A Whole Bunch of Dead Indians! Wow!

[wolfgang911]

:)miracles do happen :
wolfgang states that for once he totally agrees with a post of mister conz
'except for 1000 years hey, they only needed leaders with vision and they did not had much of the "unite don't fight" class as Tseh and SB


If by accident markland billy read these posts i wish to mention that Conz brings in Zulus and Mongols with no special pass
while when Crzhrs and wolfy here are accused of hijacking when bringing up buffalo!

[conz]

Finding common ground is the only salvation for human civilization.

[AZ Ranger]

Isn't marksmanship an athletic endeavor? You cannot make someone a great or even adequate athlete without a baseline of genetic gifts. You can make them as good as their physical abilities allow (mental training is also, really, physical) but you cannot install muscle cells or nerve synapse.

If not maintained by practice, exercise, and training updates, they regress to their norm. Or, with age, worse.

We have much evidence (enemy casualties, battle accounts, disgusted reviews by civvie scouts and later, officers) the shooting and riding left much to be desired in the frontier army. What offered evidence contradicts it? None, really.

Correct and exactly what I think the author was stating in regards to marksmanship and what I believe as a firearms instructor. If not trained and practiced you don't reach the potential of the unit.



Jul 24, 2009, 9:13am, AZ Ranger wrote:
I think there is a difference between maximum capability of a weapon system and an individuals ability to make optimum use of his/her weapon system that is what I believe Rickey was referring too and what I am referring to. Maybe that helps in what we are stating. The individual trooper did not receive enough training and practice to make optimum use of their individual Springfield.



I don't understand...what is the difference?

I think DC explained it well for what I believe it takes to make someone "make optimum use of their weapon". Look at as the overall average of the unit composed of individuals. If you look at what was done earlier it looks like either shooting was optional or they hand selected the shooters. Lets start with the unit making less than 50 percent hits at 100 yards through training and continued practice the average is 90 percent hits at 100 yards. With even more practice you find that it is still 90 percent hits. That is the optimum.

A Sgt Ryan is not an indication of the Army's marksmanship program. It does indicate his own dedication to supplying his own weapon and maintaining his own skills.

As far as minimum scores the minimum score earns you no marksmanship award it just allows you to keep you job. It is the competition and the wearing of the badges that provides some incentive to the individual to improve and maintain skills.

I think Rickey was stating that with the marksmanship program and support that the Army units reached the collective average optimum for the particular weapon system.

The optimum if it is a capability of weapon in the hands of a top shooter is not anywhere near the collective average of troops that have received sufficient training and practice. The Colt SAA Army can fire 6 shots in less than 2 seconds and can make reliable hits at 100 yards. A person using a Colt SAA is capable of drawing, firing, and hitting a target at 3 yards in .25 of a second with a SAA. I do not think this is what Rickey was talking about. Besides the skill set that DC describes these individuals fire over 50,000 rounds per year to maintain them. Hardly within the Army budget at any time including the eighties to which Rickey referred to "Most soldiers were not good enough riflemen to make optimum use of the Springfield's capabilities before the upsurge of interest in marksmanship in the eighties".

AZ Ranger

[Dark Cloud]

Okay, then, look.

Why is this being debated by a West Point grad? Why is it necessary to point out that a NCO with his own gun and financial means for ammo and time and interest in practicing does not and could not be the mean for the 7th Cavalry for the years in question? Wouldn't a WP grad know this or rapidly grasp it? Wouldn't he know that hard evidence of financial inability to provide the necessary ammo for minimal practice undercuts cherry picked and dubious anecdote by fluffers or liars? Wouldn't anyone adult who wanted an accurate over-all and not to distort history for the adulation of what he considers his due by dubious class easily understand this? Hands?

Wolfie, you aren't able to discern 'polite' from an affected condescension. Given how often conz is wrong (very, and never admitted), baseless in his assumptions, self-admiring because he's an officer and therefore - somehow - due the regard of combat vets, he'd better be at least polite. conz tries to deflect group consideration of his numerous howlers by pretending to a position he did not originally have (his history here goes back years and is still up as far as I know) or by firing up window strips in the flack with multiple postings. Like people it's hoped you've not met, it's all about his image, and he's perfectly willing to bend history and not tell the truth if he suspects it as such, or skim over it if its ommission makes him look good to gullible posters. Like you, apparently.

It needs to be said, your blanket belief of absurd (and boilerplate common type) stories of Indian heroism, implausible far sighted competence, and daring-do isn't a full compass heading off from conz.

[conz]

AZ,

I agree that a better marksmanship program will improve the overall marskmanship of any unit. That is not the issue.

And dc is wrong when he says I believe the entire unit was at the level of proficiency of the 1SG. I clearly have stated many times that any company is made up of good, medium, and poor marksmen, relative to each other.

Even in our modern marksmanship programs, this truth remains, although the "average" proficiency is higher, just as AZ says.

NONE of this goes back to my continued contention that the level of proficiency of the Army in 1876, and the 7th Cavalry in particular, was good enough to stop any mass of Warriors from overrunning any skirmish line.

Their marksmanship was "good enough" for that, regardless of its lower "average" proficiency than in later years.

Can anyone address that issue?

Clair

[wolfgang911]

DC I don't know the past of this board and I don't care.
I just react to the present. You insinuate that conz changed and hides something : well at least he changed!! ;D If you guys managed to do did this, good job!
Anyway Conz is the most present poster on this site so I have to deal with it. I have often judged like you his way of posting but it is helpless and you should know after all these years. Lucky he is here sometimes otherwise it would be pretty dull.
Everybody has his style of posting and I admire your way of intelectual writing : it is not because I kick in a here and there for the overall ambiance that my points of view are inferior or less original as yours, but that is not to me to judge.
Between the one that just plays in the playground, aware of his inmates, and the one that dissicates each post for hidden snakes and who presumably thinks that the players are unaware, I'm not sure who is most gullible.

I'm just here like I would be in a saloon. Hang out a little, lear something, and not minding being treated as that "damn indian" by some old assistant deputies.

I very well understand that to some these discussions look silly or irrittae : to me it is much easier to be very precise on one very minor topic point (who is guy X on that picture Y taken by photographer Z) without burning yourself, checking elsewhere (as one can remember only 100 names anyway),
then state on general subjects where you have to handle all your acquired bagage in a resume and all failing will appear to all.

By the way I admit i'm too stupid to follow the markmanship theories ; the theory of indians ducking deeper for better shooters is one of my favorite mindbugglers!

[Dark Cloud]

Understood, Wolf, but what's going on in greater and lesser spheres is a fight to reclaim the history of the West from the so-called revisionists (who downplay battles and gunfights and include women and Native Americans, Mexicans - and Catholic! - and Russians and French, and in short treat the American West as the un-unique period it was and entertain all participants because that's actual history) and reinstall the WarCraft - Frozen Throne reading level (oh, they play video war games a lot) of history with Heroes, because it appeals to them and because they like to think it serves as metaphor for their lives and circumstances. Generally doesn't, of course, but it's the need that creates the issue.

They want a return to the old, often totally false blather of patriarchal heroism 'winning' the west, the gun 'winning' the west (railroads banned guns aboard; that did more), and calcifying the old cliches as doctrine and dogma. Remember recent chest beatings by third rates over old wanted posters, 'Dead or Alive', and trying to apply it as doctrine to the Middle East? That's a result of being able to find purchase upon this ridiculous mythology in which Custer and the Little Bighorn plays a major role and basing history upon 1950's WB television offerings to which that age group was devoted as children.

conz announced his presence as if we were to be impressed. Dutiful genuflection to mere uniform isn't an American tradition (as opposed to greeting combat vets returning and ever after), and conz's posts have shown why. Misinformed, childish associations, falsehoods, no apologies. His devotion to the cavalry ethics in the works and poetry of Etonian swishes in the past century (Hussars!) is a good example, but there are others. So many others.

Compare and contrast to AZ, a Marine combat vet, current peace officer, who rides every day as part of his job in the American West, who chronically trains with weapons also part of his job, who is therefore probably the best informed possible on the details regarding the 7th (unlike a Re-Enactor or Living Historian more concerned with uniform inseam stitching), who also rode and were life dependent upon their weapons and skills with them. There's often, not always, a wide gulf between AZ and conz that often implies conz couldn't have the experience or knowledge or logic he should, and a WP degree would demand. Depressing and not unscary.

[conz]

And I agree with you about Steve, dc. My opinions are certainly not more valid than his. I bring a slightly different perspective, is all...we are really not very far apart on any issue. We mostly have inane professional debates that don't affect the models very much at all...that is, what may have happened at LBH that day.

Any pretentions on my part are only in your head, though. I don't want anyone to think I'm superior in any way. I don't pretend to be anything that I'm not. And I always say that these are only my opinions, and my ideas of the moment...not any illusions of truth.

So I don't think you have much argument against me, except for your continual need to disparage West Pointers, for some reason. To that attitude, you are certainly entitled...I don't even begrude that (I say condescendingly <g>).

Clair

[wolfgang911]

you see th

DC I know your opinion on Conz and can also pretty much identify your position on LBH and the military men involved
can you specify

[wolfgang911]

DC I know your opinion on Conz and can also pretty much identify your position on LBH and the military men involved can you specify more about 'indian heroism' . As you state this term ironically above just wondering if on this subject you differ much with conz
(by the way : "The revisionists" are also among the indians in my opinion)

I agree: AZ has one of the best jobs in the world and i'm still waiting for an internship appliance for condorfeeder, but that does not make him a better judge (but no worse either) :
if you ask close to operation guys about their opinion it is not necessarily the best : for instance asking cattleranchers what had to be done with those damn indians in the '70 (or today) would not give me a satisfactory answer, even if they had some indian employees.
(I'm still holding the theory that indians were better ranchers as white emigrants : 30 million buffalo without fences and hardly any expenses, that is know how to make profit of these states

[wolfgang911]

sorry!

[AZ Ranger]

Wolfie I have a muzzleloader it is a Hawkins 50 cal. We have special muzzleloading seasons where you must use a muzzleloader.

[AZ Ranger]

Wolfie you are right about opinions. Everyone can have one. I am less likely to change mine based upon mine being formed from facts of my job. I suspect that conz would say the same thing. Doesn't mean mine is right or my opinion is better just the basis on how I form my opinion. I would agree that a soldier and a law enforcement officer would have many similar training opportunities but different applications. Most police officer involved shooting occur at less than 3 yards distance and the lesser uses of force even closer. So my thought process is to develop CQB skills whereas a Army Officer may think it is an error to let them get that close so training is aimed at further distances and tactics to prevent closing of the enemy.

AZ Ranger

[Dark Cloud]

My opinion on LBH is not unique nor exciting, absent the actual command structure vs. the official one, and that a Custer was hurt early, and the 7th wasn't in control from then on. Opinion on Custer and the other two is also pretty basic, forgiving in fact. They did the best they could, Custer's intuition failed that day. Happens.

The conflict is with the Custerphiles, not Custer (whom I do not find unique or all that interesting, frankly), who knowingly have distorted the record and do so for selfish reasons.

The Native Americans, having been royally screwed standing up with their clothes on for some centuries, take a great deal of joy - deserved - in sticking it to the federal government by legal options. They, too, as you noted, have their revisionists, but the difference is what they want to revise wasn't written till after the fact and it's usually for contemporary power. I cannot say the gambling issues, which almost guaranteed new 'treaties' between the tribes and organized crime, were a step forward absent ready cash. On the other hand, who are we to talk? But the use of reservations for illegal access to the US is now an actual safety issue, even if you divide the usual FBI hysteria by 10, as I normally do.

It is foolish to accept without cancerous consideration ANY tales or remarkable heroism or daring do by anyone. Not that it doesn't happen, but since in seemingly EVERY culture the same things are said to happen, generally seen by someone else other than the teller, it's best to offer it as a story, not as proof of an innate warrior superiority.

It's worth mentioning, yet again, that virtually all the Custer stories from the LBH have literary ancestry from western European myths and literature and so are dubious. The Last Stand, the revered corpse of the Great But Defeated Leader, all that. Plus the near Sword in the Stone level tale about a child with the enemy maiden (who, of course, adores the Great One), etc. Story tellers everywhere like to select a Crucial Moment when a decision was reached, they love foreshadowing, and a clear ending. Indian OR Walter Scott. They don't like real life, where things sorta happen due to reaction, not proaction, and events have momentum that ignore Great Men/Warriors.

It's good to keep this in mind reading about the LBH or any military history, and you'll find yourself noting that events, often by 'official historians', seem to use well known templates to fit their tale into, slicing off that which doesn't fit. That's why Custerphiles will select a letter written in trauma to a family member after the battle - treating it as a deposition made after much thought rather than the vent it is - along with a fourth hand translation seventy years later of an ambulatory corpse's dotty memories, match it with a cartridge case that might - might not - have been found upon LSH, and announce a Theory, or for the real fetishist, a Model, because that's a word actual soldiers use for such things. Makes them feel soldier like.

The guys in the 7th don't deserve to be weighed down by the contemporary needs of Custerphiles. Nor those of the then 'enemy.' To the dead, said Voltaire, we owe truth. Truth is often pedestrian, repetitive, non heroic, and distorted.

[conz]

I agree with dc on all the above.

So what's the problem between us, I wonder?

Clair