RE: [HIST??] Culture shock

--- Beth.Fulton@csiro.au wrote:

> John, you're "stereotyped" TO&Es, do they actually
> govern how you take on a
> force and thus have to play catch up if they're not
> like you expected

Standardized.  And yes, but.  You have to have a
starting point or you can't plan.  For instance,
counting tanks coming down the road, and you see 3,
short gap, 1, short gap, 3, short gap, 3.  

Your batallion staff gets your salute report and says
"Aha, a tank company.  We know that there are only 3
tank companies in the Abu Saeed Motorized Brigade, so
this is a significant portion of their combat power. 
We need to watch this."  Then they get reports telling
where the other company is, and it's 1 km away going
the same direction.  "Well, there's 2 of the 3
accounted for.	They are going the same direction,
which means this is probably their main axis of attack
and we will prepare to defend along this route.  Let's
go get some attack helicoptors in here to thin them
out."

> (thinking of my Grandpa's recount of the first time
> he saw a 6ft+ Japanese
> guardsman in WWII after being told they were all 4
> ft with glasses by Aussie
> propaganda guys....)

What percentage of Japanese males are over 5'6"?? It's
pretty small, and was a LOT smaller earlier in this
century (Asians as a whole are getting taller due to
improvements in pediatric medicine and nutrition,
mostly post-WWII.  This is most noticable among those
who have immigrated to first-world states which have
meat-heavy diets).  Saying "Most of these guys are
small and squirrelly and can fit into sniper hides you
wouldn't belive would hide a cat" would be valid. 
Saying that being small impairs their fighting ability
hasn't been valid since the 19th century when the
Japanese finally got over their moronic obsession with
blades and adopted real weapons.

John

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