Re: FW: MP organization

--- David Rodemaker <dar@horusinc.com> wrote:

> PS - By the way - those "garrison turds" you were
> referring to?  They're
> exactly the same folks that pull combat duty - US
> Army MP's rotate out
> between road duty and field duty.  <smile>

They just seem like different people in Kosovo than
they are in garrison pulling me over at 0200 because
I'm in a wee bit of a hurry to get home.  Besides
that, I got a bit soured on garrison MPs when I found
out that the two MP platoons we had at our kaserne in
Germany had to strip another MP unit of troops to
deploy because they had lost 23 (out of about 70
total) of their troops to a sting operation involving
a heroin ring.

> Understand, too, that the MP corps is only about 35
> years old at the moment.

*Blink, blink*	 I'm pretty sure we had MPs in WWII. 
How did that work?

> Back when I first started out as a platoon leader,
> each team consisted of 1
> Hummer, 1 M-60, 1 M203/M16 combo, 2 M16's, 3 9mm (or
> 3 .45's, depending on
> whether the Berettas had been fielded yet.)

That's a little more rational. . . 

> actually supposed to carry the SAW in addition to
> the M16 originally
> assigned, but that's a pretty ridiculous way to
> handle weapons, so we

I don't see how that works at all from the standpoint
of simply arranging these things on your body to
carry, so I agree.

> wisdom.  Worst case, you
> locked the extra M16 down in your vehicle if you had
> a mission where
> carrying a SAW was a bad idea, and traded it out for
> the SAW as needed.

Theoretically:	On those missions where you didn't
need a SAW, would it make more sense to have a 12ga?

> So a slightly more realistic version of the armament
> a team would *actually*
> be carrying in the field is 1 Hummmer, 1 .50 cal or
> 1 Mk19 or 1 M60, 1
> M203/M16, 1 SAW, 1 or 2 M16s, 3 9mm pistols.

Much better.
 
> That's because the platoon HQ squad is a joke - it
> doesn't exist, but it
> should.

Oh.

> Essentially, you have a 10th Hummer, with the
> platoon leader, platoon
> sergeant, and a driver.  This setup does *not* work,

And the genius that thought this up?  

Analogous setup in Engineers--we don't have any
drivers authorized for our PL or PSG.  We have
vehicles for them, but no drivers, so they get pulled
from the line squads.  

> so what happens in
> practice is that the squads get stripped of people
> so that the PL had a
> personal team and the PSG has one as well.  Or, if

Now, how do these teams operate?  Junior man obviously
drives, but does the team leader sit on the right seat
and the guy in the middle man (SPC, I presume?) the
gun?  And is that enough dismounts?  Would a fourth
man be better?	If a squad needs to dismount to do
whatever, do you just pull the trucks over and leave a
guy to watch then, or a driver each, or full crews?

> What *should* exist is a six man HQ squad - 2
> Hummers, 1 PSG, 1 PL, 2
> drivers, 2 gunners.	Oh.  And while we're dreaming,
> I'd like a medic, a
> commo guy, and a maintenance guy.  We're never
> deployed close enough to
> company HQ to actually get our support from company
> without a huge hassle.

Hrm. . . Now that's the sort of info I need as
well--what should there be?  Given that you want a
medic, commo, and mechanic, whose vehicles do they
ride in?  I figure you can fit one, maybe two each in
with your PSG and the PL.  Should the PSG get an
unarmed cargo HMMWV instead of an uparmored one with a
.50 cal?
 
> Ooh - if I get to dream a little bit more, let's
> dump that garrison duty stuff altogether and stop 
> pretending that MP's can be both good cops and
> good combat MP's.  It's not possible.  What you get
> are people who are lousy cops and nowhere near as 
> good in the field as they should be until they're
> thrown into a combat assignment, and suddenly all
> that cop stuff goes out the window and they get to 
> learn all those infantry tactics that they've
> been claiming they shouldn't have to bother with. 
> <grin>

I've always assumed that divisional MPs focused on
fighting and MP brigade MPs focused on being cops. 
That made sense to me--after all, engineers in the
division focus far more on combat than construction so
I guess I assumed that was how it was with everyone. 
If that were the setup you'd still have people hopping
back and forth between field and garrison units
through their career, but any given unit would keep
the same focus.  And I've never been pulled over by a
divisional MP, always an MP brigade MP.

John

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