Month: December 2013

What is a Firebase?

Fred Childs Posts , ,

The nonsoldier doesn’t know what a firebase is and to explain it I went to the internet to get some information.  So here is the story:

A fire support base (FSB, firebase or FB) is a military encampment designed to provide indirect fire artillery fire support to infantry operating in areas beyond the normal range of direct fire support from their own base camps.

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An FSB was normally a permanent encampment, though many were dismantled when the units that they supported moved. Their main components varied by size: small bases usually had a battery of six 105 millimeter or 155mm howitzers, a platoon of engineers permanently on station, a Landing Zone (LZ), a Tactical Operations Center (TOC), an aid station staffed with medics, a communications bunker, and a company of infantry. Large FSBs might also have two artillery batteries, and an infantry battalion. Continue reading →

Private Military Contractors in Vietnam

Sniper Ghost Posts

CCa

Throughout history, military forces have depended on civilian contractors of one sort or another to give their military personnel flexibility, or to fulfill logistical and support functions that soldiers do not need to do.

In ancient and medieval history up until at least the 1600s, it was not unusual to depend on armies made up primarily of mercenaries and civilian support.  George Washington’s Continental Army depended on civilians for a variety of support roles: transportation, carpentry, engineering, food and medicine. These were logistical functions, considered either menial or too specialized to expect soldiers to do them. Frenchman Marquis de Lafayette was one of the first Military Contractors in the US. In 1777, he purchased a ship, and with a crew of adventurers set sail for America to fight in the American Revolution against British colonial rule. Continue reading →