After Action Report

[Jim Tarleton]

In a recent post, there was an assertion that snipers were seldom used in the WW2 Pacific theater, with the information originating from a Division Diary (????) concerning Iwo Jima. I decided to see if I could locate an Iwo Jima "After Action Report" (AAR) to clarify matters in my own mind.

For those unfamiliar with exactly what an AAR is, military units that engage in combat file an AAR detailing exactly what happened and who was involved. Many military honors originate from AAR's. You have squad AAR's, platoon AAR's, etc., depending on the size of the unit involved in the action. I decided to try to locate a regimental AAR for Iwo Jima because it would include Battalion Intelligence information. I finally located an Iwo Jima AAR for the 4th Marines. At this level and above, personal references don't exist. I offer it for your reading pleasure, and it is darned interesting reading.

Note that over half the regiment's sniper rifles (1903's with scopes) were lost in combat, and the number of snipers on Iwo Jima adhered to the T/O (there was no reduction in number of snipers).

Enjoy.

Information

Warning: This is a relatively older thread This discussion is older than 360 days. Some information contained in it may no longer be current.

[cplstevennorton]

On Iwo Jima there were 3 Marine Divisions. The 3rd, 4th, and 5th. The 3rd was not a full Division though.

The report that Jim is referencing is a copy of the 4th Div report that has been scanned and posted online. The only thing is, he is seeing about 40 pages of a several thousand page report.

To see the FULL Iwo Jima report, you have to go to the Archives to find it. I went to the Archives and copied it.

Jim is seeing info, but you have to see the full report to put all this info into context.

The total amount of M1903's for the 3rd, 4th, & 5th on Iwo Jima was 127 rifles. Not all of these were snipers, but most were. A few M1903's were still being used for rifle grenades. But just to prevent argument, lets say all 127 were Sniper rifles. Now of that 127, (18 total) M1903 rifles were lost in the battle. "Lost" does not mean "lost in combat." Though it can mean that. It just means the function of the rifles was lost to the organization. So that means the scope crosshairs could have broke, the stock could have cracked, basically something on the rifle was unserviceable and the rifle was "lost" and could not be used anymore.

So (18) total M1903's of the (127) on Iwo were unserviceable at the end of the battle. (14) of which belonged to the 4th Marine Division. So only (4) other M1903's were not serviceable for the 3rd and 5th Marine Divisions.

Now he is painting this number means sniper rifles were common on Iwo, but you have to put this in perspective. This is the data he is missing.

The total weapons of the 3rd, 4th, and 5th Marine Divisions on Iwo is as follows. These are just the common rifles to an Infantry organization. Notice how small in number the M1903's are to the other weapons in comparison.

(127) M1903's
(35,014) M1 carbines
(23,638) M1 Garands
(2,917) BAR's

So there were (61,569) M1's, carbines, and BAR's on Iwo Jima compared to (127) M1903's. That is not counting all the other weapons the Marines used, I'm just listing the most common infantry weapons. So the M1903 was not common on Iwo by any means.

Also about a 1000 pages into the Iwo Report they specifically address sniper rifles. This is the same statement they say on basically every island in the Pacific. The exceptions to this were Saipan and Okinawa. Okinawa was the only island that the Sniper rifle was really praised.

You have to put all this info in context to understand it. That is the only way you can be able to see the whole picture.

[cplstevennorton]

Also to put this in perspective. The Marines detail in 1945 they believe they shipped 250 Unertl rifles to the Pacific. The number is also back this in several other area's of the archives. So these Unertl rifles were not common. I have counts for every Marine Division and only the 1st thru the 4th received Unertl rifles. The 5th and 6th was denied them. Though the 5th Division received 20 Winchester A5 Sniper rifles from the Disbanding Raiders. There were also some 1903a4's acquired from the Army. The highest number of sniper rifles per Division was the 4th, who I believe had somewhere around 86 for the Division. Which were likely a mix of Unertl, WRA A5's and 03A4's. The 2nd for sure received 50 Unertls, and 20 WRA A5's. The remaining number to make up their total they picked up somewhere else and was not documented, but I think they were A4's. They could have also acquired some loose Unertls on an Island with another Division too. I didn't go back and pull the document to double check, but that is the number in my mind as the highest number I saw for the 4th Division.

Almost every after action report from WWII though says this exact same thing. A regular M1 was more effective for the terrain and combat style of the Japanese. The exceptions to this were Saipan and Okinawa. But this is really common sense when you think about it. Most shots were taken at less than a 100 yards and a rifle wasn't efffective against the Japanese at all. Most Japanese were killed by artillery, grenades, satchel charges, and flame throwers.

This 1943 report by the Marine Raiders effectively cancelled the Marine Sniper program in Feb 1944. The Unertl scope contract was cancelled because of this Raider report from New Georgia.

[Jim Tarleton]

That is the AAR for the 4th Regiment, not the 4th Division. It is complete as it is posted at 100 pages as downloaded from a USMC website. I posted the AAR because I think others might find it interesting. The only comment I made was that the T/O for snipers did not change, which is true. Please indicate where in my post I said the sniper rifles were "... common on Iwo".

It was established, by others, long ago, that the 1903 Unertl sniper rifles were unsuitable for combat. You are beating a dead horse.

They were in combat, the weapons were lost in combat, unless you expect us to believe a Marine sniper just misplaced his rifle on the way to the front. Please give the source of your definition of "lost".

Where did I state all the nonsense you posted? Exactly, what is the purpose of your posts?

[cplstevennorton]

That is the AAR for the 4th Regiment, not the 4th Division. It is complete as it is posted at 100 pages

As I said it is very hard to look at data when it is incomplete. This is part of a report that is over a thousand pages, if not several thousand pages at the Archives.

Jim has confused this info again. This is part of the report of the 4th Marine Division. Not the 4th Marines (Regiment) as Jim just stated.

Jim has confused the 4th Marine Regiment with the 4th Marine Division.

The 4th Marines (Regiment) were never on Iwo Jima. You can google this... The 4th Marine Divison was. But he is missing large portions of this report that puts this info in context. So I can understand how he can get confused. Especially if you don't know the battle of Iwo Jima.

His response that the Unertl rifle was unsuitable for combat is equally wrong. The Unertl rifle was praised on the islands of Saipan and Okinawa which the terraign allowed a 1000 yard 8x sniper rifle to show how effective it could be used. But on islands where there was jungle and shots at less than a 100 yards, the m1 was more effective.

You have to remember they cancelled the whole program in Feb 1944 because of the Raider report above. But they later determined the Raider Report that damned the Unertl was probably talking about the WRA A5 sniper rifles. So the Unertl program was re-instated in 1945. The Marines realized they made a mistake after Okinawa.

The Unertl received high praise the rest of its service until the end of Korea.

Again it's very hard to make statements without being able to see all the data

[champ0608]

Another way of looking at the use of scoped sniper rifles used by the Marines in WWII is look at the number they made.

120 A5 snipers were made early in the war. 80 were issued to the raiders, and 20 each to the 1st and 2nd Marine Divisions for training purposes. Most of the pictures we have from the two sniper schools at New River and Green's Farm show A5 scoped rifles meaning many of those 80 never made it to the Pacific.

250 Rifle Team rifles were converted to Unertl Snipers and split between the six divisions. It's my understanding that the later formed divisions may not have even received their allotment before entering combat. There is zero evidence that any Unertls were mounted "in the field."

An unknown but limited number of 03a4s were also acquired and used, but this may have been limited to the 1st Marine Division resupply by the Army, post-Guadalcanal.

All told the entire USMC probably had less than 400 scoped sniper rifles available for use in the entire war.

Yes they were used, and to very good effect in the later campaigns. No they were not used extensively, if that was ever even the intention of this thread to imply.

To some of us, Marine Snipers in WWII are a truly fascinating subject. But authors and researchers have been digging for information for decades. And after all that time, we're left with the same handful of photos, the same couple of interviews, the same names. There's a reason there's so little information. There simply weren't a lot of Marine snipers in WWII.

[cplstevennorton]

Please indicate where in my post I said the sniper rifles were "... common on Iwo".

Where did I state all the nonsense you posted? Exactly, what is the purpose of your posts?

This is a continuation of this discussion. https://www.milsurps.com/showthread.php?t=76988&page=1

On post #26 he told me that my claim that WWII Snipers were not common was baseless. This is a screenshot.

https://www.milsurps.com/showthread.php?t=76988&page=1




This is where he references it again at the beginning of this post. So I posted the actual numbers which show WWII Snipers were not common, exactly as I stated.

[champ0608]

And as Steve pointed out, this after action report is the entire 4th Marine Division.

The 4th Marine Regiment, after being re-formed in 1944, fought on Guam and Okinawa. Not Iwo Jima.

The use of Sniper rifles in an entire division is quite a bit different than by a regiment.

For example, the 2nd Marine Division had the best organized use of scout snipers in WWII. The 6th Marine Regiment Scout Sniper Platoon was issued 8 of the 12 Unertl rifles that were allotted to the Regiment. According to firsthand accounts, their Unertl scopes were only used in the initial fighting on Saipan before they became heavily fogged and were discarded. The pictures from this unit show that while they were in training on Hawaii, they were very proud of their Unertl rifles, and posed with them in many sets of photos. But the combat photos of the platoon show the Unertls were replaced by M1s.

So again, yes they were used. But not extensively.

[cplstevennorton]

They were in combat, the weapons were lost in combat, unless you expect us to believe a Marine sniper just misplaced his rifle on the way to the front. Please give the source of your definition of "lost".

Again someone has to read a lot of these to understand what is going on. A "Lost" weapon means it was lost to that organization. It was one less weapon. It doesn't always mean it was left out in the field or completely blown up. It just means for whatever reason that unit can no longer use that weapon, so it was a "loss." The Marines did not keep track of serials, only quantity, so the "loss" means they have one less functional weapon.

Almost always a "lost" weapon was turned back into Supply, or it was picked up by "Salvage." "Salvage" were Marines who were assigned to try to scrounge anything that was unserviceable and return these lost weapons back into service.

If salvage or the Armorers could get them serviceable again, many times they did not go back to the Unit who "lost" them. They were just turned over to whatever unit needed them. So at the end of a battle you see Marine Regiments/ Divisions detail what they "lost", but you also see what they "Acquired."

It's actually very uncommon that weapons were just completely gone.

Even the (18) M1903's that were "lost" on Iwo, that report was put together right at the end of fighting. It's likely a good portion of those 18 rifles were fixed after the battle was over by either the Salvage Marines or Armorers and returned to service somewhere.

For instance you see many comments like this, this is from that Iwo Report where it says 99% of "lost" weapons were turned back into Supply or Salvage to be fixed.




You also see this a lot, there was always an influx of weapons going back and forth between "lost", destroyed, then they were salvaged, and then reissued.

Many of the weapons that were detailed as "lost" were later detailed as returned to service in a later report.

[champ0608]

I just realized my entire first post is stating information Steve already covered. As usual, hahaha.

Maybe that illustrates my point further, that while many of us have been studying Marine Snipers obsessively for decades, we all end up in one of two places.

One camp acknowledges that there weren't many traditional Marine snipers in WWII. There weren't many sniper rifles. Many of those rifles maybe were never used. There was no need to ever make more sniper rifles in the field. Etc. Reports from 1944 state that many of the sniper schools were filled mostly with rifle experts, but they took sharpshooters and marksmen to fill slots because scouting and intelligence gathering was more important than sniping. Col Walsh himself said that many scout snipers that he trained were not used as trained, but were handed M1s and put in intelligence sections. These interviews and reports have been available for decades. Everyone who studies WWII Marine snipers should have read this information several times over by now.

The other camp believes whatever they make up. For example, the old belief that the Marines ran out of National Match rifles for the Unertls.