Murphy Essay, Research Paper
MURPHY & # 8217 ; S LAW OF COMBAT
1. Friendly fire & # 8211 ; isn & # 8217 ; T.
2. Recoilless rifles & # 8211 ; aren & # 8217 ; T.
3. Suppressive fires & # 8211 ; won & # 8217 ; T.
4. You are non Superman ; Marines and fighter pilots take note.
5. A sucking thorax lesion is Nature & # 8217 ; s manner of stating you to decelerate down.
6. If it & # 8217 ; s stupe but it works, it isn & # 8217 ; t stupid.
7. Try to look unimportant ; the enemy may be low on ammunition and non desire to
waste a slug on you.
8. If at first you don & # 8217 ; t win, name in an airstrike.
9. If you are frontward of your place, your heavy weapon will fall short.
10. Never portion a fox hole with anyone braver than yourself.
11. Never go to bed with anyone crazier than yourself.
12. Never forget that your arm was made by the lowest bidder.
13. If your onslaught is traveling truly good, it & # 8217 ; s an ambuscade.
14. The enemy recreation you & # 8217 ; re ignoring is their chief onslaught.
15. The enemy constantly onslaughts on two occasions:
a & # 8211 ; when they & # 8217 ; re ready.
B & # 8211 ; when you & # 8217 ; re non.
16. No OPLAN of all time survives initial contact.
17. There is no such thing as a perfect program.
18. Five 2nd fuse ever burn three seconds.
19. There is no such thing as an atheist in a fox hole.
20. A withdrawing enemy is likely merely falling back and regrouping.
21. The of import things are ever simple ; the simple are ever hard.
22. The easy manner is ever mined.
23. Teamwork is indispensable ; it gives the enemy other people to hit at.
24. Don & # 8217 ; t look conspicuous ; it draws fire. ( For this ground, it is non
at
all uncommon for aircraft bearers to be known as bomb magnets. )
25. Never draw fire ; it irritates everyone around you.
26. If you are short of everything but the enemy, you are in the combat
zone.
27. When you have secured the country, do certain the enemy knows it excessively.
28. Incoming fire has the right of manner.
29. No combat ready unit has of all time passed review.
30. No review ready unit has of all time passed combat.
31. If the enemy is within scope, so are you.
32. The lone thing more accurate than incoming enemy fire is incoming
friendly fire.
33. Thingss which must be shipped together as a set, aren & # 8217 ; T.
34. Thingss that must be together in order to work, can & # 8217 ; t be shipped to
the
field that manner.
35. Radios will neglect every bit shortly as you need fire support. ( Corollary: Radar
tends to neglect at dark and in bad conditions, and particularly during both. )
36. Anything you do can acquire you killed, including making nil.
37. Make it excessively tough for the enemy to acquire in, and you won & # 8217 ; t be able to
acquire
out.
38. Tracers work both ways.
39. If you take more than your just portion of aims, you will acquire
more
than your just portion of aims to take.
40. When both sides are convinced they & # 8217 ; re about to lose, they & # 8217 ; re both
right.
41. Professional soldiers are predictable ; the universe is full of
unsafe
amateurs.
42. Military Intelligence is an oxymoron.
43. Strengthen your forepart ; you & # 8217 ; ll acquire your rear shooting up.
44. Weather ain & # 8217 ; t impersonal.
45. If you can & # 8217 ; t remember, the Claymore is pointed towards you.
46. Air defence slogan: shoot & # 8216 ; em down ; kind & # 8216 ; em out on the land.
47. & # 8216 ; Flies high, it dies ; low and slow, it & # 8217 ; ll travel.
48. The Cavalry doesn & # 8217 ; t ever come to the deliverance.
49. Napalm is an country support arm.
50. Mines are equal chance arms.
51. Sniper & # 8217 ; s slogans: make out and touch person.
52. The one point you need is ever in short supply.
53. Interchangeable parts aren & # 8217 ; T.
54. It & # 8217 ; s non the 1 with your name on it that should worry you ; it & # 8217 ; s
the
one addressed & # 8220 ; to whom it may concern & # 8221 ; you & # 8217 ; ve got to believe about.
55. When in uncertainty, empty your magazine.
56. The side with the simplest uniforms wins.
57. Combat will happen on the land between two bordering maps.
58. If the Platoon Sergeant can see you, so can the enemy.
59. Never stand when you can sit, ne’er sit when you can lie down, ne’er
stay awake when you can kip.
60. The most unsafe thing in the universe is a Second Lieutenant with a
map
and a compass.
61. Exceptions prove the regulation, and destruct the conflict program.
62. Everything ever works in your HQ, everything ever fails in the
Colonel & # 8217 ; s HQ.
63. The enemy ne’er watches until you make a error.
64. One enemy soldier is ne’er plenty, but two is wholly excessively many.
65. A clean ( and dry ) Se
T of BDU’s is a magnet for clay and rain.
66. The worse the conditions, the more you are required to be out in it.
67. Whenever you have plentifulness of ammunition, you ne’er miss. Whenever you are
low
on ammunition, you can & # 8217 ; t hit the wide side of a barn.
68. The more a arm costs, the farther you will hold to direct it away
to be
repaired.
69. The complexness of a arm is reciprocally relative to the IQ of
the
arm & # 8217 ; s operator.
70. Field experience is something you don & # 8217 ; t acquire until merely after you
demand
it.
71. No affair which manner you have to process, its ever uphill.
72. If adequate information is collected, a board of enquiry can turn out anything.
73. For every action, there is an equal and opposite unfavorable judgment. ( in boot
cantonment )
74. Airstrikes ever overshoot the mark, heavy weapon ever falls
short.
75. When reexamining the wireless frequencies that you merely wrote down, the
most
of import 1s are ever illegible.
76. Those who hesitate under fire normally do non stop up KIA or WIA.
77. The tough portion about being an officer is that the military personnels don & # 8217 ; Ts know
what
they want, but they know for certain what they don & # 8217 ; T want.
78. To steal information from a individual is called plagiarism. To steal
information from the enemy is called garnering intelligence.
79. The arm that normally jams when you need it the most is the M60.
80. The perfect officer for the occupation will reassign in the twenty-four hours after that
note is filled by person else.
81. When you have sufficient supplies & A ; ammo, the enemy takes 2 hebdomads to
onslaught. When you are low on supplies & A ; ammo the enemy decides to assail
that
dark.
82. The newest and least experient soldier will normally win the Medal
of
Honor.
83. A Purple Heart merely proves that were you smart adequate to believe of a
program, stupid plenty to seek it, and lucky plenty to last.
84. Body count Math: 3 guerillas plus 1 likely plus 2 hogs peers 37
enemies killed in action.
85. The spliting radius of a manus grenade is ever one pes greater
than
your jumping scope.
86. All-weather close air support International Relations and Security Network & # 8217 ; T.
87. The combat worth of a unit is reciprocally relative to the
smarting of
its outfit and visual aspect.
88. It & # 8217 ; s easier to use stuff in combat than to make full out the signifiers
for
Graves Registration.
89. Bunch bombing from B-52s is really, really accurate & # 8212 ; the bombs
ever
hit the land.
90. The important unit of ammunition is a flop.
91. Every bid which can be misunderstood, will be.
92. There is no such topographic point as a convenient fox hole.
93. Don & # 8217 ; t of all time be the first, wear & # 8217 ; t of all time be the last and don & # 8217 ; t of all time
voluntary
to make anything.
94. If your places are steadfastly set and you are prepared to take the
enemy
assault on, he will short-circuit you.
95. If your ambuscade is decently set, the enemy won & # 8217 ; t walk into it.
96. If your wing March is traveling good, the enemy expects you to go around
him.
97. Density of fire additions proportionately to the inquisitiveness of the
mark.
98. Odd objects attract fire & # 8211 ; ne’er lurk behind one.
99. The more stupid the leader is, the more of import missions he is
ordered
to transport out.
100. The ego of a superior is reciprocally relative to his
place in the hierarchy ( as is his obliqueness and naughtiness ) .
101.There is ever a manner, and it normally doesn & # 8217 ; t work.
102.Success occurs when no 1 is looking, failure occurs when the
General
is watching.
103.The enemy ne’er proctors your wireless frequence until you broadcast on
an
unbarred channel.
104.Whenever you drop your equipment in a fire-fight, your ammunition and
grenades
ever fall the farthest off, and your canteen ever lands at your
pess.
105.As shortly as you are served hot Zhou in the field, it rains.
106.Never tell the Platoon Sergeant you have nil to make.
107.The earnestness of a lesion ( in a fire-fight ) is reciprocally
proportional
to the distance to any signifier of screen.
108.Your camp for the dark is the topographic point where you got tired of
processing
that twenty-four hours.
109.If merely one solution can be found for a field job, so it is
normally a stupid solution.
110.All or any of the above combined.
111.Murphy was a oink.