Army meatheads...

[Lancer44]

During my stay in the army I met a few individuals which were living proof that old joke about three kinds of intelligence: animal intelligence, human intelligence and military intelligence, is deadly right.

One day we had theoretical lecture about ballistics, barrel elevation angles etc, as always is in the artillery units and perhaps particularly AAA.
Our captain was from old soviet school, but tried to catch up with more modern technology. This time - it was 1978 - he produced electronic calculator and tried to calculate sinus of the barrel angle elevation.
He pressed buttons laboriously long after we finished our calculations and finally come with result that sinus of the angle was 2.5.
One of us - cadet, stood up and said:
- It's impossible, captain.
Captain looked at him and after a few seconds replied:
- In combat conditions sinus of the elevation angle can be much higher than normal!

Couple of the days later we received brand new AK-47s. (We called them Carbine AK - I never heard name AK-47 before my migration to Australia...).
Our captain entered area where we cleaned our new guns on the tables - they were preserved with sort of a very greasy sticky substance, very difficult to remove.
The same cadet, (friend of mine), stood to attention and asked for permission to ask question.
- Permission granted -said captain.
- This gun stock is made from very nice birch tree. Is it possible to replace it with stock made from genealogical tree?
Captain looked at him for more than 10 seconds before answering:
- In combat conditions - yes!

Cheers,

Lancer44

[Jim O]

Probably a perfect example of the Peter Principle.

[Lancer44]

Originally Posted by Jim O

Probably a perfect example of the Peter Principle.

Hi Jim,

I don't think. And not negative selection either. It was phenomenon which was quite common in conscription based armies.
To explain I may write a bit longer story. At first terminology. In polish useless conscript was usually called "oferma" similar to "dumb" in english. Australians use word "paluka".
In any voluntary army dumbos are selected either in recruitment process or during boot camp. In Warsaw Pact armies dumbos could have brisk military careers.
Below is very possible scenario.
At squad level dumbo is recognised just after receiving uniform. Squad leader immediately reports to platoon commander - We have a dumbo...
The way of thinking of average second lieutenant or seargant is as such:
- Dumbo in my platoon mean, failed test, exams and as the result no leaves for my soldiers and no promotion for me. How to get rid of him?
Well, next week I have to pick up two candidates for divisional non-coms school. He will be one of them!

This is how career of dumbos like my captain started. Consecutive promotions were always signed in order to "get rid of this bloody, dumb idiot".

Officers like him were called "eternal captains". (He was well in his forties). Usually when they reached this level, someone a bit smarter higher up the ladder realised that promoting idiot to major and higher would cause real damage.
But what to do with him?
Just nothing... Move him to the unit in which he can cause minimal damage.
AAA was one of them.

In reality our captain caused a real disaster ending with death of innocent men, but I will tell this story later.

Cheers,

Lancer44