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| 3 FEB 2009 at 5:11am |
bayonetbrantColonel
Posts : 7052
Joined: 18 MAR 2007
Status : Offline | Spent a day with the German Army back in the '80s. Pleasant enough people, but like most REMF pogues, I wouldn't've wanted to depend on that particular unit to hold my flank in a defense...
Check out GrogNews for wargaming / mil news.
http://grognews.blogspot.com
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| 3 FEB 2009 at 5:51am |
Koa KahikoCenturion
Posts : 39
Joined: 20 OCT 2007
Location: 0
Status : Online | The Kiwis:
Back in the early '70s, I had the great pleasure of participating in a "home and away" swap of platoons between the New Zealand army and the 25th Infantry Division. They sent an all-star platoon picked from all the units in their small army to Schofield Barracks for 30-days - our platoon won a division-wide competition, earning the right to spend 30 days down under.In New Zealand we alternated between very rigorous training in the Alps and visiting pubs where "you're money's no good, Yank" was sweet music to our ears. They were well-trained, well-disciplined troops. Word of advice: DO NOT play rugby with Maoris!! Our platoon held its own in field exercises over there. We had a fine platoon leader and very good NCOs.
Once back at Schofield (trip over was in a USAF C-141, the return trip to Hickam was in a rattling old RNZAF C-130, buggers did the Haka when they deplaned), we worked with the Kiwi platoon in field exercises out on the Schofield East Range, up in the Koolau mountains. They were equally impressed with our lavish equipment and delicious mess hall cuisine (Kiwis eat way too much mutton as army chow), but they made us look like second raters when they stood formation and marched. Lots of snap and pop.
I still have my Royal New Zeland Infantry Regiment beret badge.
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| 3 FEB 2009 at 6:30am |
SmuckatelliColonel
Posts : 7965
Joined: 8 JUN 2004
Location: US
Status : Offline | British Royal Marines
Dutch Royal Marines
Spanish Marines
French Marines
German Army
Norwegian Army
French Foreign Legion
Jordanian Army
Kuwaiti Army
Egyptian Army
Saudi Army
Singapore
Malaysian Army
Australian Army
Thai Marines
Philippine Marines
Japanese Ground Self Defense Force
ROK Marines
Each countries forces had good and bad things about it, the good always outweighed the bad by a large percentage.
The ones that made the biggest impression on me were the Brits & ROKs. My lead instructor for technical climbing in Bridgeport CA was a Royal Marine Color Sergeant as was my lead instructor at the Over the Horizon Navigation Course in Coronado.
The ROKs were without a doubt the hardest; physically and mentally.
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| 3 FEB 2009 at 6:56am |
LongBladeGeneral
Posts : 20586
Joined: 2 MAY 2003
Status : Offline | I've trained with What Army.
As in "You and what army?" []
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| 3 FEB 2009 at 7:19am |
ChelcoCenturion
Posts : 758
Joined: 14 APR 2004
Location: US
Status : Offline | Smuckateli: [sm=00000116.gif]
I don't have military training at all, but I hope this counts.
Argentina's Army:
As a civilian, volunteer firefighter, got a whole month of training with a "Buzo Tactico" (special forces of Argentina) detachment. For scuba diving and rescue in deep water, only (I wished some sort of gunnery thing, but no avail)
Chilean Army:
Again as a civilian, volunteer firefighter, got three weeks of parachuting. The idea of forming a sort of "smoke jumper" team for my hometown region. Got five jumps! The idea never went through because we then realized that the Argentine Army wouldn't fly us to the fires. Ok, maybe we knew this was going to be the case, but how could we have resisted the offer?
Peru's Army:
Survival course in desert regions. Again for the firefighter thing. That was fun, and cold.
Boy, I was crazy and young by then.
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| 3 FEB 2009 at 7:49am |
BesilariusCommander
Posts : 1543
Joined: 14 NOV 2003
Status : Offline | Seawolf, didn't really train with the army, but while Destroyer Squadron 12 was homeported in Athens, Greece (1972-75) worked with them and trained with the local navies.
The Greek Army, at that point, was not top-notch. The colonels junta had taken over the government, and the army was verging on becoming their bodyguards.
Was able to observe the Turkish invasion of Cyprus, and that operation was well organized and executed. The Greek Cypriots (militia) was not able to withstand the Turks, and the Greek Army could not intervene.
The biggest maneuver we saw was when the colonels were overthrown, and the army cordoned off all american facilities. They brought tanks up (their armored forces depot was only three miles from our piers) and closed off the main gate. This was a problem because the families had brought the crewmen in just about the time the base was cordoned.
A really tough looking tanker at first would not let the wives and children out. Torpedoman Trigg's wife strode up to him and made sure he got a good whiff of her kid's diaper. "Are you going to change this?"
He let the families back out.
Both navies were pretty decent, although the ships were all retired World War II combatants, and looking pretty tired.
The most exciting ship in the Greek navy was a real surprise. The squadron was to be homported in Elefsis, inside the Bay of Salamis. We were going down the channel for the first time and were utterly shocked.
There was an Italian cruiser from Mussolini's navy! The former Eugenio di Savoia was tied up, bow in, and way too low in the water, but it was impressive.
Later I wanted to visit the ship, but she was decrepit. A naval inspector told me that on his last visit he was able to poke a pencil through the hull and see daylight. After about a year, she disappeared, and we were told she was scrapped.
"When I must choose an officer to perform an act that requires a good brain, everything else being equal, I choose the one with the biggest nose." - Napoleon
"If you'll believe that, you'll believe anything." - the Duke of Wellington
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| 3 FEB 2009 at 9:33am |
carldj52Centurion
Posts : 41
Joined: 3 JAN 2005
Location: US
Status : Offline | rok marines '70 da nang
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| 5 FEB 2009 at 9:17am |
SLAAKMANCommander
Posts : 1109
Joined: 10 MAY 2001
Status : Offline | We jumped with some Italian army officers from the Folgore Brigade in 1979 at Ft Bragg when I was in the 82nd Abn Div. Also had lunch with Phillipine Chief of Staff General Ramos at about that same time. Good training.[image]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b7/Ramos_Pentagon.jpg/225px-Ramos_Pentagon.jpg[/image]
"I thought we should act as their protector -- not try to get them under our heel.... But now -- why, we have got into a mess, a quagmire from which each fresh step renders the difficulty of extrication immensely greater."
MARK TWAIN
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| 5 FEB 2009 at 2:29pm |
jejo68Centurion
Posts : 649
Joined: 15 NOV 2001
Status : Online | trained with
Canadian army
USMC
US army
British army
British army
British army. Did I mention the danish army trains alot with the british
Swedish army
dutch army
German army
One of my fondest memories was when a german batallion went to train with us just after the unification.
Was so cool "fighting" the enemies driving warsaw pact vehicles instead of using red tape to simulate enemies.
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| 5 FEB 2009 at 10:24pm |
e4_demoteableCenturion
Posts : 183
Joined: 5 JUN 2006
Status : Offline | British army in the early 90's. Good troops with very cool personal gear.
Didn't train with the koreans but I got to see the training in action once. In my AIT class at Ft. Sam in Texas we had a former korean marine sgt. He enlisted in the us army with the understanding that he would be posted back in korea for at least a year to be close to family and to work on his english skills. You could understand what he wanted but he needed some work. The army in it's usual efficiency cut he orders for germany. That night I witnessed this quiet 125lbs man get blind stinking drunk and turn the largest redneck in the bar into a bloody mess in less than a minate. He even appologized to the guy and helped him up twice just so he could kick him in the head again.
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