I have never seen this docudrama, but from what I have read about it I feel that every soldier, marine, sailor, and airman should check it out as I will when I am able.
From what I have read this docudrama depicts life in the 92nd Buffalo Division during WWII. For those of you military ring customers who may not be familiar with the term “buffalo” it is a term which used to be applied to American soldiers of African descent.
Inside Buffalo tells the story of an army which was vastly different from our Army of today. In the 1940’s according to the account given by 92nd Division veteran Joseph Stephenson there was a quota set for the number of blacks that the Army would accept. He had to apply to every buffalo soldier unit that he could find in order to be admitted into the military. When ha was accepted he never went through basic training.
Our military has come a long way since that time. Now we have a multicultural military. We have sold military rings to people of many different heritages, and races. I would always feel proud when we deployed to other countries and they were able to see that America is truly a meltingpot for all people.
The Chinese are just about ready to launch their new J-10 Multirole Jet Fighter this year. This new fighter has been in development for a number of years and will rival the Air Force’s F-16. It will be available on the international market. Pakistan may purchase 70 of the J-10’s in lieu of adding additional F-16’s for its Air Force because the J-10 costs about 1/2 the price of the F-16.
The J-10 has a maximum air speed of 683 miles per hour. and is extremely maneuverable. It also has a heads up display and an infrared search and tracking system.
For those of you military ring customers who have been reading the posts on this site you may have noticed that I have done numerous posts on China. They have been working hard to modernize their Navy and the rest of their armed forces for many years. I say that they want to be the worlds next superpower.
Chengdu, who is the company which makes the J-10 is seeking to produce a carrier based version of this aircraft.
Mission Oriented Protective Posture (MOPP)
MOPP refers to the amount of chemical protective equipment that the battlefield soldier must wear. The soldier is given a projected chemical threat level which is based on the chances that he will be attacked by some sort of chemical or biological agent.
If chances of a chemical or biological attack are high the soldier will go to the highest level of protection which you see in the picture here (MOPP 4). Here they are wearing protective suits, boots, gloves, and a gas mask. The suits are loaded with activated charcoal to absorb chemical agents. The boots and gloves which tuck under the suit are waterproof, and the mask filters the air that he breathes.
The MOPP suit is only good for a few hours of use. The soldiers have to go through a decontammination process as soon as possible. Every military ring customer who has ever had to wear a MOPP suit knows how hot and uncomfortable they can be. They were sheer torture in the hot months of the year.They are necessary for the protection of our soldiers so you just had to deal with it.
This antipersonnel mine was made famous during the Vietnam war and I am sure that there is not a Vietnam war ring customer out there who doesn’t know about it.
This is an excellent directional mine when used against attacking infantry because it fires and scatters hundreds of small steel balls in a wide semicircle. These balls are very effective against personnel and it can be effective up to 100 meters away although the balls do travel further.
This mine is best when used as a defensive weapon. There are several ways that it can be detonated. The best is by command detonation. When the firer sees the enemy within range he will manually detonate the mine.
This mine is also excellent when it is used in ambushes. Another tactic is to overlap the coverage of several of these mines so that you can get better coverage on your enemy.
The bandolier is a cloth belt worn by troops to help them to carry various types of military equipment and ammunition. It can be used to carry ammunition, grenades, magazines, and many other kinds of military equipment.
The bandolier is mainly used nowadays by machine gunners and those who operate automatic weapons to help carry all of the extra ammunition that they use in combat.
It is convenient because it provides a way to carry much more than they are able to carry any other way. The ammunition is also easier to get to because it is right there. The operator doesn’t have to try to find the ammunition and it is easy to reach if he is in a hurry. This is a practical invention which has made its mark in our military. I don’t know when it was first used but I’m sure that some of you astute military ring customers out there can tell me.
What is the Definition of a High Value Target
You may have heard the term high value target mentioned before. This term is applied at 
all levels of military training and refers to the priority which is given to military targets. Some examples of high value targets include enemy command and control elements.
To give you an example of this if you had two confirmed enemy targets that you could attack; one being a small unit of infantry soldiers, or the other being a group of high ranking people in the enemy organization, which would you attack first? The best thing to do would be to attack the leaders. You would do more damage to the enemy that way because when you destroy them you also destroy their influence and the effects that they would have on the battle by their knowledge and leadership.
Normally the lower level soldiers just execute as they are told so if there isn’t anyone there to give them orders they won’t have a clear direction or objective.
You military ring customers who have been in military planning sessions know that you assign a value to every single type of target that you expect to find on the battlefield. You military ring customers who are leaders know that the value of a target may change from more to less or vice versa depending on the tactical situation.
The term “zone of fire” refers to the area of responsibility which is assigned to military weapons in actual combat.
Contrary to probably what popular belief is, every person who fires a military weapon in combat form the rifleman up to the most advanced fighter jet pilot is assigned an area of responsibility for his weapon. Troops don’t ordinarily just shoot at whatever target that they happen to see. They are assigned a zone or sector to watch. The individual soldier or fighter pilot, etc. is responsible for killing everything unfriendly in his zone.
So now I hear you thinking grasshopper. You are saying what if a soldier gets killed and can’t cover his zone effectively? Well the answer to that is very simple. The zones overlap so that half of your zone is covered by the person on the opposite side of you if you are an infantry ring customer. If you are one of my pilot’s ring customers you will have an assigned area on the ground to use your weapons. If you are a pilot who didn’t get to use his weapons you may be given another zone with known enemy positions or you may proceed to the free fire area where you can fire at any target which presents itself.
A battle hand off is when a unit which is in contact with the enemy hands the conflict over to a unit which has not been involved in the battle.
There are many reasons that the battle may be handed off from one unit to another. Some of which are; the unit engaged may have suffered significant casualties and needs to be taken out of combat for rest, rearming, and refitting; the battle plan may have been for the unit being replaced to delay the enemy advance for a while and then to withdraw; in a retrogade operation all of the withdrawing units hand the battle off as they withdraw. The purpose is to conduct a leapfrog like operation and withdraw until other units can be brought into play.
The battle handoff can be a complicated maneuver but combat arms military ring customers train regularily on its execution so it is second nature to them. The battle handoff is normally associated with a withdrawal type of operation but this is not always the case.
The Army units that I was a part of trained on the battle handoff but you don’t expect to have to use it much. Those of you military ring customers who are Veterans of the Korean War may have actually used this maneuver in actual combat.
The North American Aerospace Defense Command
This is the current name for NORAD which began out of the cold war fear of Soviet strategic nuclear bombers being able to attack the United States and Canada.
This is another one of those military operations that you might hear about but don’t ever really know anything about. I can tell you what I read but it doesn’t honestly give any information.
This was the first time that NATO mobilized in the defense of one of its fellow members. It bagan in Oct 2001 as a result of the bombing of the world trade center on Sep 11th of that year. There is obviously much more to this than meets the eye but we probably won’t ever know the full scope and truth of this operation. I even doubt if there are many military ring members that know many of the answers.
In this operation NATO AWACs from 13 different member nations flew over 4,300 hours of mission time over the skies of the United States. The operation ended in May of 2002 when the US felt that it had done whatever was needed to enhance its protective posture against terrorists attacks.