Military Collector Group Post, Nov.2/97 Index: Desert Storm Trophies,& JCMEC: By Bill Howard,& Dennis Starks Part I,Our Story Begins; Part II, Early History of JCMEC I Can't Win; Collecting gettin worse Whatsit; A Hoitaler? *************************************************************** Desert Storm Trophies,& JCMEC: By Bill Howard,& Dennis Starks Part I,Our Story Begins; In August 1990, elements of the Iraqui Army crossed the border into the neighboring state of Kuwait and in a matter of hours overran the country. Then then turned their attention to the south and it was feared that they would attack Saudi Arabia. The Saudi?s requested U.S. aid and with-in hours U.S. military forces were on their way. President George Bush then managed to form a coalition with Great Britian, France, West Germany and many of the other nations in the region. Gen. H. Norman Schwartzkopf was placed in overall command. As U.S. troops were about to begin deploying, on the second day, the Foreign Material Intelligence Battalion issued a series of booklets to the troops that provided details of the equipment that they might encounter. Buletin No.?s 1 and 2 were titled ?Equipment Found in Somalia? and the rest dealt with Soviet Bloc equipment, known to be in the hands of the Iraqui forces. The ability to iossue these books to the troops was not an accident but the results of some careful planning in the wake of WW II. Korea, Vietnam and other recent regional conflicts. Part II, Early History of JCMEC; Technical intelligence was once the exculsive preserve of the technical services and each fielded their own cellurlar teams who reported to their branch on captured enemy equipment. The most active teams in WW II were the Ordnance teams and the Signal teams. These were the people responsible for the many various technical reports done on enemy weapons and radios that one finds at gun shows and HAMFESTs. Disbanded after WW II, they were re-created in haste for Korea. They arrived late but did some excellent reporting once in country. Disbanded again after Korea, they were again re-created for Vietnam but this time with a difference. Material procurement for the army had been centralized with the Army Material Command. Intelligence, once a hit or miss operation had become a branch of the Army and in the early 1960?s the Defense Intelligence Agency was created to provide intelligence support to the military services. By 1963, The Foreign Science and Technology Center, FSTC for short, was established to make certain that technical information about foreign eqipment went to both the intelligence community and to the technical services. During the Vietnam era, the in-country technical intelligence operation was called, The Combined Material Exploitation Center, CMEC for short. Composed of Ordnance, Signal, Medical, Engineer, Chemical and Quartermaster teams and D Co, of the 519th Military Intelligence Battalion. This unit had 5 Field teams that operated out in the various Corps areas and evacuated captured material to the CMEC in Saigon. After an in-country analysis, the material was then sent to the rear for further exploitation by FSTC and others. When the U.S. departed from Vietnam, most of the teams were disbanded and D Co along with the rest of the 519th M.I. Bn was returned to Fort Bragg. By 1975, in the wake of two major mid east wars, D Co was brought to Aberdeen Proving Ground and began exploitating the material that had been captured by the Israelis and sold to the United States. Many of the technical reports that were done were issued to the troops as Technical Intelligence Bulletins and as operators manuals. Soviet bloc equipment was now being used by the OPFOR, the more realistic successor to the old AGGRESSOR program, started in 1948 using cast off U.S. equipment. During the period from 1975 until 1988, this unit operated out of old WW II wooden buildings at Aberdeen Proving Ground. D Company was replaced by the designation of the 203rd Military Intelligence Battalion and by 1988 had again been re designated as the Foreign Material Intelligence Battalion and had moved into a new compound costing 8 and 1/2 million dollars. Complete with vehicle rebuild shops, a large foreign arms room and modern electronic test labs, trhis unit was the Armys technical intelligence battalion and was ready to deploy anywhere in the world. Operating under the organization and concepts spelled out in the new FM 34-54 (which I helped to write) this organization was ready even before the President decided to send troops to Saudi Arabia. The next instalment of this series will start with,Part III, JCMEC Today & Part IV, Some Specific Examples; "From England", then "From Italy" etc. Future chapters will include more information about the radios of Desert Storm as existing info is taken from our files & more info is provided by our members. If you own, or have knowledge of a particular item of equipment, we would like to hear from you. And too, if you have any comments on the material already presented, please contribute. Thanks WILLIAM L. HOWARD ORDNANCE TECHNICAL INTELLIGENCE MUSEUM e-mail wlhoward@gte.net & DENNIS STARKS MILITARY RADIO COLLECTOR/HISTORIAN military-radio-guy@juno.com **************************************************************** I Can't Win, Collecting gettin worse! Hello everybody, my name is Dennis, & I'm a Collecto-Holic! Well some years ago I thought I had broken myself from collecting everything I could get my hands on. But in the last couple months I've backslid somethin awful. Is there such a thing as "Collecto-holics Anonymous"? That's "Collecto", not "Clepto"! You've all read my bitchin about,"Too Much Shit Around Here", & "Critical Lack of Space". These were not exaggerations, the conditions had gotten so bad(not any better now), that I had to actually SELL some of the stuff I really hated having around. Usually aircraft crap! Even tried giving it away & that didn't work so good either. A couple days ago, Bob Simpson came by to do some traden, every time he turned his back I threw a bunch of shit in the back of his truck(I had told him to empty his truck before coming over). I've gotten away with this twice now, but Bobs now wise to me & I doubt I'll get away with it again. Haven't been able to find any radios to trade for that I didn't already have, or even any that might have been nicer than ones I already have, so been tradin for guns, swords, knives, etc. I figgered if I couldn't trade for radios I needed, I'd trade for somethin smaller, & took up less room . Does a Russian Nagant, & a Japanese Arisaka take up less room than an SEM-52, or PRC-68? How about a 16th century Jap sword, or 12th century Broad sword as apposed to a PRC-25? Not! This has opened up another Pandora's Box, as if my want list wasn't bad enough already, I can now write another muli page volume on more stuff I need to enhance this collection. Should I do it? Or should I seek professional help? I did make some headway, an R-388 is bigger & heaviar than a 1911, & C96 Broom Handle takes up far less space than any National HRO. For a couple weeks now, all this ordnance has been neatly laid out on the floor in the new house(I had vowed that no radios go over there). A couple hours each day, I go over, set in my recliner chair,(still the only piece of furniture I have), & stare at it all, trying to figger out how to get it all hung on the walls & above the fire place. There aint enough room! Again I say in the now immortal words of Bob Dole," I can't win"! Dennis Starks; OUT OF CONTROL/MILITARY COLLECTOR/HISTORIAN military-radio-guy@juno.com ********************************************************** Whatsit; A Hoitaler? Dennis, I need to find a Hoitaler. Even more important, I need to find out what the hell it is! Has two plugs and seems to fit into the output circuit of a battery powered tube receiver. That is what the circuit jacks have written above them. It seems to be in series with the head phone jack. Does anyone speak Norwegian? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------- Suure E speek de Norveejan. Shit! Thats Swedish, I don't guess I can help you Bill. Dennis THE WILLIAM L. HOWARD ORDNANCE TECHNICAL INTELLIGENCE MUSEUM e-mail wlhoward@gte.net Telephone AC 813 585-7756 THE WILLIAM L. HOWARD ORDNANCE TECHNICAL INTELLIGENCE MUSEUM e-mail wlhoward@gte.net Telephone AC 813 585-7756 When finished reading use browser back button or go to http://www.prc68.com/MCGP/MCGP.html