Instructors: is no combat better?

Subject: Instructors: is no combat better?
From: Howard Berkowitz
Date: 3/9/04 8:32 AM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

Look at it another way. In the "grand old days", SAC had lots of pilots
and aircrew, many of which might have WWII or Korea or Viet Nam combat
experience. Let's say someone survived Linebacker and is now teaching.
How does that qualify them to teach a low-altitude nuclear delivery run
against the fUSSR?


How does anyone who hasn't done it teach it?



Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

How does anyone who hasn't done it teach it?



Arthur Kramer

You train in a way that can best emulate the methods and threats. Thats why
SAC crews training in low level penetration and weapons delivery. Places like
Top Gun, and when the USAF had dedicated aggressor squadrons, conducted
training that would probably be harder than the actual opponents one would have
flown against.

SAC crews would have certainly had the training to have been competent at
nuclear weapons delivery, without having to have actually bombed the USSR
beforehand.


Ron
Tanker 65, C-54E (DC-4)

In article ,
(ArtKramr) wrote:

Subject: Instructors: is no combat better?
From: Howard Berkowitz
Date: 3/9/04 8:32 AM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

Look at it another way. In the "grand old days", SAC had lots of pilots
and aircrew, many of which might have WWII or Korea or Viet Nam combat
experience. Let's say someone survived Linebacker and is now teaching.
How does that qualify them to teach a low-altitude nuclear delivery run
against the fUSSR?


How does anyone who hasn't done it teach it?

So no one who wasn't on Enola Gay or Bock's Car -- heck, I'll give you
the crews of the bomber-delivered nuclear test shots -- could possibly
be qualified to instruct in SAC?

(ArtKramr) wrote:

Since I started this thread on instructors who have have combat experience
versus those who have not, 100% of the replies were in favor of instructors who
have never been to combat.

Wrong. Favored instructors who have "never been to combat" are YOUR
words, not of those who replied. Go back and re-read the replies and
try to focus on the black parts (e.g: the words) and ignore the white
parts in between.

Many state that they would rather have an instructor who was skilled at
instructing suggesting that once you have been to combat you were
automatically a bad instructor. Hard to buy.

Wrong again. "Once you've been to combat you were automatically a
bad instructor" are YOUR words, not of those who replied. Go back and
re-read the replies and try to focus on the black parts (the words,
just the words) and ignore the white spaces in between the black
parts.

There is another factor. when you have an instructor who has never fought
and probably never will, and you know that you damn well will, he goes down
a notch in respect because he is in a job that "protects": him from combat while
you will soon be sent into the thick of it..

And once again, your simplistic, immature thought processes are all
wrong. I understand the urgency of the situation back in your day, but
your lack of a college education coupled with the hurried and
inadequate training you received in OTS is glaringly obvious still
to this day. The Army obviously allowed many marginal,
unteachable, snot-nosed, naive, "save-the-world-for-democracy"
idealistic 19-year old kids like you to slide on through the cracks
because as you're so fond of saying; "there was a war going on."
The unfortunate result of the Army rushing you off to war armed with
nothing but your contrived syllogisms, impaired logic and inability to
think critically is the pitiable and worsening case of Narcissistic
Personality Disorder from which you suffer.

So when we all talk of combat experiences and one among us
says " well I wasn't there, I was an instructor in the states" he is now
out of the loop..

Wrong again. Your consistently screwy logic shows that you're the
one whose "out of the loop," whether you realize it or not.

Not that his job wasn't critically important. It sure was. .

Congrats. The first CORRECT statement you've managed to say
in months, if not years....

At any rate things sure have changed since WW II.

Amazing. You're on a roll...the second CORRECT statement you've
managed to say in months if not years!

We considered a combat veteran as an instructor a gift from the gods.
Your mileage may vary.

Aren't you the squeeze ballsack who just the other day was sucking
up to Dudley, a NON-combat veteran? One of the many "facts of life"
lectures that you apparently missed during your inadequate and
abbreviated training back in the Dark Ages is that being trained by a
combat veteran is no guarantee of survival, and being trained by the
worst instructor in the squadron is no guarantee of death. It's called
it the "Golden BB" Rule. That's the one that gets you. Just ask the
unlucky ******* in the "high-tech" Apache who takes a stinkin' rocket
propelled grenade right up the snot locker.

As others have tried (in vain, I might add) to explain to you, when
talking about combat the variables are many and you don't specify
turn radius, climb rate, etc. and even if you did, there's always the
background...night or day, sun angle and umpteen other factors and
distractions that make the whole thing a crap shoot.

The bottom line is that simply because you happened to survive
combat that doesn't necessarily mean that you were GOOD in
combat. After all, we've only heard YOUR side of the story -- your
self-aggrandizing, mittyesque war stories constantly bragging about
how "good" you were and how "cowardly" everyone else was. But
until some other credible person steps forward and definitively backs
up all your boasts about how "good" Art Kramer was, taking anything
you say as the truth is at best, a leap of faith. And from where I'm
sitting, it appears that very few people are willing to take that
leap.

Since I started this thread on instructors who have have combat experience
versus those who have not, 100% of the replies were in favor of instructors
who
have never been to combat. Many state that they would rather have an
instructor
who was skilled at instructing suggesting that once you have been to combat
you were automatically a bad instructor. Hard to buy.

That is not what was said at all. What was being said, was that for flight/nav
instruction, it isnt going to make a difference if you are taught by a combat
vet, because you are still learning the very basics

Now once you get to where you are learning weapons, tactics, that is a
different story.


Ron
Tanker 65, C-54E (DC-4)

In article ,
362436 (Ron) wrote:

Since I started this thread on instructors who have have combat
experience
versus those who have not, 100% of the replies were in favor of
instructors
who
have never been to combat. Many state that they would rather have an
instructor
who was skilled at instructing suggesting that once you have been to
combat
you were automatically a bad instructor. Hard to buy.

That is not what was said at all. What was being said, was that for
flight/nav
instruction, it isnt going to make a difference if you are taught by a
combat
vet, because you are still learning the very basics

Now once you get to where you are learning weapons, tactics, that is a
different story.

I certainly didn't say combat experience would make you a bad
instructor. I said that it wouldn't make you a good instructor, even in
WWII, if you also didn't have decent instructional skills.

Today, combat doesn't necessarily mean that someone is up to speed on
the latest systems. The need for systems improvement may very well mean
that the people who used them most effectively are assigned to doctrinal
development, battle laboratories, etc., where they can both make that
knowledge available to more people, and also to use it to improve
systems.

Subject: Instructors: is no combat better?
From: Howard Berkowitz
Date: 3/9/04 1:06 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

In article ,
(Ron) wrote:

Since I started this thread on instructors who have have combat
experience
versus those who have not, 100% of the replies were in favor of
instructors
who
have never been to combat. Many state that they would rather have an
instructor
who was skilled at instructing suggesting that once you have been to
combat
you were automatically a bad instructor. Hard to buy.

That is not what was said at all. What was being said, was that for
flight/nav
instruction, it isnt going to make a difference if you are taught by a
combat
vet, because you are still learning the very basics

Now once you get to where you are learning weapons, tactics, that is a
different story.

I certainly didn't say combat experience would make you a bad
instructor. I said that it wouldn't make you a good instructor, even in
WWII, if you also didn't have decent instructional skills.

Today, combat doesn't necessarily mean that someone is up to speed on
the latest systems. The need for systems improvement may very well mean
that the people who used them most effectively are assigned to doctrinal
development, battle laboratories, etc., where they can both make that
knowledge available to more people, and also to use it to improve
systems.

I understand Point well taken.



Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

In article ,
(ArtKramr) wrote:

Subject: Instructors: is no combat better?
From: Howard Berkowitz
Date: 3/9/04 1:06 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

In article ,
(Ron) wrote:

Since I started this thread on instructors who have have combat
experience
versus those who have not, 100% of the replies were in favor of
instructors
who
have never been to combat. Many state that they would rather have an
instructor
who was skilled at instructing suggesting that once you have been to
combat
you were automatically a bad instructor. Hard to buy.

That is not what was said at all. What was being said, was that for
flight/nav
instruction, it isnt going to make a difference if you are taught by a
combat
vet, because you are still learning the very basics

Now once you get to where you are learning weapons, tactics, that is a
different story.

I certainly didn't say combat experience would make you a bad
instructor. I said that it wouldn't make you a good instructor, even in
WWII, if you also didn't have decent instructional skills.

Today, combat doesn't necessarily mean that someone is up to speed on
the latest systems. The need for systems improvement may very well mean
that the people who used them most effectively are assigned to doctrinal
development, battle laboratories, etc., where they can both make that
knowledge available to more people, and also to use it to improve
systems.

I understand Point well taken.

Thank you. Believe it or not, Art, I do listen and learn from many of
the things you write. I'd like to see this whole dialogue turn into one
from which everyone can learn.

WWII involved a huge number of techniques being tried for the first
time. The minuscule budgets of 1940 or so didn't allow more than the
most minimal training, and the press of combat didn't allow for much
experimentation. Things have changed. The Germans were a very credible
threat to what you had, but the 1991 Iraqis could at least have annoyed
them significantly. A lot of WWII lessons still were valid in Viet Nam,
until obsoleted.

I'd ask some of the people that went downtown during Viet Nam if they
can see some similarities to Art's bridge attacks and the attacks on the
Dragon's Jaw and Paul Doumer bridge BEFORE precision-guided weapons. But
once those early intelligent weapons were used, things started changing.

Subject: Instructors: is no combat better?
From: Howard Berkowitz
Date: 3/9/04 4:00 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

In article ,
(ArtKramr) wrote:

Subject: Instructors: is no combat better?
From: Howard Berkowitz
Date: 3/9/04 1:06 PM Pacific Standard Time
Message-id:

In article ,
(Ron) wrote:

Since I started this thread on instructors who have have combat
experience
versus those who have not, 100% of the replies were in favor of
instructors
who
have never been to combat. Many state that they would rather have an
instructor
who was skilled at instructing suggesting that once you have been to
combat
you were automatically a bad instructor. Hard to buy.

That is not what was said at all. What was being said, was that for
flight/nav
instruction, it isnt going to make a difference if you are taught by a
combat
vet, because you are still learning the very basics

Now once you get to where you are learning weapons, tactics, that is a
different story.

I certainly didn't say combat experience would make you a bad
instructor. I said that it wouldn't make you a good instructor, even in
WWII, if you also didn't have decent instructional skills.

Today, combat doesn't necessarily mean that someone is up to speed on
the latest systems. The need for systems improvement may very well mean
that the people who used them most effectively are assigned to doctrinal
development, battle laboratories, etc., where they can both make that
knowledge available to more people, and also to use it to improve
systems.

I understand Point well taken.

Thank you. Believe it or not, Art, I do listen and learn from many of
the things you write. I'd like to see this whole dialogue turn into one
from which everyone can learn.

WWII involved a huge number of techniques being tried for the first
time. The minuscule budgets of 1940 or so didn't allow more than the
most minimal training, and the press of combat didn't allow for much
experimentation. Things have changed. The Germans were a very credible
threat to what you had, but the 1991 Iraqis could at least have annoyed
them significantly. A lot of WWII lessons still were valid in Viet Nam,
until obsoleted.

I'd ask some of the people that went downtown during Viet Nam if they
can see some similarities to Art's bridge attacks and the attacks on the
Dragon's Jaw and Paul Doumer bridge BEFORE precision-guided weapons. But
once those early intelligent weapons were used, things started changing.


Excellant points all. But the marshalling yards were also fiercely defended.
And anything in the Ruhr Valley was defended to the death. But we really
didn't know very much. We just did what we were trained to do. And we just kept
doing it until the war ended. But I can honesrtly say that for us there were
very few surprises. It seemd as though we were trained to meet whatever
problems cropped up. And that is the way it was. And our instructors were all
combat vets which Iis why I brought the subject up in the first place.



Arthur Kramer
344th BG 494th BS
England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany
Visit my WW II B-26 website at:
http://www.coastcomp.com/artkramer

Ok tribe members, its time to cast your vote. Who wants Art off the island
?