does it make sense to read all this shit?
I'm currently reading and have read some FMs, MCDP, other books and memoirs.
my current list:
-ranger handbook
-infantry platoon and squad FM
-infantry company FM (almost finished)
-how to make war by dunnigan
-blood red snow
-infantry attacks by rommel
-supplying war by con creveld
-NC Scout baofeng guide
-mcdp 1 warfighting
-mcdp 2 campaigning
-shitton of yt videos (battle order, security guy, Christopher Larsen, OEC TV and alot of others)
so yeah I realize that I know stuff on the topic but at the same time it's such a vast world that I feel like I dont know shit and I'm just at 1%, and of course nothing matters if you dont get practice, I'll fix that shortly by enlisting in the coming months, but I wanted to know, are FMs good sources? any advice on learning?
I like FMs even tho they're dry as frick, i marked them down and now I need to make some condensed notes. I also fear forgetting what I learn due to not applying it irl.
I play military simulators to try and apply what I learn (graviteam, combat mission, armored brigade).
the amount of informations, and the need to practice and perfect it is overwhelming, plus I'm a moron because I waste time and procrastinate and that slows down my learning by a lot.
your question is moronicly huge/ambitious and hard to address as result. chop it down into what you're trying to do.
>remembering more and learning in general
one, there aren't "learning styles," just universal facts about optimal learning if you're a godlike algorithm and then all the things you will need to tweak based on ways that your thinkmeat deviates from optimal. spaced repetition is the baseline strat for remembering more. also google "deep work" for material on distractions, disruptions, and how flow states relate to your ability to comprehend and remember things.
>enlisting
how confident are you about that decision? because you are already demonstrating vastly more bookishness than you will find is the norm among your peers. most people in the military, including your COs, do as little reading as they can get away with. you might find your position in the hierarchy dissatisfying if you're stuck as a grunt unable to implement any of this stuff you've been reading.
>how confident are you about that decision?
very confident, I have no direction in life and my only interest is this, I cannot work a regular job I hate my life too much when doing it, and it would be a life I'd regret living, as even the one I'm doing rn is, I hope to be able to make a career and also deploy, im not American btw so that'll be even harder to do
>universal facts
what are they?
> does it make sense to read all this shit?
No. There is no book about drones in your reading list. Drones make all this obsolete. The paradigm has shifted, stop learning about musket formations in the era of assault rifles.
just to spite this fricker, keep ur thread alive for a day or two so a few of us can chime in OP. i (be >>
) gotta bounce for a bit but I can follow up some later.
No. Half of it is super high level organizational concepts and all of it is written extremely poorly. By poorly, I mean a study recently released that found the average army FM to be at the same reading level as PhD level content and an esoteric thesis about quantum physics and particles I forgot the name of had a substantially easier reading level in comparison
I forgot to add the only things worth keeping on this list as an enlisted man is the ranger handbook regardless of your mos because it has useful fieldcraft. Other than that, its all academic shit or super MOS specific niche stuff 99% of people will never need to know and that will barely be touched by people below the rank of E-6 or 7. If you ever need any of these books in a military career people will tell you.
I focus on the squad platoon and company level stuff, us the ones on operations, offense and defence, and warfare in types of terrain, likenjungle warfare, MOUT, mountain warfare
btw what do giga officers do? like brigade, division, corps, army, commanders
and is the very verbose stuff that's written in the FMs actually followed and studied by actual officers?
>I mean a study recently released that found the average army FM to be at the same reading level as PhD level content
I mean this shit is unironically super complicated.
I'm not trying to insult you anon but FMs read like technical documentation for a reason. They are attempting to spell out, in autistic detail, exactly how doctrine works in an attempt to have a physical written down copy of it. This is a very good thing, but it's also difficult for most people to understand without a reasonable level of intelligence (that everyone here has I'm not insulting you or anyone in this thread) and as you've pointed out a lot of time and attention.
They're still great resources.
>a study recently released that found the average army FM to be at the same reading level as PhD level content
Gonna need sauce on that chief.
Probably not unless you just enjoy reading. If you enlist, you'll be trained in what your military thinks you need to know and how they want you to do it. Doesn't make any sense to learn it one way only to have to learn it another, and it's how the instructor is teaching it that's going to be the standard you're held to.
>I cannot work a regular job I hate my life too much when doing it,
Not sure why you think the military is a fix to something like this.
>Not sure why you think the military is a fix to something like this.
because it's my passion and what I want to do, and I dont have much else to do in life
I know about all the bullshit that comes with it that people complain about but I dont care, it's the only thing I want to do so I must at the very least try
>probably not
understanding tactics and military concepts, unit organizations, the various roles, techniques on how to use equipment etc seems useful to know regardless, gives you a better understanding
>it's my passion and what I want to do
Military has a way of sucking the joy out of anything. Grass isn't always greener on the other side. In fact, sometimes it's a field of mud and dog shit.
>seems useful to know regardless, gives you a better understanding
Again, your army is going to teach you what it wants you to know and to their standard. If military skills interest you as a hobby that's one thing but I don't see an upside to reporting for training and having to re-learn things because the instructor is doing things differently or the standard isn't what you've read. Plus time is a finite resource, don't waste it studying/practicing things that are irrelevant to your position/army.
But you be you.
better to go and not like it than not doing shit based on the possibility of not liking it, especially when I have such an interest for it
>Military has a way of sucking the joy out of anything. Grass isn't always greener on the other side. In fact, sometimes it's a field of mud and dog shit.
Same with making a career out of any hobby.
>Gonna need sauce on that chief.
same
i did a quick google and didn't find anything about that, although historically there was a ninth grade reading level in servicemen, and technical manuals were often college level or higher
https://www.jstor.org/stable/43086724
https://www.ldac.army.mil/api/resources/documents/tmss/MIL-HDBK-1222F_Final.pdf
section 7.4.2 explains how to determine reading grade level
MIL-STD-40051 states
IETMs shall be written for the target audience. RGL shall be as specified by the acquiring activity
Okay:
1) develop a sense for patterns of fluff
2) understand there is a clunkyness amd dryness, which causes them to phrase basic common-sense ideas with a wall of text
3) a fair portion of this is [THIS PAGE LEFT INTENTIONALLY BLANK] and repetitions across multiple publications
(replying myself)
Change "clunkiness" to "formalism"
The formality of the style hinders comprehension.
If you bear that in mind, and translate it to plain talk, you can get a bit further.
pump and dump
hump and rump
Start with the Soldier Manual of Common Tasks/Warrior Tasks and Battle Drills. The youtube videos you listed are fun to watch and think about, but mostly useless for an anon.
Is that baofeng book any good? The reviews said it was a lot of wasted space and the guys "podcast" on the baofeng was a complete waste of time and makes me think the guy sucks.
its decent, it has some basic tips on ways to use it more appropriately