USASMA

[rero360]

About 30 minutes ago I submitted my first draft for my Capstone paper, the final assignment for Term One of Phase One of the Sergeants Major Academy. I am writing my capstone on the institutional inertia and leadership risk aversion as it relates to weapons cleaning in the military.

I am still waiting on a grade for an ethics paper I wrote almost two months ago on Women in Elite Combat Units, I looked at it mainly from a physiological difference between the sexes, with men having a larger skeletal muscle mass than women.

Once everything is graded that is one of the two requirements for conditional promotion completed. The other is time is grade, which I will have in July. Which means I should be getting promoted in July and will just need to complete Phase One, Two, and Three to keep the rank.

[stormvet]

Outstanding, I’ll give you a preemptive congratulations. Anyone that earns SM has had an outstanding career, best of luck but I don’t think you’ll need it.

[Snoopy47]

I'd be interested the hear the highlights of weapons cleaning.

I'm not so proud to mention my arms room was inspected, and the entire armory dead lined by the inspector because they were so dirty he couldn't gauge them to verify if they were in spec.

It wasn't risk aversion that kept them from being cleaned, but time. Exercise after exercise and no recovery time possible between drill weekends. Eventually things just get blown off.

*****
Back in the early 90's I was in a Poly Sci course and the topic of Women in the military game up. Realize this is 20 years before I joined the army.

I'm surrounded by liberal fems of course in such a class, and I said under my breath just loud enough for it to get to the front of the room:


At Least That's One Less Man


The room filled with gasps. Apparently they didn't want my agreement with them if it wasn't supported by their logic.

[rero360]

Originally Posted by Snoopy47

I'd be interested the hear the highlights of weapons cleaning.

I'm not so proud to mention my arms room was inspected, and the entire armory dead lined by the inspector because they were so dirty he couldn't gauge them to verify if they were in spec.

It wasn't risk aversion that kept them from being cleaned, but time. Exercise after exercise and no recovery time possible between drill weekends. Eventually things just get blown off.

*****
Back in the early 90's I was in a Poly Sci course and the topic of Women in the military game up. Realize this is 20 years before I joined the army.

I'm surrounded by liberal fems of course in such a class, and I said under my breath just loud enough for it to get to the front of the room:


At Least That's One Less Man


The room filled with gasps. Apparently they didn't want my agreement with them if it wasn't supported by their logic.

Basic concept is Commanders are risk averse to changing from the norm of ensuring all weapons are white glove clean, because of this, soldiers spend countless hours scraping at their weapons with instruments that don't belong within a mile of a rifle, which prematurely wears down and remove the anodizing, manganese phosphate coatings, and risks cracking the hard chrome plating, thus increases chances of corrosion and general damage. This came from back when we had corrosive ammunition and people continue the anal retentive cleaning because that is what we always did and are loathe to deviate from that for fear of failing those COMET inspections and in turn getting suboptimal OERs. I then point out the BCM Dirty 14 and that it went over 31 thousand rounds without cleaning and kept on shooting (pointing out that small parts did fail along the testing but all parts failure were at those parts end of life anyways so nothing out of the ordinary. The time wasted cleaning the weapons could be better spent performing other tasks like reviewing battle drills and other key tasks. weapons really only need a quick five to ten minute wipe down with a rag and a quick visual scan for obvious defects like a sheared off bolt lug, the rifle is designed to be able to function with multiple lugs missing. When I was going through SDM one of the guys had a lug shear off, we had three days left on the range so the instructors told him to just keep shooting and to let them know if more than two more lugs broke off, none did and he was able to complete the course just fine. These rifles had roughly 14,000 rounds through them since their last overhaul, the rifling was eroded away from the first couple of inches in the barrels, but we were still making plenty of hits out to 600 meters easily. Keep it lubed and you'll be fine is my philosophy.

Draft 1 was just the first page and a half, in the next draft we tackle the lit review and one or two other sections of the paper.

[Snoopy47]

Originally Posted by rero360

Basic concept is Commanders are risk averse to changing from the norm of ensuring all weapons are white glove clean......

Yea, that is not me. I couldn't agree with you more.

[rero360]

Originally Posted by stormvet

Outstanding, I’ll give you a preemptive congratulations. Anyone that earns SM has had an outstanding career, best of luck but I don’t think you’ll need it.

Thank you, I hear the section I just finished is the easiest but I'm not worried about the others as I won't be taking a full course load on the civilian side during the other parts.

Originally Posted by Snoopy47

I'd be interested the hear the highlights of weapons cleaning.

I'm not so proud to mention my arms room was inspected, and the entire armory dead lined by the inspector because they were so dirty he couldn't gauge them to verify if they were in spec.

It wasn't risk aversion that kept them from being cleaned, but time. Exercise after exercise and no recovery time possible between drill weekends. Eventually things just get blown off.

*****
Back in the early 90's I was in a Poly Sci course and the topic of Women in the military game up. Realize this is 20 years before I joined the army.

I'm surrounded by liberal fems of course in such a class, and I said under my breath just loud enough for it to get to the front of the room:


At Least That's One Less Man


The room filled with gasps. Apparently they didn't want my agreement with them if it wasn't supported by their logic.

For the ethics paper, which I still haven't received a grade for, going to email the facilitator tomorrow about it, I showed scientific evidence that women are weaker than men; I took the average age of a Green Beret, 29, and then identified the average heights for men and women in the US. I then took those heights at that age and stated what the Army's max weight is for them. Then I pulled data from a website that has collects people weight lifting information and showed that the one rep max deadlift for a 5' 4" experienced 29-year-old female lifter was right about 40 pounds less than the average height 29-year-old male who is wearing a standard combat load.

Obviously, there are women who are stronger, there's plenty who are stronger than I am on certain lifts, but they are also genetic freaks and world-class athletes, and would never make height/weight in the military.

That's an entirely separate paper that could be written, how the height-weight standards need modernizing and how basic training should be barbell strength training focused, drop the 2 mile run and make recruits have to at a minimum bench 225, overhead press 125, deadlift 400 (not trapbar) and squat 350. Now for full disclosure, I personally can only do the first two, my squat for reps of 5 is at 250 right now, my deadlift is at 300, but I'm old and am a novice at serious strength training. make me 18 again with what I know now and access to good equipment, I'd be making gains like crazy.