systems. These had, originally, been the "Mobile Gun System" with this weird-assed 105mm "semi-recoiless" cannon. That had lasted, from what I heard, five years after deployment. Then they all got converted to "Assault Gun Systems." Difference? The well-tested 25mm Bushmaster from the Bradley replaced the 105. The 105 was supposed to be an "anti-tank" gun system. It couldn't stop most modern tanks straight on. Neither could a 25mm but it could from the side. Just like the 105. And it didn't break as much and you got more shots.
Besides, we had Javelins for tanks.
Most of them were "Infantry Carrier Vehicles." Just big rolling boxes filled with shooters and a commander's cupola with a .50 cal. Some of the commander's cupolas had Mk-19 40mm grenade launchers.
Oh, and six recon vehicles. Those were, basically, AGS with more ammo and less room for shooters. Also better commo including a satellite and meteoric bounce system if they got too far away for radio.