Article

[CrazyCanuck]

This article was in the Queen‘s campus newspaper, The Journal:

-part 1

-part 2

 

[Pikache]

The Canadian Forces, as well as most of the armies signed on to the Geneva convention (in theory), shoot to wound rather than kill.

WTF?

Generally a decently written article, except for the glaring error above. (And the fact that he wore a ‘No War‘ shirt to a military base. Silly)

 

[Evan]

i thought it was a good article, it didn‘t seem to portry the CF in any bad light, except maybe the chain saw thingy wich seemed to be kinda overbored on the reserves part, but all in all i thought it was fairly good.

 

[Michael OLeary]

That we train to wound rather than kill is a common misinterpretation of articles from the Brussels Protocol of 1874 up to the Geneva conventions in which signatory nations agree not to cause "unnecessary suffering" of combatants. This approach restricts the use of such things as dum-dum or expanding (hollow point) bullets, hence the full jacketed bullet as a military norm. The expectation that this wounds rather than kills (barring shock and loss of blood) when vital organs aren‘t hit has often led to the belief that we try to wound rather than kill. It‘s also supported by the theory that a wounded soldier makes greater demands on the enemy‘s resources than a dead one, and is therefore advantageous at a tactical and operational level (ex, demands on medical and transport to save lives in order to maintain morale).

It‘s an incorrect interpretation, but not a new one. Historically we may not want soldiers to suffer needlessly but it doesn‘t mean we‘re not committed to killing them to decrease the opposition on the spot.

We do, after all, aim for the centre of mass.

A few related links:

International humanitarian law

The Ethics of War

 

[Michael OLeary]

And I do hope that reporter is just a poor judge of distance:

On reserve: winter warfare continued
Part 2 of 2
T O P S T O R Y - By Omar El Akkad, Production Manager

Essentially, the grenade simulator is nothing more than a quarter stick of dynamite. The sound of the blast grows exponentially as the grenade simulator is thrown closer. At about 30 feet away, the simulator made a loud bang; at 10 feet the explosion felt like a thud in my chest.

B-GL-381-001/TS-000
OPERATIONAL TRAINING
TRAINING SAFETY

137. Thunderflashes. Thunderflashes shall
NOT be thrown within 5 m of personnel, and 25 m
of volatile material, equipment and vehicles.

 

[Ex-Dragoon]

Since when is the C7 more powerful then the M16?

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Originally posted by Ex-Dragoon:
[qb] Since when is the C7 more powerful then the M16? [/qb]

Since when do they have nozzles?

Ex-Dragoon, as for "more powerful", they must be using the new C7A2, cause whatever he was shooting sounded nothing like the C7 we all know and love; check out this quote from the article (emphasis added):

Nonetheless, the C7 still had some kick to it, and the frigid temperatures made aiming even more difficult.

Hope he iced his shoulder down after the weekend, wouldn‘t want him to get nerve damage! Must be some new kind of mod to the C7.

It‘s obviously a kind of "no-$hit" article, but you know what, that‘s no excuse. This was written for University students. How positively chilling that you have to talk to University students like they are grade schoolers - "it would be bad to wave your hands into the blades of a helicopter", or that this dude doesn‘t know what a "muzzle" is. I guess I can live with the use of "clip" also (he was talking about a magazine). But the deep revelation that (gasp) the Canadian Army buys in bulk - shocking! We‘re not exactly individual boy scout troops, what would anyone expect?

Soldiers are very eager to talk about their weapons. The soldier manning a machine gun spent 15 minutes telling us about its effective range, its accuracy and its dimensions, mentioning every detail as though it was pivotal, which in his line of work, it probably was.

"Probably"?

Sorry, if this was a civvie newspaper aimed at Joe Quarry Worker, I could understand it, but for something like this to appear in a University newspaper...that‘s just plain pathetic and sad.

If this is the extent of the author‘s ability, he doesn‘t have much of a future ahead of him.

 

[Enzo]

"The other half had already done the course,"

"and they looked at me like I was an idiot." Sorry, smiled at that.

"and it occurred to me that the reserves could also offer a war correspondent training course here without changing much."

I suppose his heart was in the right place, but this article is awful. it is rife with misconceptions and slang ‘acquired‘ from watching too many war movies. The best moment from a personal perspective was the ‘pain‘ inflicted from firing the C7 with blanks. As for the ‘power‘ comment, he himself doesn‘t know any better and I‘d let that pass if he were expressing a personal opinion; however, this was a published article, so he had an obligation to perform his job as a professional and that requires verifying everything that is printed, including the many errors and technical misnomers.

Good for a laugh though...

 

[Spr.Earl]

Originally posted by Ex-Dragoon:
[qb] Since when is the C7 more powerful then the M16? [/qb]

If my old gray matter remember‘s correctly,the M16 has only 4 twist‘s in the barrel where we have 5 and the M16 round is a 56/57 grain round where ours is a 62/63 grain round plus more propelent.
Correct me if I‘m wrong.

 

[clasper]

I‘ve just gotta pipe up here since this is a newspaper at my alma mater talking about the squadron I was in.

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:
[qb] Sorry, if this was a civvie newspaper aimed at Joe Quarry Worker, I could understand it, but for something like this to appear in a University newspaper...that‘s just plain pathetic and sad.
[/qb]

Kingston, as a city, is quite pro-military. Queen‘s students, however, tend to be very ignorant of the military, despite the presence of CFB Kingston and RMC in the city. When I was a student there (92-97) I never encountered open hostility towards the military, but the prevailing sentiment was more like "what would you do THAT for?" It‘s unfortunate (and pathetic and sad), but they do require basic-level introductions to the military like this one.

As for The Journal‘s reporting integrity, remember that these are students (not even journalism students- those kids go to Carleton) that are doing this in their spare time. The Journal isn‘t even the most widely read campus paper. It doesn‘t surprise me at all that they misspelled WO Price‘s name in the first half of the article. They just aren‘t professional reporters.

 

[CrazyCanuck]

I‘ve just gotta pipe up here since this is a newspaper at my alma mater talking about the squadron I was in.

Kingston, as a city, is quite pro-military. Queen‘s students, however, tend to be very ignorant of the military, despite the presence of CFB Kingston and RMC in the city. When I was a student there (92-97) I never encountered open hostility towards the military, but the prevailing sentiment was more like "what would you do THAT for?" It‘s unfortunate (and pathetic and sad), but they do require basic-level introductions to the military like this one.

As for The Journal‘s reporting integrity, remember that these are students (not even journalism students- those kids go to Carleton) that are doing this in their spare time. The Journal isn‘t even the most widely read campus paper. It doesn‘t surprise me at all that they misspelled WO Price‘s name in the first half of the article. They just aren‘t professional reporters.

You were in the Res EW Sqn? What trade?

I just dropped of my application for Res EW yesterday.

Oh, and I‘d love to see a GOlden Words article on the Reserves.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

clasper - points taken, and thank you for clarifying.

However, do the students there really need to be told not to wave their hands into spinning helicopter blades?

I guess if buddy is not even a journalism student I can let him off the hook. Kudos to him for at least taking an interest.

 

[clasper]

Originally posted by Michael Dorosh:
[qb]
However, do the students there really need to be told not to wave their hands into spinning helicopter blades?
[/qb]

Michael-
Part of me wants to say "absolutely, there are some pretty stupid people in university", but after slamming The Journal‘s integrity, it‘s time to come their defense. The bit about the helicopter blades is attempting to illustrate (in a pathetically humourous way) to the masses that soldiers work in a hazardous environment, and not all of the hazards come from enemy bullets. For students whose biggest hazard involves alcohol poisoning, this may be enlightening. The stereotypical Queen‘s student is an uppper middle class kid who has never faced a serious hazard in his/her life. Common sense in the face of cool whirligigs and small amounts of explosives is not necessarily guaranteed. Of course there are lots of students who don‘t fit that stereotype, but the author felt the need to express the thoughts that he had during his (probably first) experience with a helicopter, and that probably resonated with other like-minded individuals in university.

 

[clasper]

Originally posted by CrazyCanuck:
[qb] You were in the Res EW Sqn? What trade?[/qb]

CrazyCanuck-

Since you‘re still a civilian, I‘ll spare you some of my natural sarcasm. My profile has my MOC, but if you don‘t know what that means yet, take a look at my signature- it‘s my branch motto, and it translates as "From darkness, light". If you‘re not sure which branch would have a motto like that, there‘s another clue in the title underneath my avatar. If you still don‘t know, ask a nice man named Topolinsky next time you‘re in the squadron lounge- he‘ll explain it to you.

[qb]
Oh, and I‘d love to see a GOlden Words article on the Reserves. [/qb]

Canada‘s Other National Newspaper would probably have an interesting take on the military. It might not be as factual as The Journal‘s article, but it would be funny as ****.

 

[CrazyCanuck]

Ah yes,. I missed ... all of that

Did you have to join as a Signals Operator and then apply to be an "intel weenie"?

And I‘m guessing you did engineering at Queens, eh? What discipline?

 

[CrazyCanuck]

**** Dity Double Post

 

[stukirkpatrick]

Since when is the C7 more powerful then the M16?

Another possible explanation for this is how the C7A1 is still fully automatic, while M16s aren‘t anymore

 

[Ex-Dragoon]

Originally posted by Kirkpatrick:
[qb]

Since when is the C7 more powerful then the M16?

Another possible explanation for this is how the C7A1 is still fully automatic, while M16s aren‘t anymore [/qb]

Power to me means hitting power not rate of fire. Besides the M16A3 is full auto...as is the old M16A1.

 

[clasper]

The muzzle velocity of the C7A2 is 940 m/s.

http://www.diemaco.com/product_pdf/C7A2-webproductsheet.pdf

M16A2: 884 m/s.

http://infopedia.ruv.net/m1/M16.html

The differences in speed arise from the twist in the rifling. The early M16 had fewer twists, therefore a higher muzzle velocity (975 m/s), but the slow twist let the bullet tumble at long range. Newer models have more twist, hence less tumble downrange, and more accuracy.

But the C7‘s higher muzzle velocity means the bullet leaves the weapon with more kinetic energy, which can be interpreted as "power".

 

[hoganshero]

I have to ask clasper (the name sounds famialiar) when wre you at ResEW? We may have worked together.
I was only there for 98/99. No Helicopters when I did winter warfare. **** for one of the weekends we didn‘t even get blanks.