Cavalry Training

["Hunk" Papa]

Oct 15, 2008 6:57:33 GMT -6 @conz said:

Hunk,

I think you may have a combination of:

a) an inflated notion of how "professional," trained, and experienced today's Regular Army is, and

b) a deflated notion of how professional, trained, and experienced the 19th Century Regular Army was.

Down in the ranks, there is very little difference between the two. Yes, we have marginally improved things like basic training and regulated things like marksmanship training and the testing of basic skills, but then we have to learn so much more today than then. So in my opinion, it is probably a wash.

I think the rank and file of the Regular Army, in the U.S. and in Europe, of the 19th Century was every bit as "professional" and well trained for their expected missions as today's great armies are.

Clair

Clair,

Thanks for your opinion. Like all your opinions on this subject it has to be acknowledged as being your genuinely held belief, but it is as relevant to the reality of 7th Cavalry's martial status as Homer's Illiad is to the actual seige of Troy.

The real problem is that it doesn't convince anybody, perhaps because, like Ophelia, you protest too much. <bbl>

Hunk

[Dark Cloud]

I'm impressed anyone can get through criticizing conz without using the word "nonsense" or biting a radiator. I cannot do it.

No difference between today's soldiers and the 7th's of 1876 "down in the ranks"? Half the 1876 officers couldn't pass basic training today, never mind the tubercular, malnourished men with their arthritis and compressed vertebrae. They had to worry about scurvy, rickets, and all sorts of vitamin deficiencies that would affect eyesight, mood, concentration, and judgment they do not, for the most part, today.

Just nonsense of the first water.

[AZ Ranger]

Quote:I believe that before going into battle even in the 1870s they were to fire 60 rounds each per trooper. My point was that marksmanship requires constant practice. If the troops are stationed in a safe area there is no need to practice. If you are in a dangerous area then the honing of the skill is needed.

And you don't think this was the case in the 1860s and 70s? The NCOs decided how many rounds each Soldier had to fire to be proficient, and they practiced continuously, according to accounts I've seen. How many patrols went out and didn't hunt game? How many drills in camps went on when the men didn't fire their weapons at least weekly? I see all kinds of training going on in Soldier's memoirs.

What I read was a trooper was charged 25 cents per round and they complained about it. How much training can you do with 10 rounds for two different weapons.

Quote:I think the best example of my equivalency to police would be the Yellowstone Expedition where a small number of troopers dismounted fired and hit Indians and horses causing them to back off. If they had not hit, the Indians would have overrun them.

Exactly...so the fact that skirmish lines were never overrun in any of these Indian wars tells you what about their marksmanship proficiency?

Nothing unless the Indians tried to run through them.


Quote:Police Officers don't have high rate of hits either but they are ready to respond at all times when on duty. In that respect I believe soldiers in Iraq are on par with police officer on shoot situations. What makes you think that police would do a better job on a building entry team?

Soldiers in Iraq today are like the Soldiers on the Plains in the 1870s...the NCOs decide who needs to fire how much ammo. Now we see more action in Iraq than we saw on the plains, so they do get more chances to fire, in practice and in real. But the principle remains the same, and the Soldiers in each Army are equally well trained to perform to the standards required of each (which are much higher, today, than then).

But I really don't think even our most experienced house-searching teams have the training to standards that most SWAT teams in U.S. police forces have. At least, I HOPE our Police have higher standards!? Please correct me if I'm wrong. <g>

You are wrong, the majority of police are not on swat teams or practice like a swat team. If you want to make a comparison then you would have to compare special forces to swat teams since each is an elite of the outfit. I had a Navy Seal come through the Park Ranger firearms program that I help teach at Northern Arizona University. He was a expert from day one and shot 30 out of 30 in one hole with a 9 MM Sig Sauer for his qualification.Our police entry teams are no better trained then the Army soldiers that I talked with in Indiana. Our SWAT teams are not better trained than Marine Corps Snipers. I am sure the Navy Seals are on par with any SWAT entry team.

You train to standard. If you meet 100% of YOUR specific standard, you are equally trained. The men of the 7th Cav were trained to 100% of their standard, just as the men of the 7th Cav in Baghdad are trained to 100% of their modern standard.

The did not train to the standard in the manual until three years after LBH even though the standard was in the manuals since 1858. Unless not having the money to buy ammunition means the standards are suspended then they did not train to standards.


Again, it is not right to expect the men of the 1870 Army to be trained to the same standards of the men of the 2007 Army. I maintain that they were equally trained to their standards, but today's standards are much higher across a huge range of issues, marksmanship being only one on par with hundreds more.

The standards were there and money seems to be the reason to not train. No money = No training 25 cents per round to the troopers above the 10 issued rounds seems punitive and not conducive to maintaining proficiency. Do I want five nickle beers or fire one round?

I agree with you on marksmanship not being equal to combat ready. It one skill among many that determine combat readiness. Another in the cavalry should be horsemanship which also was suspended prior to 1876 and brought back after the LBH.

My comparison with police officers is that they are as ready as they are going to be each day and a soldier on the plains should have been also in hostile outposts.

I still maintain that from my own experience that stateside the military does not need to maintain high marksmanship skills unless it is a rapid deployment unit. Once someone knows the basic function of the firearm then it would only take a couple of weeks at most to improve marksmanship skills.

AZ Ranger

[clansman]

The basic function of a firearm is to kill. To be able to kill you need practice. It isn't a case of just aiming and pulling the trigger. You have to be able to calculate distance, wind direction, etc, as an automatic response. Regular practice is essential.

[conz]

Oct 15, 2008 15:46:51 GMT -6 Dark Cloud said:

I'm impressed anyone can get through criticizing conz without using the word "nonsense" or biting a radiator. I cannot do it.

No difference between today's soldiers and the 7th's of 1876 "down in the ranks"? Half the 1876 officers couldn't pass basic training today, never mind the tubercular, malnourished men with their arthritis and compressed vertebrae. They had to worry about scurvy, rickets, and all sorts of vitamin deficiencies that would affect eyesight, mood, concentration, and judgment they do not, for the most part, today.

Just nonsense of the first water.

Sounds like typical arrogance of the "modern man." Those people back then were just so primitive, so backward, I don't know how we survived as a species.

Please...apply the "nonsense" word to your own ideas before applying to others.

Trouble is, when you are so cynical of your own people, you magnify that pessimism to those "beneath you" in the past. It is a dangerous academic approach.

Clair

[conz]

AZ,

Again, the way the Army trains was NOT in any manual back then, and even today we don't train by what our manuals and regulations say.

We train the way that particular company commander and his NCOs want to train. One company might expend 1,000 rounds in training in one month out there on the Plains in 1876, while another not fire a single round. It all depends upon the CO's and NCO's analysis of what they need.

And again, don't be fooled with the silly notion that each Trooper walked by and was handed the "10 rounds" to fire for that month each payday...that's not the way the Army works. Not then, not now.

You have no idea how much ammo the company had to fire each month...some month a company might indeed want to go out and buy extra ammo, while another company in the same regiment might be turning extra government ammo in that it didn't need or couldn't use!

Clair

[AZ Ranger]

Oct 16, 2008 6:41:37 GMT -6 @conz said:

AZ,

Again, the way the Army trains was NOT in any manual back then, and even today we don't train by what our manuals and regulations say.

We train the way that particular company commander and his NCOs want to train. One company might expend 1,000 rounds in training in one month out there on the Plains in 1876, while another not fire a single round. It all depends upon the CO's and NCO's analysis of what they need.

And again, don't be fooled with the silly notion that each Trooper walked by and was handed the "10 rounds" to fire for that month each payday...that's not the way the Army works. Not then, not now.

You have no idea how much ammo the company had to fire each month...some month a company might indeed want to go out and buy extra ammo, while another company in the same regiment might be turning extra government ammo in that it didn't need or couldn't use!

Clair

"A forlorn Private William Murphy, while stationed along the Bozeman trail in 1867, lamented the cost of target practice. "The government charge twenty-five cents per cartridge to the men if they were short" even at target practice." So I doubt private Murphy loaned to many of 25 cents to help his bunkie shoot better.

Even with the 1869 marksmanship program for the Allin conversion Springfield the Army charged for rounds above the issued 10 rounds. This is time period where the 10 rounds per month per trooper and required reports comes from. The army sold the the cartridges used for hunting to the troops at 3 cents for carbine and 4 cents for rifle. So the price went down but they still charged. So I would doubt many troops would agree to their free rounds being given to poor shooters and having to pay for the ones above their allocation. I can't ever remember being asked to pay for my ammunition.

Since the records of shooting were required since 1869, where are they? My guess is if you don't believe marksmanship was necessary you would not document that you failed to train. If you believed marksmanship is important such as General Ord then you require the mandated documents as he did.

AZ Ranger

[Dark Cloud]

Despite the fact there was no money, insufficient allocations of existing supplies, iffy supply lines, numerous accounts to the contrary, pitiful results on the field, correspondence over decades chatting up the deficiencies, and no paper trail whatsoever to indicate anything different, we're to believe what now? That the 7th was trained to the level of need?

Absolute, world class, letter sweater nonsense of the first water.

[biggordie]

Can you expect else from our resident military expert? At least on this subject?

Gordie

[conz]

As opposed to the credibility of people who learn things from BOOKS?!

It's an old argument between historians and Soldiers, still going strong...

Clair

[rch]

King was correct. Finerty mentions that Terry's column formed a battle line with the 7th in front confirming King on that point at least. I think it's wrong to dismiss King's statement out of hand.

I think it is possible that the 7th Cav was better trained than it's give credit for. There appears to have been some sort of selection process in operation when the Reno and Custer marched from the Yellowstone/Powder River Depot. Leaving the sick and men to care for company and regimental property explains some of it. Leaving most of the recriuts who joined Companies B, G, and K as they passed through St. Paul and marching with extra horses at least offers a hint that a selection process was in effect.

Also the horse returns prepared for the end of May don't reflect a significant loss among horses for the first 2 weeks of the march from Ft Lincoln; something that might be expected if the riders were incompetant.

It seems to me that Custer did believe in target practice and drill. It doesn't matter he made some of his men and officers hate him.

Custer could not have been responsible for any of the desertions in the 7th Cav for the a period of a year prior to Jul 1868, unless you assume that court-martialling a man who shot deserters gave license to men inclined to desert.

I doubt that training schedules existed in the 1870's. Schedules for daily activity at posts would give the hours to be devoted to drill. Rickey in "Forty Miles a Day" in a footnote descibes one for Ft Totten in 1879. Since Totten had been in existence for years, it's probable that the schedule varied over the course of a year. The order establishing the schedule was in the 7th Cavalry Order Book.

The commanding officer's desires for what elements of drill he wanted emphasized might have been been augmented by General and Special Orders and particularly by Circulars. These might still exist in the regimental order books. This is probably the place to look for details on training.

"Drill" would include what was called training when I was in the service. In fact one of the most useful forms of training was still called "Battle Drill" in the 1960's.

rch

[rch]

Re: Reply 31

Nonsense. What are today's standard for basic training? Which officers could not meet those standards?

[Dark Cloud]

You need to loosen your orthopedic helmet, conz, and allow the frog in your throat to target the flies in your head. You and I have equal experience in 1876 Army life and warfare. All you know about it is from books as well, unless you're intent upon pulling a Patton and relive past lives of Bevo Officerdom through the ages, in which case you'd still only know what you read two weeks after the fact in the Herald or eventually saw in reports through the 1876 military machine.

Nobody, to my understanding, is claiming the stuff you're defending against, rch. Saying the 7th wasn't elite in any sense dependent upon competence isn't saying they weren't at the same level as the rest of the Army. The only units that can be suspected of being better were the 9th and 10th, who had relatively low turnover and had the unifying aspects of racial disdain from the rest of the Army to prove themselves.

I think in reference to King and Finnerty, the dates these accounts appeared for the first time, and the fueling motivation behind them (Finnerty was an embedded journalist, totally dependent for his income and life upon those he wrote about and would hope to serve with later) should be kept front and center.

That they had good and bad qualities in the 7th is a given, but the level of bad was quite bad, something not found today if the Army's budget is used to effect. Everything is way better today, of course, although the distance between the worst guy in the unit and the best might still be the same, they're both way higher than any unit in 1876.

The impetus to claiming the 7th was far better than facts and evidence, testimony and account, suggest is to relieve Custer of mistake or failure by neither charging across MTC ford and supporting Reno nor surviving. He has to be excused, not for his rep but for his fluffers' needs, and one way is to claim he and Reno and Benteen knew the 7th was capable of winning the day and Custer's moves were competently based on unit potential. In not supporting him, they killed him deliberately. Also, the numbers of Indians have to be less, because only an idiot would continue north against huge odds, and his moves have to be excused by an altered reality.

Hence, there has to have been chronic training and practice, and we're to ignore the soldiers' diaries and officers' letters that claim there was nothing approaching real marksmanship training or riding skills or much of anything beyond keeping the stables clean and animals and men fed, especially in the winter. What reference to target practice there is appears just before campaigns and for competition days of horse races and the like.

If it's true that the copper cases jammed when the guns were hot from being fired a lot, this would have been known and prepared for before going into battle. But there is no mention of it, and any officer who knew it and did nothing about it was incompetent. Oh, and dishonorable. Also, an idiot, since it would redound againt his survival chances.

Whatever they did, it wasn't enough to reveal that issue, so it wasn't nearly enough for the need.

[conz]

Oct 16, 2008 15:54:39 GMT -6 Dark Cloud said:

You need to loosen your orthopedic helmet, conz, and allow the frog in your throat to target the flies in your head.

LOL...made me want to go fly fishing.

You and I have equal experience in 1876 Army life and warfare. All you know about it is from books as well, unless you're intent upon pulling a Patton and relive past lives of Bevo Officerdom through the ages, in which case you'd still only know what you read two weeks after the fact in the Herald or eventually saw in reports through the 1876 military machine.

Your imagination is so limited. This statement is absolutely untrue, and you should realize it. You cannot limit your knowledge to what you read...you have knowledge from what you experience as well. I have spent my entire life in the service, and many years in uniform as an Army officer in the Regular Army. I know enough of military history, both written and oral, to know that there are MANY parallels between their experience and mine...ones that you cannot fathom, or you would not make such an ignorant statement as above.

There is a thread between warriors of all ages, and military organizations in particular, that gives them some basis of knowledge as to their duties, activities, and attitudes. This common experience probably tells us military men more about what happened at Little Big Horn than all the scholars of the ages of that battle. Except for the professional military men that have studied that battle, the rest only know what they read, and what elements of human nature pertain. But 80% of who was there, and what happened there, can never be learned in any book.

Nobody, to my understanding, is claiming the stuff you're defending against, rch.

rch has historical facts, and he also has military experience. The combination of the two gives him more insight into this affair than most. That should serve as an example to us all. I don't have many facts...I'm heavy on experience. Many here have more facts than most humans can know concerning LBH, but they cannot understand what military men do. The combination of the two is what makes for better understanding.

The impetus to claiming the 7th was far better than facts and evidence, testimony and account, suggest is to relieve Custer of mistake or failure by neither charging across MTC ford and supporting Reno nor surviving. He has to be excused, not for his rep but for his fluffers' needs, and one way is to claim he and Reno and Benteen knew the 7th was capable of winning the day and Custer's moves were competently based on unit potential. In not supporting him, they killed him deliberately. Also, the numbers of Indians have to be less, because only an idiot would continue north against huge odds, and his moves have to be excused by an altered reality.

I don't see it this way at all...your attitude smacks of an obsession with conspiracy theories.

The professionalism of the 7th, and the expectation that they should have been able to hold their own, condemns the LEADERS of that regiment, not the Soldiers. It lays MORE blame on Custer, and his subordinate officers, not less.

The men could not have done better in this situation with better training, marksmanship, discipline, motivation, or horsemanship. All those things are red herrings, designed only to relieve the officers of responsibility for the disaster, not to excuse them.

This battle was due to poor decisions during that battle, ONLY, by Custer, Reno, and Benteen, and perhaps Keogh. The men were fine.

Clair

[AZ Ranger]

Was Custer there overseeing the training or was he begging to be allowed to participate in the campaign. Was Reno in charge of training and did not discover the ammunition issue causing weapon failure and jamming until after the battle?